RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: medpat on Wednesday 07 April 21 23:15 BST (UK)
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Is it me or is the new addition to the hints section absolutely useless and time consuming.
Why do we have to go through those steps to check the hints when it was so simple before. ::)
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Glad to hear someone else is having trouble with the hints. I have given up. Total waste of time.
Pauline
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What annoys me about the hints is that they are often not for the Profile person one is working on but for a child of that person. It is not necessary to attach the the birth/baptism or death/burial to the father/mother of the child. I have seen some trees with 20 or 30 records attached most of which are not for the the subject of the Profile they are attached to.
Ancestry congratulated me today on having 7 people to my new tree. This was accompanied with digital confetti flashing on and off. I was informed that they now have enough information the send me hints. Can't wait to see these as nobody else has this information in their tree. That is one reason why I am putting the information on Ancestry.
I was also informed that "Collecting names and adding them to your tree is only the first step! There are lots of ways to grow a strong Ancestry family tree. Learn how." Apparently one can "piggy back" on other peoples' trees. Note the verb is Collecting - not Researching.
I have also noticed that pictures and coats of Arms are not turning up in my hints. Did they stop this or have I just been lucky lately?
GenLib
Canada
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Is it me or is the new addition to the hints section absolutely useless and time consuming.
Why do we have to go through those steps to check the hints when it was so simple before. ::)
I haven't noticed anything new. What precisely is different?
Pheno
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As usual, what they think is an improvement has made the whole thing worse. It takes ages to compare the hints.
I only have three very mini trees on there for other people, heaven only knows what it would be like if I had my own very big tree on the site.
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I have noticed that a lot of their hints are now name only, more so on Irish and Australian BMD records, what the heck use is a name link only without a date to go with it.
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As of today I'm now getting this message when I view a image "Does named person match the person in your tree? Yes No Maybe"
Clicking on "Yes" I get "We’re sorry. The page you tried to access is no longer available."
No and Maybe takes me to a different page which appears to have nothing to do with what I'm searched for.
I can view the image if I don't use any of the 3 options. I'm using Ancestry Library version from my local Library at home.
I don't and never have had a tree on Ancestry.
Mick
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I quite like the new way of looking at hints, as it's better than having to flick back and forth between tabs.
The problem for me is the system underpinning what hints it offers you. That's what really needs the work.
For example, it frustrates me that it seems to be prioritising American records in the hints over British ones. I can understand why it would do that potentially with new people, but when you are getting hints for an ancestor you've recorded as being born, living and dying in the UK, it's a little annoying to keep getting suggestions that they took a road trip to Texas.
The other thing that irritates me is getting records that are really not appropriate for the age of the person. For example, you have already recorded that your ancestor was born around 1802. So you end up with a load of hints for property in 1803, because someone with the same name had property. My 1 year old ancestor is not going to be paying tax in 1803.
I would also like to be able to have more control about the degree of kinship that I get hints for. I do want to see new hints for closer relatives, but I'm not massively keen to get them for 4th cousins 5 times removed. At the moment, I think your only choice is hints on or and hints off.
I think the whole system needs an overhaul before they add new features really.
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Is it me or is the new addition to the hints section absolutely useless and time consuming.
Why do we have to go through those steps to check the hints when it was so simple before. ::)
They brought this 'new' hints help feature out earlier in the year (or maybe last year) and there was a thread about it somewhere on RootsChat. However, in the middle of the discussion, the feature disappeared and I personally breathed a sigh of relief. And now, it's back!
They have also removed (again) the Name field at the top of a person's profile. This was useful if they had an alternate spelling of their name, or a nickname.
And yes, no photo hints are being included, so it really is useless and annoying.
Ms_C
(and yes, I'm not in the mood for it today as once again Toronto is on a Stay at Home rule for the next 4 weeks) :P
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I think it depends on how we address our hints.
I have a list that's much longer than I'd like. If I select a person from it and work through their individual hints, which is the way I prefer to work, I get the annoying new version. If I select a single hint from my master list of all hints, it behaves the way it has in the past.
