My Ancestry Year-In-Review

Ancestry.com is really good at providing metrics for users to know how many people they've added, how many hints they've saved, etc. I'm not a fan of the notification bell lighting up darn near every time I save something. In general, I don't find the "suggestions" useful and I summarily dismiss them (extra unnecessary clicks as far as I'm concerned, but I get it, they want user engagement...). I do, however, really like the metrics they provide on a weekly basis. 

Sometimes it's hard to quantify all the hard work we put in on our trees. Weekly updates help me realize while I may not have finished researching as many people as I'd like, or made it thru as many hints as I'd prefer, the work really does add up...and pays off...even if some of my branches still end in a brick wall. If the numbers are low, I can reflect on what kind of research I was doing the previous week. Some records, like census and obituaries, take me much longer to mine all the facts than say a public records hint with just address/residence information. Records with images take me longer to review than indexed only records. It's a quick and easy way for me to mentally analyze the work completed the previous week.

Ancestry just sent out a Year-In-Review email with more impressive stats! I do have to keep in mind I did a lot of work on a adoptee tree I started for a friend this year, and the numbers most definitely reflect this. For the adoptee tree, I absolutely took time to review each record, but I didn't add all the detailed and custom facts or transcriptions I use on my main tree. The adoptee tree was created for a singular purpose - finding the grandpa and grandma of a friend. With this in mind, my main tree probably only accounts for a quarter to a third of the counts listed in the image above, but I'm still pleased! 

One on-going task I completed for my tree this year was adding all the names from a trusted (and generally accurate) family history originally compiled in the 1930's and updated regularly over the years. This was no small undertaking and I'm glad it's completed. While this only strengthens one specific branch of my tree, and I still have tons of records to add as backup, it definitely makes the research path easier on the branch. I also started the DNA Academy course so I can better work with my DNA matches. I'm still working on my studies. There's a lot I need to learn and making sure I'm understanding and not just plowing through is important to me.

Just seeing my stats for the past year was invigorating! I'm really stoked as we prepare to move into 2024. I have a feeling it's going to be a very good year for genealogy! With my focus solidly back on my main tree for now, I'm excited to see what the new year has in store. If you've received the Year-In-Review email, or pay attention to your weekly stats, comment on one of my socials....I'd love to hear the successes you've had this year!

Patience Required for Ancestry's New Media Item Categories

Ancestry rolled out some much needed new categories for user uploaded media items! (This includes media items saved from FindAGrave, Newspapers and Fold3, since those have always counted as user uploaded media). I was really excited when I noticed this yesterday evening. Being OCD, there was no time to waste and I set off to "fix" all the categories in my media gallery when I got home from work. Keeping in mind, my tree isn't huge by any standard (1571 media items) and here I am over 4 hours later and I'm just finishing up (...big sigh...). Making all the changes was far from painless.

Headstones and Sites/Buildings/Place were no problem. They really didn't need any changes (except a quick scroll through to look for anything I might have accidentally mis-categorized along the way). So far so good!

Then I tried filtering to Portraits/Family Photos and Documents/Certificates (at the same time) and tried selecting multiple items for edit. Well, there's apparently a limit to about 10 or so (I didn't actually count) you can select at one time. Ummmm....wait...you can't mass update them all to the same category at one time?! You have to change them one by one? And then go back to the media gallery when you hit the last one, re-filter and select 10 more? Not efficient at all. But I do like having obituary, newspaper article, yearbook and several other new categories to choose from.

OK...how can we better tackle this? Let's just use the right arrow start at the beginning and scroll thru them one by one. I mean, a lot of them are pictures anyway and won't need changes.... Oh wait! When you go back to the gallery to see your magnificent progress...new images crop up in between ones you know you already went past. I was beyond frustrated. I even sorted them alphabetically and went thru them again. Guess what? More cropped up when I went back to the gallery after making my way to the end. After a few more times of doing this, I devised a new plan.

