Ancestry Site Comments - Family History & Genealogy Message Board

what a rip off

lindamsmith182 — 9 Oct 2008 1:09:46 GMT

upset with automatic payment, want ed this for 1 month and now stuck with it for a year.

what is wrong with Ancestry?

PriscillaR — 10 Oct 2008 8:02:16 GMT

at this point I can't access my trees....it took me 3 tries just to get into Ancestry to get HERE.
This is ridiculous.
I pay all this money & have been having an awful time for at least a week updating my tree. It works for awhile...then comes to a screeching halt...I log offline clear the caches & start over again but it's still soooo slooow.
I closed AOL & am using IE to access at this time but it doesn't matter the site doesn't work anyway.
I can access other non-Ancestry sites with no problems at all...it's just Ancestry.
Is anyone else having problems?

SLOW!!

Bill_Bourbeau — 31 Jan 2008 2:21:41 GMT

Why has Ancestry been so slow the last few weeks?

Images take an eternity to download...sometimes they won't load at all, and it's not a problem on my end.

When's this getting fixed?

Ancestry doesn't WANT my money!

Debravanderpool — 6 Oct 2008 8:16:48 GMT

Here's the deal......my debit card expired and Ancestry sent me a notice that my account had been closed. It also said, not to worry, all I needed to do was update my debit card information. So, I did. The next time I attempt to access my account, which was the next day, I was a "registered guest." The new credit info was still in place...no money was removed from my account. So, I thought they were being slow. I waited about a week. Still nothing. So, I emailed them. Nothing. Emailed them again.....nothing. I called them and after waiting almost 20 minutes, I was disconnected. So, I emailed them again. Nothing. Now, it has been more than a month and no one, literally NO ONE will speak with me about my account. My DH drew my attention to the NEW AMOUNTS they are wanting for their membership. (Mine was 7.95 monthly, paid monthly for a reg US account.) Now it is 19.95!!!!! Of course, I cannot afford it now.

Here's the real sting...I cannot erase my debit card information. I feel like I am at their mercy...they can start my account back up at any time...or I can sit in limbo for the next 10 years!

Can't view images at all - new image viewer download won't install

beery11 — 26 Apr 2008 1:32:44 GMT

The new image viewer won't load - it just keeps popping up every second but it doesn't give me chance to click on it before it disappears and then appears again. Is anyone else experiencing this issue?

Also, there's no way to work around it - if you can't load the new image viewer there's no way to use the old version.

Honestly, in the past few days I've had nothing but trouble from ancestry.com's service. I'm thinking that I might end my subscription for a while - I don't see why I should pay to beta test this stuff.

Checking for updates on FTM 2009

sdspicer — 9 Oct 2008 9:55:47 GMT

I installed the new FTM and when I go to check to updates, it states I have to be logged in as the admin of the computer, which I am. Anyone else having this issue?

BTW, I am running Vista.

Ancestry content vs. FTM CDs

TucsonMike — 5 Oct 2008 7:12:48 GMT

Our genealogy club's library owns about 60 (old) CDs from the Family Tree Maker collection. One is "Military Records of Massachusetts Civil War Soldiers", for example.

Our club also has an Ancestry.com subscription with a broadband connection.

The CDs are not used much. I imagine any data on them is also available on Ancestry. Does anyone know if that's true?

Enough of these irrelevant books!

PGroup2222 — 2 Oct 2008 4:21:55 GMT

Give me a break - a Canadian Senate Bill. Plus
many more titles that have nothing to do with
genealogy. We need vital statistics, newspapers,
county histories, etc. My subscription is coming
up in Dec. and this does give me pause. Penny

Full screen in Ancestry

rechmbrs — 4 Oct 2008 2:00:12 GMT

I've attempted to use the full screen option on the census display but nothing happens. I'm using IE8 beta2.

Anything needs to be set in IE?

Thanks,
RON C

Not able to access profiles for some tree submitters

Melissa_Robards — 8 Oct 2008 5:05:18 GMT

Is anyone else getting this when you try to contact anyone with questions about their tree:

Public Profile
An error occurred while retrieving this profile.
Please excuse any inconvenience, and try again later.

I don't get it for everyone, but I do wonder what the reason is. I sent a message to Ancestry several days ago but no reply yet. Never thought to post here :)

Since it isn't for everyone I try, and I get it for days on the same profiles, it doesn't seem like a temporary glitch. Any ideas?

melissa

Marriage and Death records

Ablackburn240908 — 27 Sep 2008 6:06:28 GMT

I'm trying to track my great uncle but have had no luck so to check I was doing things correctly I input my Grandfathers data. It will show me his birth records (1907, Kent, England) but not his marriage record (1933, London, England) or his death record (1974, London, England). What am I doing wrong?

How to search in one census/area

rechmbrs — 1 Oct 2008 12:32:27 GMT

I'd like to search in say Census > U.S. Census > 1860 United States Federal Census > Illinois > McHenry > Woodstock for a surname BERTSCHY.

Can this be done? At present, I must page through the individual pages. Wasn't fun on a microfiche machine and no more fun here especially with a large number of pages.

Thanks,
RON C

Will we see any US content again??

gengrl — 22 Sep 2008 5:08:03 GMT

Although grateful to Ancestry.com for the many US sources, I am becoming a little frustrated that over the past 30 days barely 1% of the new content has been World content (mostly Canada, Nova Scotia).

Dear Ancestry, could you please throw a little crumb (database) once a week or so to us US content subscribers?

I doubt that I'm the only one who feels left out (also phrased "are we getting what we are paying for?").

Many thanks.

updating shoebox

DUllmann0216 — 28 Sep 2008 9:44:07 GMT

Does anyone know if there is a quick way to clean up one's Shoebox? I have a lot of thigs saved there and want to remove many items. The problem is that when I am on say page 12 and remove something, it then takes me back to page 1 again. Any ideas??

How to update tree w/o duping it

rvermar1 — 28 Sep 2008 7:07:35 GMT

There is an old thread here with no answers: When exporting a tree to Ancestry.com, the first time works fine. But...

HOw do you update that tree by replacing it with a newer one? It seems that trees just keep replicating themselves, old ones never get replaced. So there are multiple versions of the same tree all over this site.

