New Ancestry Features: One Disappeared and One Made Me Smile

As I was working on my tree this weekend, I noticed 2 new features on Ancestry. At least one appears to be a potential future feature, because it disappeared when I refreshed my screen and I was not able to get it to reappear. Thankfully, I grabbed a screenshot to share with you. The other feature has been present for two days. I can't say if it's a beta feature or a forever feature - but I sure hope it stays right where it is!

To the left is the "disappearing" potential beta feature. On the All Hints page, I noticed a section for "Free Hints". Since I have a paid subscription, this wouldn't be meaningful for me. But there are lots of users who don't have paid subscriptions. This would be a great way for them to focus on the records Ancestry can offer them, without the frustration of clicking hints and not being able to see anything. Interestingly, there were no free hint counts showing for me, just the verbiage. I wouldn't expect the results to be tied to subscription level. This, in conjunction with the new option disappearing as soon as I refreshed the screen, leads me to believe it may be a future feature they're considering and they haven't yet finished the implementation. It very well may show up as a beta feature in the coming weeks or months.

I'm not a big fan of "live testing" changes. I personally think all potential new features should be extensively beta tested to avoid issues with general rollout - preferably with a group of users who agreed to beta test knowing there could be unexpected problems. But, for a site the size, and immense complexity, of Ancestry, traditional beta testing may not be realistic. Live testing may be the only viable option. 

The second new item has been present all weekend for me - and I've been doing a happy dance since I noticed it! There's now an option to collapse Stickies. You can simply select the up or down arrow to expand or collapse the section. While the concept behind Stickies is great, I was originally very annoyed by the implementation. It ate up significant screen space on small screens, rendering Notes almost unusable. The ability to collapse Stickies is a workable compromise. Though Notes are still slightly impacted, it is significantly better than the original display. I can't say if this is a permanent feature or not. I suspect, given how many users were frustrated with the original roll out, this option may remain. If you don't have it yet, and you don't like Stickies taking up so much space, keep an eye out to see if it magically appears for you.

Ancestry used to have a direct way for users to indicate their preference to be included in beta testing. There used to be an option for "Ancestry Lab" accessed from the Extras option in the main menu. However, the Extras option appears to be gone and Ancestry Lab does not appear on the Site Map. Likewise, searching for "beta" in the support articles does not return any results. You can still find the Ancestry Lab link from a Google Search, but it loads saying there was an error and to refresh the page. On refresh, it simply returns "We’re sorry, this page is temporarily unavailable." Perhaps they're working on a new way for users to participate in betas, or maybe they're simply removing it as a whole. 

One existing feature I've noticed is not working as it used to is the checkboxes for why you accepted, ignored or marked a hint undecided. The option to select no longer appear directly after submit your choice on the person profile. In order to check the boxes and add notes now, you have to take the extra step of going to the accepted, undecided or ignored hints page, scroll to find the hint in question, and expand the option to show the checkboxes and reason. If you're like me, and you use this for every hint, it's a considerable amount of extra clicks and scrolling. Presumably, Ancestry uses this information to improve the algorithms, so I'd think they'd encourage users to use this feature. I hope this change is temporary and they return the former function soon. Note: This feature does still work on the All Hints page. Only the person profile seems to have changed.

Many people complain about the cost of Ancestry subscriptions. I personally feel the cost of making records available and maintaining a functioning site are considerable. For-profit companies have to make money - otherwise they'll cease to exist. Certainly, a part of subscription costs go towards the expansion of record sets, but some is earmarked for continual updating and maintenance of the site. While both of the potential features I've mentioned are relatively small, they are solid changes and may benefit many. It's nice to see Ancestry considering new beneficial features. And, as with the change to Stickies, they're clearly listening to some of the feedback from users. 

Have you noticed any new features while you're working on Ancestry? Not all users see the same features at the same time, so please share in the comments if you've noticed anything new lately!

Disclosure: I used ChatGPT to assist in titling this post, and creating the SEO description. All content is my own and was not edited using AI.