I limited to just Portraits/Family Photos and painfully made my way through. After a 2nd and then a 3rd scroll down the page to make sure nothing else had magically appeared out of the genie's bottle, I limited to Documents/Certificates and started working through them. Ugggg....I had 3 newspaper items I changed probably 10 times each and while each time it gave me the gratifying little pop up showing my changes were saved, when I refreshed, they wouldn't retain the changes. And it wasn't like I maxed out on changes or anything. I could change other media items, just not those specific 3. I tried closing my browser. I tried another browser. I tried doing other changes and going back to them. No joy. Finally, in desperation I picked up my phone and edited them in the app (What's that you say? I've never posted about the mobile app? That's because I can't stand it! I'll only use it when my back is to the wall). That worked and now they're fixed when I log in via my browser. (That one tip may be the biggest thing you take away from this post, other than my growing sense of frustration).

And while photos have all those wonderful new categories, sadly, Stories have exactly....well...none. Never mind a lot of obits and newspaper stories are transcribed as Stories. Now WHY would users want to actually save like items together for easy retrieval? That would be too logical right? I can only hope they'll add a field for this in the future, but for the moment, Stories still remain lumped together regardless of what they may contain.

Oh, and one more thing! While you can filter many ways, including by person and/or place, you cannot search for a word in the title or description of a media item. To do that, you have to scroll endlessly until all the media are loaded for the category(s) you select, and then do a standard old Ctrl+F and hope for the best (and that's searching only the titles...no way to search inside the description or transcription). You can tag media now (which could eliminate some of the limited filtering) but there's no way I'm even going to consider going down the rabbit hole! I already use a custom tag on the person profile when interesting photos and/or stories exist. That's going to have to be enough. Even my OCD doesn't want to think about attempting tagging media after the immense fun I had with categories.

In conclusion, and because I have no mental energy left after painstakingly (and painfully) making my way through my media items, make sure you have time to dedicate to the task if you decide to take this on. I'm grateful Ancestry is expanding options for users. It's wonderful (truly it is) but I wish they'd make it a little less frustrating to use. After all, I've no doubt they'll use these categories (and tagging for those who choose to use it) for some purpose of their own at some point...all I wish is they'd make it a little less painful to use the new features they're rolling out. Maybe they should slow the roll and assess how all these changes are affecting site performance...

And now...I'm jumping down off my little soap box, tucking it under my arm and scurrying away to do something mindless like watch TV. There's no research for me tonight, categories took all the time and mental energy I had this evening.

Unviewed Results Only - Another Ancestry Pro Tool

 

Wishing all my readers and followers a very Merry Christmas!

As I was researching the husband of a great-grandaunt this morning, I happened to notice an Ancestry Pro Tool I've not seen mentioned anywhere. To be fair, I haven't really been paying much attention to the hubbub since I signed up and wrote my post on my first impressions of the new features. My opinion hasn't changed...I still think the price is a bit high for the features...but if they add more useful tools in the future perhaps it will be more palatable. Public opinion seems divided. Some people love the new tools, and others agree it's pricey for what you get. Most folks can probably do without them (especially if you're using desktop software as well as Ancestry.com). 

When I clicked on the person search (magnifying glass) from the upper right hand side of person profile page for my target, I happened to notice a new option in the search results! There's a Pro feature called "Unviewed results only". While it's not the end all be all of search tools, I can say this is one I *might* actually use. If you've subscribed to Ancestry Pro Tools, you can check the box and select apply to remove links you've previously viewed from the search results. 

How many times have you stubbed your toe against your brick wall and wished there was a better way to filter through the plethora of search results? I know I've clicked on the same links time and time again (desperately hoping to see something new and different). Sure, good research etiquette would be to record the links as having been reviewed, but let's face it, who really has time to keep a lengthy log of links with no value? This new feature filters out links you've accessed previously (in the detailed search only) making it easier to see results you may still want to review.

While not labelled as a beta feature, I also didn't find anything about it in the support pages on the site. I don't think this one additional tool adds enough value to justify the cost, but I did want to take a quick moment to point it out. If you've decided Ancestry Pro Tools aren't for you right now, this one feature isn't so fantastic you should reconsider. But if, like me, you've signed up for Ancestry Pro Tools, give it a look next time you're doing a bit more searching. 

What's Not Sync'd to FTM?