I'm a new user and just started with a small tree. Already I want to add multiple names but don't want to do double work - once on my PC with Legacy, and again on Ancestry on-line. Uploading a new Gedcom would be much more efficient.

Is there an answer for this??

Firefox 3

bromaelor — 18 Jun 2008 2:04:41 GMT

Anyone having problems using Firefox 3 and the Ancestry site?

When I view people in my personal trees, the "Timeline" section is badly formatted with each entry floating to the right of the previous entry until the end of the panel is reached. Other panels are not being stretched to their maximum width. Possibly problems in the Ancestry CSS as I'm getting no problems with other sites?

Primary Photo Suggestion...

madelson1 — 26 Sep 2008 5:49:39 GMT

It would be a nice improvement if one could draw a marquee around a photo and the portion within it could be designated as the primary photo. I find myself scanning in images that have multiple people and attaching it to the multiple profiles initially and then going back and cropping out just their heads for the profiles. For the database, it would just entail associating the coordinates of the upper left and lower right marquee for the photograph. Just a thought as it would make this quite a bit faster (and reduce storage space).

IE 8 Beta

grahamdhogg1 — 21 Sep 2008 12:34:54 GMT

Hi Everyone. This is my first post here so please bear with me.

I just downloaded Internet Explorer v8 Beta and I'm having a bit of trouble with the Pedigree view in my tree. When I view it, the text all seems to be there but the layout items like the nice box that is drawn behind each person is missing and the location of each person is jumbled. The family view is working fine.

Here's a bit of backround....

I recently reformatted my computer and I'm running XP SP2. I have downloaded the latest flash player and shockwave player. Everything else seems to be working just fine and it was working fine with IE v7.

Is there a plugin or something that I'm missing or is the beta version too new for the website to have caught up?

Thanks for any help.

GH

1900 Census Index problem

Wilma Flowers — 28 Sep 2008 7:12:21 GMT

Is anyone else having problems with the 1900 census index? I searched for the surname WRIGHT in Cherokee County, North Carolina and received the message "none found". I know the family was in Cherokee county in 1900, because I have previously found them there. I just needed to recheck something. I tried the WRIGHT surname just using North Carolina, no city, and got the same message. I tried with "exact search" checked and unchecked, getting no results. I even tried the surname BROWN in North Carolina and received "nothing found". Thanks for any help.
Wilma

Messed HTML on homepage

cormack196 — 14 Sep 2008 4:56:37 GMT

Recently I had began having problems on my homepage after logging in. The problem is that the icons for "Recent family tree activity" are shifted to the right where they run into the "About this tree" column. I believe that the problem started about a month ago. This problem renders the "About this tree" column unuseable. Sometimes I can reload the page and it will fix itself, but most of the time that doesn't happen. Sometimes I do use another browser, FF3, but the point is that I should be able to use ANY browser and the homepage should display the same.

I have complained to Ancestry.com tech support and have gotten snarky responses about using another browser or their lack of support for my preferred browser. My preferred browser is Apple's Safari v3.1.2 (4525.22).

I am running Safari v3.1.2 on Mac OS X 10.4.11

I just wish that Ancestry would show the same level of support to Mac and Safari that they do Windows and other browsers.

This site is useless...

webmusician80 — 9 Sep 2008 3:00:59 GMT

I joined to try and find info about my biological grandmother, but what hope is there of finding her if the site cannot even find ME? That's right, try searching for yourself - can it even find you??? Pathetic.

Why is the FTM download working for some and not for others?

linaik — 14 Sep 2008 1:41:50 GMT

I've been trying since last night and I never get the $0, only full price. I hate to complain since it's free, but this is extremely frustrating. If I knew it would work eventually, I would just keep trying, but I just have a feeling it's never going to work and I'm wasting my time.

New Profile page Layout on Ancestry.com trees

garnetquigley — 3 Sep 2008 12:36:10 GMT

Perhaps I just missed the announcement, but it was quite a shock to discover the new layout for the Profile page on my Ancestry tree. I thought at first it was a bug in my Firefox viewer until another kind soul reassured me that the changes were not just my personal challenge.

Things I like about the changes: adding the Research notes button to the main page, adding the Family Group Sheet link to the main page, adding the show/add siblings for parents to the main page, the Records box, and the statistical snapshot for events, records, stories, etc. In other words I like the increased functionality.

What I don't like is the very dominant extra boxes under the Timeline box where you are encouraged to add Photos, Stories, Audio, etc. I find it very distracting as they tend to draw the eye away from the important Timeline items....perhaps it would be less distracting if they were not individually framed but instead were together in one box.

What I hate is the removal of birth and death dates from the children in the Family Members box. I also miss the photo display for the children in the same box, but that is more a nice to have. The dates were in my opinion critical and should be restored, even if there is the option to go to the Family Group sheet. I want to be able to make comparisons for duplications or identification right on the profile page and need those birth/death dates to do so.

My biggest problem however is the impact to my eyes, especially the Family Members box. My eyes are probably normal for my demographic, which as the largest demographic for genealogy researchers is probably important to Ancestry. com. The children's font size and layout is hard on these old eyes. I like the functionality of the colored bullets to show gender, but even they tend to impact negatively when the children are so compressed.

If you have to put the historical records indicator back under the Life Events, if you have to move the new statistical snapshot box, please do it. Please do whatever is necessary to make more space to widen the Family Members box so a larger font and/or more visually friendly presentation of the names, and their birth/death dates, is possible for my demographic.

I can afford the unquestionable benefits of belonging to Ancestry.com, I can not afford the aspirin that will be necessary to read and enjoy those benefits.

Thank you for your attention,

Garnet

The connection service is temporarily out of service.

LHKohn — 8 Sep 2008 8:25:34 GMT

For the past couple of days I have tried several times to send a message to a member using the Ancestry Connection Service. Each time, I received the message "The connection service is temporarily out of service." During the same time period I was able to successfully send messages to two other members.
Unfortunately, I cannot see the email address of the member to whom I am unable to send. Can someone explain why I might be receiving this error and how to fix it or have it fixed?
Thanks

Thanks for putting the dates back

crisg580 — 12 Sep 2008 6:23:38 GMT

The photos and birth and death dates for the parents, sibs, spouse and children on the profile page have been returned. Thanks for listening to us Ancestry. Now it would be nice if we could see the photos and dates because you've made everything too small. I have to use a magnifying glass to see the my tree. Please put the profile page back the way it was. The new profile completely sucks.