Jane :-)
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Yes, it seems to be a complete waste of time. As Ancestry seems to be getting slower and slower, time is precisely what I do not have to spare.
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I agree, the new way of doing is of absolutely no benefit.
I'm finding the sites I started out with approx. 20 - 25 yrs ago, including scotlandspeople, keep changing simple, easy to use dashboards, making them more time consuming.
I'd like to know what benefit it is to the companies as it does nothing for the researcher.
People lying awake at night, dreaming up their next brilliant ideas which take us back beyond my 1st computer days when I knew zilch about computing but I was able to navigate the same sites with far more ease than I can now ??? ... or is it an age thing :-\
Does anyone think the changes are made because people send in their ideas on how the sites could/would work better or is it IT people who have never done genealogy research who think they know best ???
The more I age
The more I rage
What once was simple
Makes me feel 'dolly dimple'
Nothing's the same
It drives me insane ;D
Annie
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Oh now I know wat you mean as I have the new hints format now.
Dreadful, more clicks required than previously.
How do they think this is helpful?
Pheno
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I was also informed that "Collecting names and adding them to your tree is only the first step! There are lots of ways to grow a strong Ancestry family tree.
GenLib
Canada
After over 65 years of family history research I wholeheartedly agree with the above quote by Ancestry, there are many things about Ancestry I can find fault with but not that particular statement.
Unfortunately many genealogists seem to forget that finding the name is only the start of the journey, even if that name is your mother's, father's or siblings!
Cheers
Guy
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I think that, in the new hints format, if you click on View Record Page about halfway down in the new right hand column, that takes you to the old format of the record and then you can process it as previously.
The downfall is that you have to do this for each record.
Pheno
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Despite my reputation as a Luddite, I am open to change... but not this one. The new hints "management" simply can't cope with a family with children from two or more different mothers who are subsequently reported as all born by one mother.
I think the new matching application is awful and please, Ancestry, throw it back at the developers and invite them to speak to users next time.
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I agree, the new way of doing is of absolutely no benefit.
I'm finding the sites I started out with approx. 20 - 25 yrs ago, including scotlandspeople, keep changing simple, easy to use dashboards, making them more time consuming.
I'd like to know what benefit it is to the companies as it does nothing for the researcher.
People lying awake at night, dreaming up their next brilliant ideas which take us back beyond my 1st computer days when I knew zilch about computing but I was able to navigate the same sites with far more ease than I can now ??? ... or is it an age thing :-\
Does anyone think the changes are made because people send in their ideas on how the sites could/would work better or is it IT people who have never done genealogy research who think they know best ???
The more I age
The more I rage
What once was simple
Makes me feel 'dolly dimple'
Nothing's the same
It drives me insane ;D
Annie
Spot on Annie.
The IT 'spurts compete with each other to satisfy Marketing targets. Marketing is all about style and so is unable to appreciate that without substance its just an empty empty empty void. (Marketing jargon likes something said three times).
So substance is traditionally something we can physically touch, (among many other features/aspects), but now with digitisation and online presentations, substance is not relevant to the Marketeers.
So Marketeers aim their promotions at the entity paying for the 'product' at each step along the entire supply chain. The end consumer is really a very small segment along one part of that.
Cynically, whether Marketeers are promoting family history products or the latest virtual bag full of hot air, or
the best mult-billion dollar strike force aeroplane, those Marketeers rely on IT spurts to find new ways to keep the viewer experience focused on their website and not on any other website .... so basically Marketeers want to control where you spend your money and IT provides the opportunities for you to spend spend spend.
JM
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I agree, the new way of doing is of absolutely no benefit.
I'm finding the sites I started out with approx. 20 - 25 yrs ago, including scotlandspeople, keep changing simple, easy to use dashboards, making them more time consuming.
I'd like to know what benefit it is to the companies as it does nothing for the researcher.
People lying awake at night, dreaming up their next brilliant ideas which take us back beyond my 1st computer days when I knew zilch about computing but I was able to navigate the same sites with far more ease than I can now ??? ... or is it an age thing :-\
Does anyone think the changes are made because people send in their ideas on how the sites could/would work better or is it IT people who have never done genealogy research who think they know best ???
The more I age
The more I rage
What once was simple
Makes me feel 'dolly dimple'
Nothing's the same
It drives me insane ;D
Annie
Absolutely hate the new SP dashboard, takes so many extra clicks to do the search you were going to do.
Ancestry wise I'd mush rather they did something about the impossible hints, eg a voters roll entry before they were born, marriage after they died.
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It seems to me that a lot of the hints you get are a joke, in the last couple of days I have a hint for a marriage of a 1 year old boy and another for a different 1 year old on an electoral roll.
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I see Ancestry are up to their old tricks again! Now when you go to their 'hints' they've added another page so that you can't go directly to the record, you have to go to the right-hand side first!
Do you think they want us to spend more time than necessary and thus spend more money on this stupid idea?
If it ain't broke don't mend it hasn't occurred to Ancestry!
Cr
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I haven't used it for a while and going through another research phase this week - I find it very confusing.
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Exactly!
I have been trying to learn all the new idiosyncrasies of the software. When trying to include the new whole family from a UK census from the new large drop down menu, they don't seem to appear on my tree!
I am then tempted to copy the same people from another person's tree that will bypass the new system.
I really feel for all those Newbie subscribers who have yet to learn the new wrinkles and forget the years of experience.
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I think that, in the new hints format, if you click on View Record Page about halfway down in the new right hand column, that takes you to the old format of the record and then you can process it as previously.
The downfall is that you have to do this for each record.
Pheno
PHENO,
many thanks for your excellent hint VIEW RECORD PAGE [I almost missed it] to get back to the former format. What a relief, that once again I will be able to actually see the two records next to each other and to be able to make my own small tweaks and spelling corrections so that these are not endlessly perpetuated.
Mark
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It seems to me that a lot of the hints you get are a joke, in the last couple of days I have a hint for a marriage of a 1 year old boy and another for a different 1 year old on an electoral roll.
I am also seeing that Ancestry is pushing other Ancestry Trees on me as 'new hints'! Most (98%) are ones which I had already dismissed as being either redundant, useless, or just completely wrong. However, there has been the odd nugget and so I feel compelled to at least glance at them. It's not like I've anything better to do... LOL.
Cheers
Ms_C (yes, locked down again - third wave hitting Toronto VERY hard.)
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I found some are totally wrong. A child born early in 1869 had Eliza as his mother in 1871, but she wasn't his real mother. She had died in 1870 and father remarried early 1871.
I found the baptism of the child and the death of his mother on Freereg.
All trees on Ancestry have the wrong mother.
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I received a "hint" the other day - a marriage suggested for one of my female relatives. She would have been dead for years by the time that marriage took place but if she had been still alive would have been 103!
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I think that, in the new hints format, if you click on View Record Page about halfway down in the new right hand column, that takes you to the old format of the record and then you can process it as previously.
The downfall is that you have to do this for each record.
Pheno
PHENO,
many thanks for your excellent hint VIEW RECORD PAGE [I almost missed it] to get back to the former format. What a relief, that once again I will be able to actually see the two records next to each other and to be able to make my own small tweaks and spelling corrections so that these are not endlessly perpetuated.
Mark
You can also just click on the name of the record at the top of that new right hand screen. Gives you the same info as 'View Record'.
Ms_C
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It seems to me that a lot of the hints you get are a joke, in the last couple of days I have a hint for a marriage of a 1 year old boy and another for a different 1 year old on an electoral roll.
I am also seeing that Ancestry is pushing other Ancestry Trees on me as 'new hints'! Most (98%) are ones which I had already dismissed as being either redundant, useless, or just completely wrong. However, there has been the odd nugget and so I feel compelled to at least glance at them. It's not like I've anything better to do... LOL.
Cheers
Ms_C (yes, locked down again - third wave hitting Toronto VERY hard.)
You can stop receiving hints for Ancestry trees by going to your Account (drop down in top right corner under your user name) and then site preferences.
I have turned all such hints off and never receive them so it does work.