Since I started researching my family history, Family Tree Maker® (FTM) has been my desktop software of choice. It's no secret, I use Ancestry.com for most of my tree building and research, but it’s critical I have a backup of all my work just in case. For me, being able to reconstruct everything if there were a catastrophic failure is paramount. I don’t want to lose years of work! (I actually keep working 3 backups, but I’ll talk about those in another post).

FTM easily and reliably syncs both ways with Ancestry. 95% of the time I sync down from Ancestry, but I do occasionally make some smaller changes in the desktop software and sync up. Sure, there are users who have some challenges at various times, but I compact my database regularly, and make daily backups of my files. I personally have very few issues with the software. But this post isn't about all the features or reliability of Family Tree Maker®, it's about something some users may not think about…what doesn’t sync with Ancestry.com?

While the majority of tree content does sync, not everything does. It is not a 100% full backup either direction. The major data such as names, relationships, facts, sources, citations, repositories and most media do sync. Below is a synopsis of some of (what I think are) the more important non-syncing items.

Family Tree Maker® items that don’t syncAncestry.com:

• Information/media marked private
• Media categories, captions, audio/video files, archived web pages
• Many types of notes (but general person notes DO transfer)
• Web links
• Color coding

Ancestry.com data that doesn’t sync to Family Tree Maker®:

1. Comments
2. Tags
3. Web links
4. Media location, original poster*, transcriptions*, headstone names/date

*Because the original poster is not saved and photos tend to propagate quickly on Ancestry, resulting in duplicates of duplicates of duplicates (ok, you get the idea!) I save the original poster information in the description or every piece of media I attach on Ancestry (unless I'm the poster). This way the poster info does transfer to FTM. I also save an additional copy of the transcription for documents in an "other source" citation I create, which also syncs. So while the info doesn't necessarily natively transfer, there are some step you can take to be sure you retain this information.

For more detailed information on what doesn't sync check out What's NOT synced to Family Tree Maker® page on the Mackiev website. Once you know what does and doesn't sync, you can adjust your backup plan accordingly. There's nothing worse than the sinking feeling you get in that moment you realize you just lost years of work you may not be able to reconstruct. As Benjamin Franklin said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

Ancestry ProTools Worth the Money?

 

 As a quick reminder, I do NOT receive any compensation (monetary or otherwise) from any links or posts. All opinions are strictly my own.

Christa Cowan, who works for Ancestry.com, announced the rollout of Ancestry.com ProTools in a Facebook post yesterday. I was intrigued and wanted to know more about them. I Googled to see what I could find, but information was scarce. There were a few YouTube videos, but most of the time, videos are not convenient for me, and I was hoping for written information. I'd been working on my tree yesterday, but hadn't seen anything about these new tools. I'd have very much liked to see a banner on my home page, like they do for DNA sales, announcing this new subscription option and providing detailed information on what this subscription model includes.

I searched online but didn't find any great information on how to access these tools or details about them. I eventually clicked on my account and went to my account settings. Here I was finally presented with an option to sign up for ProTools (and more information, albeit limited, on what was included). The tools are Charts & Reports, Tree Checker, Maps and Advanced Filters. At $9.99 per month (billed monthly), on top of what we already pay, the price seemed a little steep, but I decided to go for it anyway (I mean, I can always cancel right?) As soon as I subscribed, the options immediately displayed in both the drop down menu on the home page under trees, and also when viewing my tree. I wish they'd made this new feature a little more intuitive to find. Maybe it was just because it's new and my account hadn't updated with the new options yet. I'll give the benefit of the doubt. I did notice today the Ancestry.com help pages now have some information about the features.

Charts and Reports does present me with the elusive 7 generation fan chart some users had during beta testing (but I was never able to see). I most definitely like this feature! And it is viewable as not only names/dates, but also hints or photos so you can see easily see where you may want to do more research. This is the 2nd most helpful ProTool for my research (see below for the ProTool I think will be most helpful for me).

The Reports are nothing special in my opinion. If you use only Ancestry.com, you might find them helpful, but they're not much different from the reports desktop software, like FTM, has provided for years. They will be of limited use to me at this point. They include Descendancy, Ahnentafel, Register and Family Group Sheet.

The Maps have some really nice filtering options, and they may be fun to play around with, but they're certainly not essential to my research. I guess it really depends on what you want to learn about your family and/or what brick walls you may be trying to break down. I'm more concerned with people themselves at this stage of my research. With the filtering options available, they may very well be useful to some, just not so much for me.

