RootsChat.Com
General => Ancestral Family Tree DNA Testing => Topic started by: dicko99 on Monday 27 July 20 11:06 BST (UK)
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Has anyone else tried the new StoryScout feature on ancestry.com? It's at the bottom of the DNA dropdown menu but only on the .com site for now.
Both me and my partner are related to Louisa May Alcott via our completely unrelated grandparents! One as 6th cousin 4 x removed and the other as 9th cousin 2 x removed.
I guess if you go far enough back, everyone is related to everyone... :)
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Also on co.uk. Have just looked, my grandmother who spent all her life in the UK is featured in a story about being in New York.
Not sure I will be making much use of it.
Pheno
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I tried it with my grandparents but I was told that there were too many matches and they wanted to know more about them. I thought they were supposed to be telling me! All they need to do is to go to my linked tree.
I'm not very impressed. Yet another gimmick to attract the punters.
Added - switched to .com to access
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Its a gimmick but its good fun!
I'm not sure how much of it I can actually believe, though!
Apparently, on my paternal side, my 6th cousin 5x removed was Henry David Thoreau, American writer. I've heard of him but never read him. On my maternal side, apparently my 4th cousin 6x removed was James Madison, 4th President of the USA!
Its difficult to follow the trail because when I click to show the full descendancy, I can't seem to move the diagram up in order to view the whole thing. Has anyone else had that problem? or managed to overcome it?
I've certainly discovered lots of ancestors who went to the US from here (UK) but none the other way round so I'm not at all sure how these American connections can be correct.
Still, as I said, its good fun. ;D
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I don't have a drop down menu on DNA, only on Trees and Extras.
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I don't have a drop down menu on DNA, only on Trees and Extras.
I see the same as you on ancestry.co.uk but on the .com site the clicking DNA reveals a dropdown menu. It seems you can use the two sites interchangeably so that's what I do.
R.
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Its a gimmick but its good fun!
I'm not sure how much of it I can actually believe, though!
Apparently, on my paternal side, my 6th cousin 5x removed was Henry David Thoreau, American writer. I've heard of him but never read him. On my maternal side, apparently my 4th cousin 6x removed was James Madison, 4th President of the USA!
Its difficult to follow the trail because when I click to show the full descendancy, I can't seem to move the diagram up in order to view the whole thing. Has anyone else had that problem? or managed to overcome it?
I've certainly discovered lots of ancestors who went to the US from here (UK) but none the other way round so I'm not at all sure how these American connections can be correct.
Still, as I said, its good fun. ;D
I'm related to him too via another grandparent! ;)
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Just tried it via ancestry.com and got Emily Dickinson back for my Grandpa. No idea if it’s right because I haven’t got that far back but it showed the line. It may be gimmicky but it looks good fun!
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I tried it too, and guess what, I too got presented with Henry David Thoreau! Tree correct back to John Hitchcock (1700, Oxfordshire), then it goes, Elizabeth Jones - Elizabeth Graves - Mary Church - Richard Church (1608 - 1668)
Parents of John Jones I have as John & Elizabeth (no marriage), and now find a hint for an Elizabeth Jones on Elizabeth's profile - born in Herefordshire. The only Mary Church that fitted the dates and married surname, was born, married and died in the US.
On top of that, for another of my great grandparents, it gave her the wrong mother. And never picked up at all on my grandfather's relationship with Thomas Hepburn who started the Miner's Union. Not that you'd expect it to, it's clearly fixated on the States, as usual.
So appears to be absolutely useless, at least for the UK.
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Just looked up mine, and on one of my most troublesome and difficult to search lines in the poorest of the poor East London area, I'm apparently a remote cousin of someone who signed the US Constitution.
yeah, yeah
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Having read these latest posts, it seems that it is indeed centred around the USA - should have realised they will have much more American info to choose from, and not always the correct kind!
As with their Common Ancestors , Thru Lines features, its working from the same information be it right or wrong.
Treat it as a bit of fun and no more! Been there, done that...
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And to work up and down the pop-ups, use the tab for the one to add extra information on your grandparents, and the up and down arrows to look at the so-called connections
And do use the menu top right on the stories - I've reported all mine as inaccurate!
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One of my grandfathers appears to have had a secret marriage to unknown lady and then also secretly died in the US before coming back to the UK to die again. ::) ::) Why can't Ancestry spend their time and money on developing something useful?
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I don't have a drop down menu on DNA, only on Trees and Extras.
I see the same as you on ancestry.co.uk but on the .com site the clicking DNA reveals a dropdown menu. It seems you can use the two sites interchangeably so that's what I do.
R.
Cheers. Doesn't sound like I'm missing out on anything much but I'll give it a go.
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Thanks for posting this its been fun exploring it.
Started with my paternal grandmother and they had problems initially which is not surprising as her mother was adopted so you need to know the change of name.
Her husband was a bit easier and it took me to his grandfather as his grave is on findagrave. Yes they got it right and all his details :). Also some American women's rights person in the 19th century is my x times cousin ???
Then tried my maternal grandmother and found her and apparently she is related to "Jack London" the author
Finally tried my paternal grandfather. Eventually found him, they have him married to the wrong woman. They do say that via one of his ancestors a long way back i can trace a connection to Andrew Jackson US President but given they can not get his wife right I'll take that with a pinch of salt.
My overall opinion is, it is a bit of fun but they should have a facility whereby you can tell them when they have got something demonstrably wrong.
Oh and I don't like that you have to sign up for it, i didn't bother to find out the cost ::)
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Either nothing or some graves on Find A Grave of people with the same name.
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Why can't Ancestry spend their time and money on developing something useful?
What can be more useful than a tool to find if you're distantly related by marriage several times to some obscure historical person?
A chromosome browser - surely not?
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Just an update to say when I used the story scout I encountered problems with two of my grandparents and the information returned. I reported this to Ancestry who have investigated and found a likely cause of the problem. The Ancestry assistant said they are taking all feedback on this new tool and looking at ways to improve it.
So I guess if you do have a problem using storyscout it may well be worth reporting it so they can investigate and hopefully make the tool more robust and practical in the future.
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Another update.
Getting rather tired of having to log in to Ancestry.com to see StoryScout i sent them a message asking why it was not available on Ancestry.co.uk. This is the reply i got
"Thank you for contacting Ancestry in regards to accessing StoryScout.
We do apologize for any confusion this may have caused and are happy to help. We understand that you are able to access Storyscout on the US site but not on the UK site. Unfortunately StoryScout is still a new feature we are testing out and is currently only available to US members. Hopefully this will be something we offer to our international customers in the future and we will definitely leave feedback on your behalf."
So who knows maybe we will get it in the future on Ancestry.co.uk
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.... but are we sure we really want it?
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I am disappointed as well. My maternal line goes back 400 years in the USA and they came up with nothing i didn't already have. My paternal line goes back 170 years in the USA (immigrated from UK); again, there was almost nothing new.
Ancestry did include some period pictures of the times, which are worthless.
:(
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Gimmicky nonsense that invents stories about your British relatives, placing them in the USA.
Clearly aimed only at US nationals.