Ancestry.com redirects to Canada

Dickvb — 25 Aug 2008 3:26:45 GMT

My Favorites, Bookmarks, and Links to ancestry.com now get redirected to ancestry.ca. Although I live in Canada, I have no relatives or ancesters here, and I don't subscribe to Ancestry's Canada services. Any idea how I can go directly to Ancestry.com without always being redirected to .ca and having to go through extra steps to get to .com?

Format of People view on my Ancestry tree

garnetquigley — 2 Sep 2008 6:27:48 GMT

At 4:00 a.m. when I logged off I had my comfortable and familiar People/Profile view of my family tree members. When I logged on later it had changed radically...different font, washed-out colors, "boxes" for parents and spouse but not for the children. The add comment button is gone from the main screen, but add research note has replaced it. Other dashboard like "improvements" which may give you more complete details what has been done to the profile but makes the profile itself less user-friendly at least until the shock wears off.

I am almost hoping it is a problem with my Firefox viewer, because the design is very hard on my eyes and the font/layout/faded color is terrible to read. I saw no advance warning. Has this changed for everyone or do I have a bug?

Please put my mind at ease,

Garnet

Help with Searching

missoneill — 4 Sep 2008 3:08:25 GMT

Is there more listed in searches switching from guest to full membership? It doesn't seem like I can find anything! I can't even find my husband on this... =D

Extremely dangerous popup ad

vhiddai — 8 Aug 2008 7:10:44 GMT

At the side of this page with the list of threads, and at the side of search pages and others, I am getting an ad to which McAfee gives a strong red alert about a scam. Click the ad and you go to the site of celldorado.com

Not only am I sick and tired of waiting while Ancestry loads advertisements into each page before I can do anything in that page but also I find this latest development very dangerous indeed. It looks as though Ancestry does not control the popups adequately.

Maybe this is just a European problem with Ancestry UK, which I use. But to those of you in the States, watch out.

I deliver this warning - be careful with clicking these ads, especially if you don't have any software which will warn you.

I don't have any great hopes about persuading Ancestry to deal with the problem but maybe someone would be kind enough to give suggestions.

ever been had???

bettymiles38 — 11 Aug 2008 8:50:31 GMT

I was out of the country when my 14 day trial was up and guess what? Yes they took £83+ out of my credit card account. Good job there were plenty of funds in that account as I was using it on holiday. I know I haven't got a hope in hell of getting it back but I still think its sharp practice. I deal with a lot of companies on the
Internet and this is the only one that has taken money without a "warning" email. I shall not be recommending
them to anyone.

Census "Show Other Relatives"-- broken

sushinutnc — 4 Sep 2008 11:47:01 GMT

Since the recent awful changes made to the Profiles/People pages (no dates on family members being my biggest complaint), I have been unsuccessful in importing an entire family from a census record. Normally, when you click "Show Other Relatives" on a record, it will attempt to match the family members in the record with the ones you already have in your family. Sure, this function isn't foolproof (and could be GREATLY improved), but it has been VERY BAD since the recent changes. It'll miss virtual perfect matches for siblings. It also says "Other Children of [name here] (unknown spouse)"-- meaning it doesn't know the spouse from the record. This was never a problem before.

BTW, I emailed Tech Support on the People page problem, and it said they are experiencing unusually high volumes of emails. LOL I BET!

I suspect they don't even monitor these boards. PLEASE EMAIL TECH SUPPORT if you have problems. Maybe it'll get someone's attention.

Help (upper right) - > Email Ancestry Support (2nd tab)

Sources attaching to incorrect events

jswendula — 3 Sep 2008 4:42:52 GMT

I've had this happen before (usually with later immigration records), but never with a census. Specifically, when I attempt to attach the 1930 census record for 'Clara E. McRoberts' to 'Clara Avis Mcroberts' in my tree, it tries to add this as a source for her birth AND death, but no residence. Has anyone else had this happen, and how does one go about fixing it other than manually inputting the residence and source?

Having trouble finding Birth Records here

lee_walker1999 — 2 Sep 2008 8:17:16 GMT

Anyone else having problems finding birth records? I have searched myself and i appear not to be around for some reason. I was there. I havent managed to find any birth records 1970 to current.
Mine should be Lee Walker b1970 Chiswick but i am not there anymore

Confusion

chmorrisuk — 27 Aug 2008 12:13:14 GMT

Hi,
I am usually on Ancestry and was looking for something on river barges on Google when I came across this site. What is the difference between this and the main site. Also can someone explain to me (I am newish) what LDS micro-fiche are. I know what micro-fiche are but what is LDS and what is on it and where do I find it. Many thanks if someone can help.

Blogs Down

delikid — 31 Aug 2008 2:02:10 GMT

http://blogs.ancestry.com/ appears to be down this morning.

Anyone else having issues?

Access

Roslintop — 1 Aug 2008 3:05:25 GMT

Having renewed my subscription yesterday and being under the impression that I had unlimited access to all UK and Ireland records, why am I redirected to the subscriptions page whenever I try to find a particular marriage that took place in Winchester Hampshire.

Deleting big branch of tree

Jrenekeller — 28 Aug 2008 11:10:24 GMT

After going back through my tree I noticed a large branch of my tree was a mistake and didn't belong to my family. My problem: I have quite a few individuals in this branch. Is there a way to delete more than one person at a time. I have spent almost a week trying to delete individuals, and still have many to go.

help with invitation to view tree please

crisg580 — 28 Aug 2008 6:28:11 GMT

Can someone please tell me how to send an invitation so the invitee can view both of my trees. I had to send seperate invites for each tree and then the person could not use the username and password they made for the first tree to log onto the second tree. Very confusing.

Have a Tree? Learn about verifying data

frostfreedet — 27 Aug 2008 1:36:48 GMT

GENTREK will present "Verifying Internet Data," by Dae Powell. Many budding genealogists are thrilled when find that many of the names in their family tree are easily available online. Proud of their accomplishment, they then download all the data they can from these Internet sources, import it into their genealogy software and proudly start sharing their "genealogy" with others. Their research then makes its way into new genealogy databases and collections, further perpetuating the new "family tree" and amplifying any errors each time the source is copied. While it sounds great, there is one major problem with this scenario; namely that the family information that is freely published in many Internet databases and Web sites is often unsubstantiated and of questionable validity. Let's look at this problem together.