The Tree Checker (with filters for possible errors selected) primarily found unknown children for my tree. Unknown children seem to be an issue for the algorithm. I'm constantly ignoring hints because they belong to someone else already in my tree. Plus, it also picked up all the people it was suggesting I might want to merge the unknown children with. I dutifully went through and told the algorithm they were not matches, and I cleared those up in short order. I was hopeful it would also tell the algorithm to stop suggesting useless hints for those incorrect matches, but it did not (...sigh...). 

It also accurately identified 2 duplicates (out of 2146 people) and found 3 facts more than 10 years after date of death. Those were typos on my part, and I'm happy they were called out so I could correct them. It's interesting, because I routinely attach facts to parents long dead when they're mentioned in the obituary of their children. These facts are often far longer than 10 years after the parent's death, but Ancestry did not flag any of these as a problem (thankfully!) I have a sneaking suspicion it's because I create custom facts for obituaries. I have to wonder if the algorithm could possibly be ignoring custom facts...I'll have to keep a closer eye to see if that might be the case. 

Compared to the MyHeritage consistency checker, I'd have to say Ancestry's Tree Checker is not as robust. Interestingly, I did not receive any warnings about siblings too close in age, or parents too old or young to have children (which can be helpful clues to grandparents raising grandchildren as their own, adopted children, non-parental events/misattributed parents or potentially incorrect birth dates). I do get these warning for a small number of people on MyHeritage (but I'm still looking for records to help me properly resolve). The 2 current options for this feature are "duplicates" and "other possible issues" but I've found no information on what those "other possible issues" it looks for may be.

From the Tree Checker, you can also access many other Advanced Filtering options such as: Family Line, Events and Places, Possible Errors, Hints, and filtering by Tree Tags. You were already able to filter by Tree Tags from your tree, but on this screen you can combine this with any of these other options. Of all the ProTools features, this is likely to be the one I will use most often and will be the highest value to me.

So, what's my overall opinion? I'd give Ancestry.com ProTools 3 out of 5 stars right now. Unless you have a compelling need for the tools or just like to try out new features, it's probably not worth the money at this point. But, and this is worth remembering, they could add new tools in the future. If they do expand the offering, I would certainly hope additional ProTools would be included in any existing ProTools subscription. And with room for this new feature to grow, it could potentially become much more useful over time. For the moment, I'm going to keep the subscription. Those on a budget may want to really consider if these tools are worth the cost. Had they been $4.99 or even $5.99 per month (even as a limited time sale price) I bet more users would jump on the bandwagon to try them. But $9.99 a month is a lot for many users to swallow. Only time will tell if this will catch on. I can't blame them for looking for new revenue streams. After all, companies are in business to make money. And, as users, we all want to see new features and enhancements on sites we use regularly. But I'm not convinced they may not have made the price a bit unattractive to a large portion of their user base. These are just my personal opinions after one day of testing out the new features. Your mileage may vary.

Ancestry Support Related Links

On various forums and Facebook groups, support is a common topic of discussion. As with any large company, many people seem to find dealing with Ancestry,com support a frustrating experience. Below are a few links I always keep handy to use when I run into issues on the site.

As we all know, it's not unusual to get a banner on various pages on the site saying Ancestry is experiencing technical difficulties, or can't display the item we're looking for....try again later or reload. To some extent, this is simply the nature of databases and websites. Technical issues do occur, especially during peak access times. But if you want to know if the service issue you might be experiencing is sitewide and actively being addressed, or simply a momentary blip, head to the Site Availability Status page to see the current status by service. This won't address every possible situation but it's a good place to start. If you see all the services in green, it's likely a short term problem. If you see red alerts, there's a known issue.

On several occasions, I've noticed a specific feature not working as intended. Although users may be discussing the issue widely in various support groups, many of these groups are not "official" and may not be frequented by anyone associated with Ancestry. There's often no way to really know if they're aware of the frustrations users are experiencing. Especially if the status page shows all is well, but a problem lingers for more than a few hours, submitting feedback may be worthwhile. Providing Feedback (even though you won't get a personal response) is a good way to communicate user concerns to the company. There was one time when I was unable to check the boxes or add notes for why a hint was accepted/ignored/undecided. I waited patiently for weeks but the problem persisted. Finally, I started submitting feedback every couple of days and included very detailed specifics on what I was experiencing Eventually, the issue was fixed (but I did have to be patient). I don't know if my feedback helped or not, but it certainly made me feel better knowing it was reported.