Pheno
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You can stop receiving hints for Ancestry trees by going to your Account (drop down in top right corner under your user name) and then site preferences.
I have turned all such hints off and never receive them so it does work.
Pheno
Amazing! This is a game changer - thank you for bringing this up
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You can stop receiving hints for Ancestry trees by going to your Account (drop down in top right corner under your user name) and then site preferences.
I have turned all such hints off and never receive them so it does work.
Pheno
Yes, after I posted my comment I remembered that you can turn them off. It's never bothered me before, but it just seemed to be getting a bit much! So I have just turned off 'Other Ancestry Members' so that when I see a hint, I can assume it's worth my time to review it. And I can always turn the other one on again if I want to check if I've missed anything.
Cheers
Ms_C
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If I feel I could do with seeing what someone else has on a particular person, via their tree, I simply use the search option from the top tab and use the drop down menu to select 'public member trees' for that name/place/date. A convenient box appears indicating how many trees that person is in and if you then click 'view all' you get a list of them.
Conveniently for the public trees it tells you how many records & sources these trees contain so I go to the couple or so with the highest records and sources.
It dispenses with getting every 'tree' thrown at you and generally guides you to those trees that might be worth looking at. I assume that those people who have bothered to attach records & sources are those people who do thorough research.
Pheno
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I assume that those people who have bothered to attach records & sources are those people who do thorough research.
Pheno
My feeling is that maybe they do, and maybe they don't but at least you can see what they have used as a basis for the tree.
Pauline
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Yes better said like that Pauline.
Pheno
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not sure I agree. genealogy is often about finding that nugget hidden inthe mud (and I have 12,750 unviewrd hints!!!!).
i now try once each week to virw the “past seven days” hints and save any of interest to shoebox. i only need one hont for each perso as an-aide memoir.
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If I feel I could do with seeing what someone else has on a particular person, via their tree, I simply use the search option from the top tab and use the drop down menu to select 'public member trees' for that name/place/date. A convenient box appears indicating how many trees that person is in and if you then click 'view all' you get a list of them.
Conveniently for the public trees it tells you how many records & sources these trees contain so I go to the couple or so with the highest records and sources.
It dispenses with getting every 'tree' thrown at you and generally guides you to those trees that might be worth looking at. I assume that those people who have bothered to attach records & sources are those people who do thorough research.
Pheno
Not necessarily. I have thousands of sources and only relatively recently started logging them on the my Ancestry tree relatively recently. It's a time consuming process so it will take a while to get them all on there. Also, not one of my sources is an Ancestry tree.
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'Also, not one of my sources is an Ancestry tree.'
That's good as it means that you have done your own research, which is where I'd much rather take a hint from than from a copied tree.
In terms of sources it's good that you are now attaching them retrospectively but much easier if done at the time the fact is added. Personally I would still go for the trees with attached sources as I can verify them.
Pheno
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'Also, not one of my sources is an Ancestry tree.'
That's good as it means that you have done your own research, which is where I'd much rather take a hint from than from a copied tree.
In terms of sources it's good that you are now attaching them retrospectively but much easier if done at the time the fact is added. Personally I would still go for the trees with attached sources as I can verify them.
Pheno
it would have been but still seemed like a big task at the time as when I started my ancestry account I already had boxes of sources.
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The hints themselves are the same mixture as before, with "Ancestry Trees" always being first, no matter how awful they are.
The new bit is that clicking on Hints at the top of a profile no longer takes you to the list of hints, but instead slaps a confusion over the right hand side of the window.
Personally I am in the habit of using right-click and Open-new-tab, which still works as before.
This has been introduced in order to prove that their "web designers" are doing something and thus can avoid being made redundant. It is standard in the industry to change the design of websites, with the claim that the new one is "fresh" and "modern". The sites very rarely become more usable, often losing features which users previously found essential, and making other features harder to find or use.
About 8 years ago BT changed their webmail interface twice in a year. I decided that rather than spend half a week getting my aunt familiar with the new layout and inevitably yet another one a few months later, I moved her over to an offline mail reader, which she is still happy with aged 94.