Presentation will be Thurs., Aug. 28, 10 pm to 11 pm, Eastern Time US.

See presentation and participate here, on Genealogy Lookup Chat:

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~genealogylookup/chatroom.h...

You must register (completely free) well beforehand and carefully read the instructions to sign up.

This is a chat-room format compatible with almost all computer javascript programs except the very newest java hybrids. There is a link to download viable javascript if you have problems viewing the site.

Good hunting,
Jade

ancestry.com Military Pages

Jrenekeller — 25 Aug 2008 1:35:29 GMT

I am trying to set up my grandfather's military page. He served in 2 wars, but it is only allowing me to enter one. Is there a way to enter 2 wars that I am just not seeing? I also have other family member serving in 2 different wars.

Incorrect & unsourced material.

barneybrig — 12 Aug 2008 11:41:28 GMT

I personally find the "hints" highlighted on family trees, to identify possible contacts, extremely useful. What I find annoying and timewasting are those persons who have gleaned information from other members trees and indiscriminately attach to their own data without carrying out any sourcing, but based solely on a corresponding name and date without reference to location. I admit some are innocent errors, but in several instances, many occurances are the result of deliberate trawling. In several instances these instigators bar personal contact. Unfortunately, this incorrect data is often replicated by novices, perpetuating and multiplying these "urban myths." Whenever I find such errors, I now post comments to the individual personal records highlighting the error, (hopefully noted by other members,) and would request all other members to do the same to hopefully reduce such inaccurate repetitions. I have also posted comments to Ancestry requesting that such people who withhold contact from other members be blocked from directly accessing other members trees, limiting them only to census returns, BMD, etc. I would be interested in other members comments.

Pedegree not visible in tree?

tamarankirk — 20 Aug 2008 1:04:22 GMT

I have a difficult situation i am trying to resolve. For one of my ancestors, (Annastasia Strub), I can view her parents and subsequent lineage from the profile tab. However, when I click on the "family Tree" tab, the branch for her father goes missing and it shows the "+Father" option.

If i click on teh +father tab, i clearly offers me the correct name to add so I click to include the contact. Nothing happens... still will not show up in the tree.

Is this a known bug or is there any help to resolve?

Regards,
Kirk

Invalid or unauthorized input detected

dyesboy — 22 Aug 2008 2:32:38 GMT

Trying to change a date of birth. Receive message "invalid or unauthorized input has been detected" Talked to a customer rep who tried to do input and received same message. Was to investigate it. This was at end of July - still have the same issue.

Others receiving this same error message?

33% subscription price rise!

DeborahW26 — 22 Aug 2008 8:34:58 GMT

I received a message this week reminding me that my annual sub is about to expire and informing me that the current packages are being changed to some new ones. I currently pay about £80 per year, but in order to get the same service it looks as though I'd need to pay £107.40 This is ridiculous; has anyone else noticed this or have I got this wrong?

I wrote to Ancestry about this but have received no reply ...

DW

Uploaded Picture as source citation?

ipaterson192 — 21 Aug 2008 7:50:03 GMT

Hi there,

Is it possible to use a picture I have uploaded and transcribed as a source citation? I can't find any option to do so.

Runtime Error at Ancestry.com

lucybutko — 13 Aug 2008 3:41:20 GMT

Is anyone else unable to access Ancestry.com due to a Server Error?

Lucy

Married or maiden name?

rjcush — 16 Aug 2008 4:58:09 GMT

A newbie question regarding building the family tree. There seem to be no fields that ask specifically for married and maiden names..,so what goes in the surname field for women? Should I for example enter my mother under her married name or maiden name? I guess it doesn't matter as long as there's consistency, but I'm sure there must be a convention to be followed here. Many thanks.

probably a silly question

tracyjgiles — 16 Aug 2008 9:25:55 GMT

when you export a gedcom from here does it retain the census and other historical information that those little hints keep giving me

many thanks

tracy

No matches on BMD searches, but the data is there!

rjcush — 14 Aug 2008 5:19:11 GMT

I've just started on on Ancestry.co.uk and have a problem with the England & Wales BMD searches. Most of the "trial" searches I've done come up blank (including myself, son and daughter - all pre-1983) as well as mother and other ancestors whose dates I know well. If however I go to the register, find the year and then look for the appropriate page, the entries are there! It's just that "search" is not finding anything. I've tried various name combinations and still nothing. Can anyone explain to me what's wrong here? I've no problems with searching the census records (so far). Thanks.

Ancestry not working !

KerryW44 — 15 Aug 2008 8:09:25 GMT

I have been unable to load my family tree for almost a week. It sometimes loads to the initial page but then I get a error on page in the corner and it spins until I close the site. I am in Australia. Anyone else having these problems!

What happened to free searches?

SimonEast — 11 Aug 2008 2:40:23 GMT

I start a tree on Ancestry.com.au (Australian site) a couple of months ago, and the free account allowed me to do some basic searches in other public family trees, and attach hints to my tree. I just couldn't search the premium databases.

Now I can't seem to search ANYTHING or access any hints without a subscription page coming up.

What happened?

Simon.

How to get ancestor report

larryaudsley — 7 Aug 2008 2:04:33 GMT

Just bought the software and learning to use it. A relative told me I can request a report through Ancestry.com entitled "Ancestors of (my name)". This is accessing information about my family that someone else has already put there. Tried to find this feature but haven't succeeded. Is anyone familiar with this?

Relationships Quandry

Trishymouse — 4 Oct 2007 3:46:55 GMT

I have a problem. I want to enter my life partner into my family tree, but currently there is no apparent way to do that. It's black and white - you're married or you're not. I'm not, but I'm most definitely in a long-term, committed relationship. This is nothing new. In years and centuries past there were common-law, handfasting, etc. I have already submitted comments and suggestion on this matter to Ancestry.com. However, I wanted to post about it here to see how others have handled this? Thanks...

Al RoboForm Error msg

ldel2000 — 4 Aug 2008 2:30:59 GMT

Wondering if anyone else is having problems with an error message titled "Al RoboForm assertion failed" (an automatic form fill program?). It just started this week. The error message pops up as soon as I access my ancestry tree, then shuts down IE. Still having the same problem today. Any info or suggestions?

Ancestry.co.uk pull out of bidding for the 1911 UK census

Russ_Davies — 13 Jul 2008 11:41:42 GMT

Quote from the Sunday Herald Newspaper:

Brightsolid has recently won a contract to digitise, license and publish the 1911 Census of England and Wales from the National Archives in Kew, London. Van der Kuyl said the contract win was a "big deal" since the 1911 data is the most recent for which a licence is available, due to a 100-year bar on publishing it. He said it showed the extent of the company's ambitions to expand in markets outside Scotland.

But Simon Harper, managing director of market leader Ancestry.co.uk, said he was "not particularly bothered" by Brightsolid's genealogy push. He said his company had pulled out of the bidding process for the 1911 census because he believed it would only "tell our customers what they already know".

'New Search Experience' probably will replace main search interface

frostfreedet — 3 Aug 2008 5:15:31 GMT

Anyone can share their experience with the New Search interface. The latest discussion is here:

http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/category/ancestry-com/

How to enter individual titles like Dr., Rev., or Sgt.?

robert_deline — 1 Aug 2008 9:34:48 GMT

The title event in Ancestry seems different from other genealogy programs (like FTM) which treat title as an attribute (like name and sex) rather than an event.

What's the best way to enter a person's title, like Dr.? I don't want to include it in the name field, but I would like to see it in the trees, if possible.

Thanks Rob

Tennessee marriage images

meekernj — 1 Aug 2008 9:41:34 GMT

Tennessee marriage images are back -- even though the screen still says "temporarily disabled." I checked a half a dozen and they were all there.

US Public Records Index

TEGlover — 1 Aug 2008 8:59:22 GMT

In research I have found information in the US Public Records Index on Ancestry.

Among the information is a "Record Number". What is this Record Number?

How do I use the Record Number to access the actual record?

TE Glover

Export then reimport - source links

songofruth2002 — 31 Jul 2008 5:15:25 GMT

If I export my tree to a gedcom and then reimport it, sources that used to be linked directly to Ancestry.Com resources no longer have clickable links.

IOW, if you attach census info to someone for say 1900, then under the Residence: 1900 event there is a link to the actual census info.

But if you export that and reimport it, the basic source info is still there but it is not apparent without clicking into the event And the source itself no longer has a clickable link that will take you directly to the census info.

This happens even if the gedcom is immediately reimported without being touched. I'm not saying it's a bug.

But it is annoying, primarily because Ancestry will then re-Hint me about all those sources I've already attached.

Bizarre error

jswendula — 30 Jul 2008 3:25:40 GMT

Anyone else attaching census records having the first name and surname reversed in the entry fields? For example, 'John Arn' becomes 'Arn John,' and when saved, changes the name in the family tree too. This has persisted through ten minutes and four attachments. Normally I ignore any ancestry errors but this one is really annoying.

ancestry.se email

cargor61 — 25 Jul 2008 12:45:13 GMT

I received an email from ancestry.se (not .de) and when opened it is in german. Is this real or some type of spam mail? Anyone else receive this?

date data changed

Sheryl040 — 25 Jul 2008 9:56:08 GMT

Has anybody else noticed a change to the bmd information they have entered? I know I did not enter my birth, marriage and death information in a year, month, day format.
That is how it shows up in my tree now. New stuff is going
in the way I enter it, day, month year. Also does anyone
know how to do a mass change for this info.

Thanks

Re: Tennessee Marriage data base images

mbmjlm — 23 Jul 2008 3:52:25 GMT

Well, I see that the Tennessee Marriage data base has been "temporarily disabled". I hope it's not gone for good but I would not bet the farm on it. I sent a message to Kendall Hulett about the matter but have not had a reply as yet.

remove or delete recent history

jsmith3011662 — 24 Jul 2008 6:36:00 GMT

Is there a way to remove or delete items from your recent history box?

Improper links to Bond family tree

tustin954 — 20 Jul 2008 5:08:01 GMT

How do the second and third spouses get attached to the family trees without the author's knowledge. My favorite in a g-g-grandfather who was born in 1791 and raised his family in Pa. A remarriage added to his tree in the 1890's was a surprise. A new wife and a second batch of children started at 94 yrs old? My clue that something might be wrong is that he died before 1860. Who added that family? Does Ancentry do it? or can anyone add to a family, with or without documentation or common sense? How does this work? I hesitate to add a tree if someone can just add to it or change it. I wrote to the author of the family tree and he has no idea where it came from either. Who adds all those 2nd and 3rd spouses ... mostly the same spouse ... just a different rendition of the children but in the case of the Bond family, it wasn't even close. Can someone explain this to me and how it works?

Another wrinkle I guess

mbmjlm — 15 Jul 2008 1:55:02 GMT

Now I cannot get to these boards without hunting for it in the messages. The link "other topics" is gone-at least for me. Did the powers that be at Ancestry get tired of our messages or what is going on.

1885 Nebraska State Census

KAYLYNN — 16 Jul 2008 9:25:21 GMT

It used to be the 1885 NE State Census would show whole families. What happened? Now, when you search on a name, that name is all you get. It is not linked to others in the family. If you know the names of the family members, you can find each individual's page. But that's a hassle. It would be so much better to show complete families together.

Login Problems @ Genforum.com

Eleanor Hemmes — 15 Jan 2008 6:41:53 GMT

I cannot post on Genforum as it seems that my user name and password no longer work. I have sent at least 10 requests for help and have received nothing. Can anyone suggest something? I have no problems in receiving notification of a response but if the person has a "hidden" addy I cannot answer. I have no problems with ancestry postings or receiving notification of answers.
Thanks Eleanor Greene Hemmes HemmesEG@aol.com

Thank You for Electoral Rolls

gnhansen29 — 17 Nov 2007 12:40:34 GMT

I would just like to say a special thank you to Ancestry.com.au for making the Australian electoral rolls available. I have found it very interesting being able to look up the electoral details of my grandmother and her family.

Keep up the good work.

Regards
Geoffrey

Quick Survey: Ancestry Search and Home Page

frostfreedet — 12 Jul 2008 12:19:27 GMT

Tony Cousins, in a response in Ancestry Blog (no. 87, 11 July 2008)

http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2008/07/03/follow-up-on-t...

proposes a simple survey among ancestry users.

Without asking his permission to post this but thinking it's a good idea, here is his simple survey:

1. How long have you been involved in Genealogical Research?
Answer options - ‘less than 6 months’, ‘6 months to 2 years’, ‘2 to 5 years’ and ‘over 5 years’.

2. Do you have a public family tree on Ancestry? (‘Yes’ or ‘No’)

3. Which search method do you prefer to use? (‘Old’ or ‘New’)

4. How do you rate the new home page?
..(‘Hate it’, ‘Love it’, ‘don’t have an opinion’ or ‘was there a different home page’)

5. Do you believe that TGN and Ancestry listen to their subscribers? (Yes' or ‘No’)

How to turn off "my alerts"

mbmjlm — 12 Jul 2008 2:55:50 GMT

This morning when I logged on to my messages I got a big piece of crap from Ancestry--pasted below-then it says to go to "my alerts" to change it. Since all the mess with the new so-called "home page" there is no "my ancestry" anymore. Ancestry lurches from bad to worse to absolutely awful. What is wrong with these people. It looks like the monkeys are running the zoo. I will switch this crap to my spam folder if I cannot find a way to turn it off. I do not need this.
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Hi MARY BETH,
Ancestry.com is dedicated to helping you get the most out of your membership. We constantly search our collections for possible record matches based on your family tree (A Never Ending Story ) to save you time and help in your research.

When we get a match (an AncestryHint™), you'll see a "shaking leaf" icon in your tree, as well as receive a notification email like this one. Here's what we found:

Charles Adolpus DeShazo
We've found 2 record(s) that may match this person
in the following collections:
1930 United States Federal Census
1900 United States Federal Census
View these records

Check out all the Ancestry Hints™ we've found for your family tree.

Don't want to receive this email anymore? No problem. It's easy to turn it off or change how often it comes. To change your preferences log in to My Ancestry and go to the 'my alerts' section.

Can no longer access DNA information at Ancestry!

ARotolante — 12 Jul 2008 5:35:50 GMT

Wow, I'm seriously bummed because I went to my DNA area at Ancestry and my test results are no longer available.

I don't know how long it's been since this occurred - it's been a few months since I checked that particular web page.

Customer service is happy to re-instate my results if I would simply give them my kit ID number so they can access it. Trouble is that number is long gone from my records. I took the tests in May 2002 and got the following email from Ancestry: "Once you have registered and entered your Kit ID(s) and Access code(s) you will not have to enter these again. Your test results will be associated with your account so you can go directly to your DNA results the next time you visit the site."

Silly me for trusting them. I now have NO results at all. No record of my results was ever given to me in hard copy. I could only access the information through Ancestry.

I have also not been able to access the online store at Ancestry, which is were I ordered the kits in the first place. I'm hoping my test kit numbers might be on file there - if only the site hasn't had an "Error 500" message up for days now!

ARGH!

Is anyone else having this problem? I'd love to hear from others how they handled this situation.

Thanks!
Ann :)

Names being transcribed wrongly

TsGromu — 10 Jul 2008 12:32:28 GMT

Whom do I contact by email about names being transcribed wrongly? I cannot find how to contact them by email.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Since they changed everything I can't seem to find anything.

The name Walter C DeShong appears in the census, yet in the Ancestry index it is Chester C DeShong.

Thanks

Location information for the UK

chadwickr1950 — 8 Jul 2008 8:32:57 GMT

I understand that this information now comes from a central list and Ancestry use counties in the US search, why have they eliminated counties from the UK locations? If for example I type in the location 'LUTON', amoung all the worldwide places called LUTON I get 'LUTON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM'. This is useless, firstly it needs a county to define the location, in this case it could be Bedfordshire or Devon and secondly the UNITED KINGDOM is superfluous.

If I type in BELFAST, I get BELFAST, IRELAND, UNITED KINGDOM. Belfast is in Northern Ireland. If I type in DUBLIN, I get DUBLIN, IRELAND, UNITED KINGDOM. This is just rubbish - IRELAND is an Independant Country and NOT part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Counties in the UK are the next geograpical division down from the country. To miss them out of a location is like missing out a State in the USA. The equivilent would be typing in Las Vagas and getting LAS VAGAS, USA, NORTH AMERICA. How many American subscribers would out up with this?

I could produce a long list of British town names that are in multiple use, so the county is essential for location. If its good enough for the US why is it not good enough for Britian? Why the UNITED KINGDOM? Just how many ENGLAND, WALES, SCOTLAND and NORTHERN IRELAMD's are there?

If the excuse is the size of the search box, the answer is simple, get rid of the term UNITED KINGDOM and restore the County.

There is another, more complex, problem with UK locations. That is dealing with historic counties that no longer exist and with towns that have changed county because of boundary changes. In most but not all cases these are related. For example, I was born in Finchley, which at that time was in the county of Middlesex. Due to Local Government changes in the early 1960's Middlesex was abolised as an administrative area and split up into what are known as London Boroughs. Finchley joined with other surrounding areas to form the London Borough of Barnet. Barnet had previously been in the county of Hertfordshire.

How does Ancestry deal with this problem? Well at the moment it ignores it. Type in BARNET and I get BARNET, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM. Any decent search engine would be programed with a date criteria, check the date being searched and return the correct location at that date.

How about it Ancestry? Does the UK have to suffer the one size fits all programing that is being released and what appears to be ignorance of UK Geography?

Exporting my Family Tree

alimonzara — 22 Jun 2002 10:41:18 GMT

Why, when I update my family tree to the World Family Tree database, does it then exist as a comepletely new entry? The program asks me if I want to replace the already existing one...I click yes and yet it doesn't replace it, it created a new one. The result is a catastrophic repition of entry after identical entry, where people have no idea how to find the most updated version!

Is there any way to solve this??

Rootsweb trees and information rights

patriotancestors — 9 Jul 2008 3:03:30 GMT

I have spent quite a bit of time looking for a clear answer on the following question, but haven't found it yet...
When Ancestry took over rootsweb, did they take over ownership rights of all the submitted data on the trees people uploaded to rootsweb? I have a tree but will not be pleased if years of my labor means that Ancestry.com owns everything I did and I have no rights to ever publish my own compilation work. I would appreciate a clear answer if anyone has one.

archived webinars

insleebaldwin — 8 Jul 2008 8:48:30 GMT

I saw the webinar last week on Italian genealogy and thought it was great. They said "don't take notes, it will be archived on the Ancestry site". I can't find it! Any idea where it is?

What's with the mouseover pop-up windows in the Family Tree view?

beery11 — 8 Jul 2008 7:37:03 GMT

Now that they've instituted this popup window feature I'm finding it makes it very difficult to navigate through the family tree. You can't mouseover and move the family tree view to a specified person anymore without mouseing over them, then selecting the 'view profile' option and then choosing the family tree view again. We used to be able to do this with one click after mousing over a person - now it takes a mouseover, two clicks and loading two screens. It's ridiculous.

The mouseover window may be a nice tool for those who use the site differently, but for many of us it just adds a lot more complication for no reason. Either remove it or make it optional!

Unable to open person(s) on One World Tree

jw02sv — 6 Jul 2008 1:48:17 GMT

Yesterday when I clicked on Search Resources from my 2006 (16 update) for an individual the indivudal's information was blank.
When I clicked View Online I received the following information:
"this person does not exist on OneWorldFamily Tree". I know this is incorrect because I was able to access this person before yesterday.
This is the same message I get when trying to access anyone in World Family Tree.
I can access the person using a Personal Tree found in search.
Any ideas?

Bug: Location Type-Ahead Hints (via AJAX) Pulling from Another's Tree

kjclark1963 — 5 Jul 2008 3:40:41 GMT

I just went in to add a burial to someone in my tree.

When I started to enter the location, the suggestions that popped up were clearly from another tree. Worse yet, the tree that it was pulling from clearly wasn't even one of mine.....

What's wrong with One World Tree????

markkurt47 — 6 Jul 2008 1:14:40 GMT

I get this error message on any tree:

This person does not exist in the OneWorldTree®

What is going on? Will this be fixed soon?

Search does not show photos I uploaded

marksrd1 — 5 Jul 2008 6:41:11 GMT

I uploaded two photos in my family tree area. They are not related to me; each photo's name is that of the person.

My family tree is public.

When I search for the name "Omer DeNoon" for example (one I uploaded)... no photo comes up, though it is in my photo area.

New Home Page

geneslady — 2 Jul 2008 11:25:30 GMT

I just went on ancestry.com for the first time today....and much to my surprise there was a new format. My question to ya'll......at the top of the page is the "House Family Tree" with pictures and "about my tree". Is this just an example or has someone else's tree been linked to me?

can my photos and documents be seen?

crisg580 — 5 Jul 2008 10:56:58 GMT

If I make my tree public can everyone see the documents and photos I've uploaded?

Delete Tree

Ruths_Family — 5 Jul 2008 2:20:55 GMT

How do I delete a tree? The list of trees page has nothing under tools! Also, the Export Gedcom under each tree name just sends me back to the "New Home" page.
Help.

undefined

chriscas — 5 Jul 2008 4:57:54 GMT

Anyone know what to do when every hint on your tree is considered "undefined"?

It's very annoying, as you can't ignore them.

Thanks for the help!

Images not loading

Larry_Horsfield — 3 Jul 2008 6:09:52 GMT

Hi there, can someone please advise?

In recent weeks I have found that, after a period of viewing images using the Enhanced Image Viewer, the images stop loading completely (i.e. The green loading bar does not appear) or they partially load (i.e. a small portion of the green bar appears then it stops).

I have searched the help pages and have been deleting temporary internet files, etc, but this only allows me a relatively short respite before the problem recurs.

Is there any permanent solution to this problem.

BTW, I am running IE7 on M/s Vista Home premium edition.

Thanks in anticipation,

Larry

new home page

mbmjlm — 2 Jul 2008 2:33:16 GMT

As I logged on this morning what came up is a new "home page" for me which is ABSOLUTE CRAP-there is no other way to describe what comes up. Ancestry, what in the world are you doing. You are trying your best to drive us away. If this keeps up I will be cancelling my membership. ABSOLUTE NOTHING ABOUT THAT SO CALLED HOME PAGE INTERESTS ME. I can find my own stuff without stuffing it down my throat. AWFUL, AWFUL, AWFUL!!!!!

How do I get Search box as the Top box on the Home Page???

Michael_L_Hebert — 3 Jul 2008 12:58:40 GMT

This new home page layout is a disaster. The Search box should be the PRIMARY box at the top of the screen. What is it with this trees box and how do I get rid of it? Don't the programmers know how to create customizable home pages??? C'mon Ancestry. Total thumbs DOWN!!

Mike

Screen freezes and "Not responding"

midge1249 — 29 Jun 2008 12:39:55 GMT

I have 2 new computers, bought within the last 3 weeks. My old one was getting slow and I was having alot of the problems mentioned in the heading - screens freezing up and if I tried to close a screen (always Ancestry), I would get a 'not responding'.

This problem is continuing on the 2 new computers, but 'only' when I'm on an Ancestry site. Is anyone else experiencing this? If this is read by a tech at Ancestry, you might try to see what the problem is (softeware problem?).

Ancestry tech help please

midge1249 — 29 Jun 2008 11:22:25 GMT

We now have 4 computers in the house, 2 of which are new. They are

1) Dell laptop, with Vista Home Premium and Foxfire and Norton 360 (2008)

2) Compaq with Vista Home Premium and Norton 360 (2008)

3) Conpaq with Windows XP and Norton 360

4) Acer with Vista Home Basic and Norton 360 (2008)

With #3, I can still see census images, but not with any of the 3 that have Vista, with or without Firefox. With the other 3, when I click on "image" the page with the "download" for the 'Enhanced Viewer' comes up, and once clicked on, the page freezes and I must shut the computer down to get rid of it. If I ignore the 'get the enhancede viewer' and just click on "continue with basic viewer' or words to that effect, the same thing happens - the page goes dead and you cannot get rid of it and the computer has to be shut down.

With ALL 4 computers, (Windows Vista, Firefox, Windows XP, whatever), random pages ONLY ON THE ANCESTRY SITE will freeze up and the computer must be shut down to get rid of it.

I also belong to World Vital Records, to Paper of Record, and use Pennsylvania Digital Repository, Historic Digital Collection, Automatedgenealogy.com (actual Canadian census images for free), amongst many other sites which offer online viewing of documents, books, censuses, etc. - views of the originals, not transcriptions. ANCESTRY IS THE "ONLY" STIE WHICH PRESENTS THIS FREEZING UP OF PAGES AND IS THE "ONLY" SITE WHICH SEEMS TO BE HAVING EXTREME TROUBLES WITH CENSUS IMAGE VIEWING. What is the problem??? I have been a member for cloose to a decade now and the service is definitely deteriorating. As many people state, responses to our MAJOR problems go unanswered which leads one to believe that your 'solution room of techies' is just a couple of guys sitting in a small backroom. Now this is not an inexpensive membership, and ANCESTRY is not fulfilling its part of the contract. What suggestions do you put forth? I would like the problems addressed as it makes your site atually quite useless with these continuig problems - this would be my first priority. Barring this and if you cannot fix these problems which do indeed seem to exist only on the ANCESTRY site, should we all just cancel our subscriptions until you can fulfill your contractual obligations as to what you say our membership money will give us? Shall we start writing to your head office or to the LDS to complain? Should we write to the TV stations which are advertising your product and warn them of Ancestry's inability to fulfill adequately what it promises? Should we be writing to various national newspapers to air our complaints? Just what are we supposed to do? The PR of ANCESTRY is unbelievably bad and the treatment by ANCESTRY of its customers is beyond contempt.

I would like to get this settled for once and for all. Given a rough estimate of $300 per year for (I would suspect) thousands upons thousands of customer/clients, ANCESTRY is raking in millions and millions of our money, yet seemingly cannot take the time to address our very valid concerns. ANCESTRY has an enormous backlog of unhappy and unfulfilled customers who have legitimate gripes. Do we form a group and get legal about this? These supposed 'bugs' which ANCESTRY has been working on, have now been going on for long beyond what it should take a competent and dedicated service provider to fix. If they are so insurmountable, then why are we not having these problems on other 'original image providing' sites? And why is it just ANCESTRY.COM that keeps freezing up. It's not all 4 of my computers, nor Vista and XP, nor Norton, nor Firefox. Over and over and over again, it is just happening on the ANCESTRY.COM site.

Kindly address this issue. I don't like it when thoughts of lawyers flit across my mind because of a company which insists on providing little or no service. Let's get this issue cleaned up so that ANCESTRY can return to the outstanding pioneer in the genealogical field that it once was.

"Enhanced Image Viewer" problem answered and solved by Ancestry techie

midge1249 — 30 Jun 2008 9:45:49 GMT

After much frustration, I finally got a hold of an Ancestry support person at 1-800-262-3787. He emailed me this link which did indeed solve both (so far) my 'freezing up' problem and I was finally able to download and use the 'enhanced viewer'. Hopefully, the link below will help out anyone else who is experiencing these problems.

http://ancestry.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/ancestry.cfg/php/enduse...

Ancestry Hints comparison

holtendyke — 28 Jun 2008 8:26:25 GMT

In the last few months I have been getting hints on almost every person, making them almost useless. The reason is that ancestry.com counts as differences between 2 trees: date formats (where the dates are the same), spaces in places (Ames, Iowa vs. Ames,Iowa), and the presence or absence of a period following the middle initial. These are format differences, not data differences and should not show up as a difference between trees.

worldvitalrecords.com vs ancestry or both

jeancphelps46 — 9 Jun 2008 10:34:19 GMT

While using my gensmarts, I was directed to a research source for my dad at worldvitalrecords.com. Has anyone used them before and aren't really similar to ancestry?

Cannot view original census images

cthomas5 — 24 Jun 2008 2:28:46 GMT

For the past two hours I have been trying to access original census images. When I click on view original image nothing comes up, the page is blank. Is anyone else having this problem?

Furious! Technical Support does not reply to emails

write2taylor — 1 Apr 2008 11:49:41 GMT

It is infuriating to pay for a membership, and not be able to access original records and documents to view them. I have sent several emails to Technical Support regarding this issue in the past week, and no reply. Not in 24 hours or 48 hours or at all.

Meanwhile, I still get a blinking "download new viewer" page when I try to view any original census or other document. New IMPROVED viewer.

I've cleaned my pc files and cookies. The site just continues to have technical difficulties - I'm here almost every day, and it is frustrating to not be able to utilize all the resources. What am I paying for?

It would be nice to at least get a response. Anybody else out there having trouble viewing censuses, books, original documents, etc., or is it just me?

Ancestry Shoebox

dhelmssT — 27 Jun 2008 12:13:41 GMT

When saving records such as birth and census records, I am only given the option to put such records into the shoebox or save to a new tree. When I view the records I saved to the shoebox, I am then only given the option to save to a new tree. I need to save the records to the corresponding persons in my existing tree, not start a new one. A few of the records have ended up on my media file as well as my shoebox, which is great, but very few compared to the ones I saved. How do I get these records from my shoebox into my existing tree?

Newspaper Collection

raleighs179 — 21 Jun 2008 3:26:21 GMT

I was so happy to have found many sources in the sites newspaper collection. However, staring a few days ago, I can't view any save or non-saved newspaper pages. I get any error that says "not available" or the picture of the page just loads endlessly. Has anybody else noticed this problem this week?

1920 Census Pages Out of Order Resulting in Incorrect Relationships

ZTRNorge — 29 May 2008 5:53:01 GMT

While I was saving all of the hints for some of my relatives, I came across a mistake on the site for the 1920 census. Two pages are reversed in the scans, resulting in my great-grandparent's being linked to the wrong children, and my grandfather being linked to the wrong parents. The sheet numbering at the top was done in a confusing way, but the correct order is obvious when you look at the sequential house-visit numbers, and with that you can reconnect all of the correct parties.

I emailed the help system about it, and after about 2 weeks got sort of a stock answer that they assume my issue had been resolved unless I replied within 2 days, and that had a link to the same page where I initially sent my email, so I thought I'd give up.

I don't know if I have a question here, or if I'm just complaining. :) But, has anyone else seen something like this? Or am I just "lucky?" If you've seen it, how did you alert ancestry.com about it? I've found that it's a pretty specific problem, compared to the options given to report a problem. When I did report it, I followed their instructions on what information to give, but I didn't get a resolution. My next plan was to call them on the phone, or is that a bad idea (anyone tried that?)?

Thanks!