If you have an issue, such as membership/renewal concerns or you just want to try to reach support, you can start on the Contact Support page. You'll be directed to start with the virtual assistant chat bot they've named "Leif". If you can't resolve your issue with Leif, you will be provided information on contacting Live Support. I personally have never felt the need to attempt live support, but it does exist...though the actual support experience they provide seems to vary widely based on reports I've seen. Many users express frustration with live support, so you may want to save it for when it's really necessary.

As I do with most links referenced in my posts, I've included these on my Genealogy Toolbox page. If you haven't visited it before, take a moment to stop and check it out. Links are categorized with key features identified.

Too Many Subscriptions?

 

I typically don't do anything 1/2 way. I'm either all in, or all out. Found a sweater I like? And it comes in 5 colors!? I'll buy all 5! Pasta comes in 10 flavors? I'll buy one of each. So it's no surprise, I probably spend more annually on my genealogy addiction than the average person. 

For me, it's about the who, what, where, why, when and how of my ancestors. To bring people to life, I need lots of information. Will I be able to find something interesting on everyone? Certainly not! Will I find all the answers I'm looking for? Sadly, the answer is also no. But do I have the potential to discover something really interesting about just a few people? No matter what sites we're using, or how much (or little) we invest monetarily to do it, I'd like to think we all have the potential to discover something wonderful and interesting in our trees if we put in the effort!

Subscriptions are my kryptonite! Sometimes I question if I have too many. But then I tell myself, "Nah...all those subscriptions probably cost less than one annual vacation or in-person research trip". While that's probably true enough, I still ask myself, do I need or even use information from all those sites? The answer is ever changing and moves in waves. Some months, I don't go to a site at all. Other times, I wander over and kick my foot against my brick walls for hours on end, searching through various record sets for any tidbit or morsel. And sometimes, I'm on a quest for a specific piece of information, and I just want to have all the resources I may want to use at my fingertips. For me, the comfort is knowing I have the option to go search through databases and records whenever I want. Is it the best use of my funds? I'm sure some would argue it's not. But, I find great happiness and satisfaction in genealogy and researching my family's past -  so for me, it's money well spent. 

I'm all for a good sale, don't get me wrong! But I also realize companies are in business to make money. If they aren't doing so, they won't be around very long. I'm okay paying for subscriptions. It costs money for companies to obtain access to record sets, and to make those records available to us. Developing new DNA, tree and photo tools costs money too. Occasionally, I do enjoy finding a little savings here and there, but I don't go to great lengths to find them. It's much the same as I feel about software. It costs money to develop and maintain programs users (including genealogists and family historians) depend on for their daily tasks. I personally feel supporting those companies who make my joys possible is important. I like the convenience, and I want them to be around for years to come. 

So what sites do I subscribe to? Hang on! It's a long list!

1. Ancestry (World Explorer) - where I do the bulk of my research and keep my public tree
2. MyHeritage (Complete subscription)
3. FindMyPast (Premium) 
4. 23andMe+
5. Newspapers.com (Publisher's Extra)
6. Genealogybank
7. NewspaperArchive (includes access to Storied)
8. Billion Graves 
9. Accessible Archives (lots of exclusive content)
10. GEDmatch (Tier 1)
11. DNA Painter 
12. National Genealogical Society (NGS) 
13. American Ancestors - New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) - they have an impressive collection of third party research databases
14. Geneabloggers (resources for genealogy bloggers)

Researching your family history can range from free (if you're willing to put the extra time it takes) to very expensive (if you go on family heritage vacations, or do a lot of in person research trips).  There are certainly ways to keep costs manageable by utilizing sales, discount codes or taking advantage of month to month subscriptions as needed Each of us has different needs and wants when it comes to what we can afford and what we're willing to spend. Chime in on my social media and let me know what subscription sites are your "must haves".

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay