RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Zaphod99 on Thursday 03 July 25 12:25 BST (UK)
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I recently had an email from them asking for ideas for enhancements and suggestions. If anyone posts any suggestions here over the next three or four days, I will submit them.
Keep it clean, folks!
Zaph
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Stop constantly changing things.
Stop the constant (identical) offers to have my DNA tested - they seem to come in several times a week - I’m not intrested.
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Stop presuming that everywhere is America.
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As an ex-IT Professional, Why can't the Ancestry software detect that I am in UK (OK! Isle of Man for the pedants :D ), and offer me British Isles records rather than all the US rubbish?
Snap! Nanna52!
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Let us dismiss Hints, when they are clearly for the wrong person on the tree
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Let us dismiss Hints, when they are clearly for the wrong person on the tree
I echo this, it causes so much frustration and waste of time.
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On a constructive note it would be good to stop the use of nom de plumes/nicknames/initials as usernames within the sphere of DNA. Having a proper name might enable more matching to be done - although I think this would be pretty difficult to police. People must have to register with a proper name for payment purposes I assume.
Pheno
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That is clearly desirable, but remember that some people have secrets that they wouldn't want to even hint that, especially if the person who had been tested is in the public eye.
Zaph
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But surely such people wouldn't or shouldn't take a DNA test other than for medical reasons and those results wouldn't be posted on a public site like Ancestry.
What is the point of Ancestry DNA if it doesn't enable one to find family?
Pheno
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add a function to allow upload of DNA data, as most other system do
also add an option to exclude search results that link to external paid/subscription sites, e.g. Fold3, Newspapers etc
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1. Start over with their indexing, particularly of locations. Present system is beyond repair.
2. Eliminate at least 50% of hints, which are obviously wrong. These are pernicious, as all too many people accept them as correct, leading to a negative feedback loop where Ancestry then points to the accepted material in family trees as further proof, and so on.
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Get rid of hints and Thrulines - one mistake by someone and it all goes to pot.
Drop the price, considerably.
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Don’t give me hints to my own tree!
It does know! And what is with this download the tree message?!
When it’s MY tree …as it says
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I get them them frequently and it's a waste of time, saying something is pointless, eg traits and they dump five new ones on you. Suggest an improvement and it's filtered to their 'don't be stupid' box.
There's no reason to give us yet another way to group matches but fear not, the flawed clusters system is on the way and the 6 month rollout is for users to test it for them and pay for the privilege of doing so.
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Allow us to get rid of obviously wrong "Common Ancestors" suggestions - one of mine, they tried to conflate a cowman from Oxfordshire with a French polisher from London, because they had the same name.
Realise that Isabella is not the same name as Elizabeth. And that sisters are not duplicates of each other. And that Cambridgeshire is not part of Northamptonshire!
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I agree with all of the above suggestions. I have been a subscriber to Ancestry for over 20 years and I VERY rarely use it now family tree purposes (fed up with useless suggestions) -- I use it for WW1 military records that are not on other sites.
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I get them them frequently and it's a waste of time, saying something is pointless, eg traits and they dump five new ones on you. Suggest an improvement and it's filtered to their 'don't be stupid' box.
There's no reason to give us yet another way to group matches but fear not, the flawed clusters system is on the way and the 6 month rollout is for users to test it for them and pay for the privilege of doing so.
Ha ha!! My suggestion was to suggest they cease asking me for suggestions!!
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I'd really like a proper chromosome browser
I'd also like my list of DNA matches to show how many shared matches I have with each one so that I can quickly see that if someone has no shared matches and no tree there's little chance of any useful information and I can skip to the next.
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Hint - right click Dismiss.
Searching - include more Filtering options, i.e. specific Town/City set a radius in miles for the results.
Fix - Adjacent Counties, it does not work effectively.
User Names - to be Birth Names.
All user Family Trees to include a Pedigree Family to at least Grandparent level (if known), they could make it mandatory by not saving until all 13 fields are filled in.
Newspapers and Fold 3 records to be included with standard Subscription.
DNA specific:-
Pro Tools - standard and not chargeable.
User Names to be actual Birth Name.
Chromosome Browser.
More effective DNA tools as per Gedmatch.
DNA test results assignable to more than one Family Tree.
Grouping presets to be available for each Great Grandparent by menu selection.
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User Names - to be Birth Names.
All user Family Trees to include a Pedigree Family to at least Grandparent level (if known), they could make it mandatory by not saving until all 13 fields are filled in.
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DNA specific:-
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User Names to be actual Birth Name.
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Some people like their privacy. If I was forced to use my birth name as a username on Ancestry I wouldn't have joined... although how exactly would this be enforced?
With more and more data breaches (if they can get M&S then nobody is safe) I'd rather limit the amount of personal data I put online. Linking my real life name and details to my family history and putting that online is not something I'd consider wise in this day and age.
Likewise, if I uploaded my DNA profile to a website then it wouldn't be attached to my real name.
The compulsory family tree stuff would also put me off. I'm more than happy with bits of family trees starting several generations back. I've no wish to include myself, siblings and parents and am happy to have my identity somewhat obscured by being only one out of many descendents among my generation. I might also start a tree of someone not directly related to me, so I'm not going to include myself in that because it would be plain wrong.
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User Names - to be Birth Names.
All user Family Trees to include a Pedigree Family to at least Grandparent level (if known), they could make it mandatory by not saving until all 13 fields are filled in.
I have more than a dozen trees on Ancestry. Some are family, some are for friends, some are for clients (I do genealogical research for other people!)
Quite honestly - it's an absurd idea! :D
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The privacy angle Ancestry constantly use as the reason for not implementing features doesn't really work though.
John may have tested 5 years ago, looked at the results and has never logged in since. Fast forward to today, the results for Mary go live but she can't check them immediately.
Meantime I see her as a new match, check the shared match situation and John is predicted as her half sibling. Neither John or Mary have any idea the other exists and have yet to see the results so they are clueless, I'm the first to see the revelation because I have paid for protools.
Somehow that isn't 'private enough' to be a concern but a few cM of dna on a segment from a long gone ancestor is sufficiently private it means no chromo browser.
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Reply #10
Start over with their indexing, particularly of locations. Present system is beyond repair.
Examples:
The naming of some British county record sets is not correct because Ancestry has no clue about the major changes in 1974, so it uses new county names as if they were historic names - e.g. Cumbria. The indexers seem to have used a modern gazetteer to index historic places. Some counties retained a historic name but are geographically very different, e.g. Lancashire is much smaller.
There is confusion about the county for some parish records that Ancestry obtained from a County Record Office which also acts as a Diocesan Record Office, for a diocese which has parishes in two counties.
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Most of these ideas for improvement are very good and, in some cases, very overdue, and if we were dealing with a genealogy company it would be worthwhile sending them in, but by my reckoning Ancestry haven't been that for at least ten years now. These days they are a money making enterprise that leverages a very large database of genealogical records to extract cash from us. They masquerade as genealogy experts but it is clear from their responses to errors in indexing and in particular place names that they have no interest in actually getting things right.
I use to fill in those beta test questionnaires and have reported numerous place name errors, nothing has ever been fixed, nor do i expect it to be now.
Meanwhile we just have to bumble along with what they choose to dole out to us for an ever increasing amount of money, because, let's face it, none of the other genealogical companies can compete with the data they have.
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Trying to pick an alternative to Ancestry is like trying to choose a toilet at Glastonbury.
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Trying to pick an alternative to Ancestry is like trying to choose a toilet at Glastonbury.
Glen, that's a brilliant analogy - really made me laugh.
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Seems to me that there is a fundamental misunderstanding at work here.
Ancestry are not looking for suggestions that involve improving/fixing their product that would involve extra expenditure (for no extra return).
The improvements they are looking for are to their profit margin and income stream.
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Trying to pick an alternative to Ancestry is like trying to choose a toilet at Glastonbury.
Glen, that's a brilliant analogy - really made me laugh.
Or to quote an ex-colleague, after putting down the ‘phone to somebody - “Talking to him is like talking to a bag of sprouts.”
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Seems to me that there is a fundamental misunderstanding at work here.
Ancestry are not looking for suggestions that involve improving/fixing their product that would involve extra expenditure (for no extra return).
The improvements they are looking for are to their profit margin and income stream.
I totally agree!!
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Have a good clean out of all the 'empty accounts'. ie those that have no tree or DNA results. I know of people who have joined umpteen times for the free weekend etc- under different names and not used them again once the offer runs out.
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Have a good clean out of all the 'empty accounts'. ie those that have no tree or DNA results. I know of people who have joined umpteen times for the free weekend etc- under different names and not used them again once the offer runs out.
BUT not all of us who have Ancestry accounts WANT to put our trees onto Ancestry, nor do some of us WANT or feel the need to do DNA tests. OH and I have had a basic Ancestry UK account for a large number of years AND what we do with it is entirely up to us. :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X
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Have a good clean out of all the 'empty accounts'. ie those that have no tree or DNA results. I know of people who have joined umpteen times for the free weekend etc- under different names and not used them again once the offer runs out.
BUT not all of us who have Ancestry accounts WANT to put our trees onto Ancestry, nor do some of us WANT or feel the need to do DNA tests. OH and I have had a basic Ancestry UK account for a large number of years AND what we do with it is entirely up to us. :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X
Completely agree. The idea of the thread is about ideas to improve Ancestry. There's a bit too much desire to have things removed that people don't personally like, without thinking how other people want or need to use the site.
Likewise, folk perhaps don't understand if Ancestry doesn't make a profit it eventually won't exist. If it doesn't exist then we'll all (those of us who use it) be worse off. I don't see nationalisation of Ancestry happening anytime soon - so it has to operate commercially.
I also don't understand how an account which doesn't contain a tree or DNA results can have an adverse impact on any other individual?
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Have a good clean out of all the 'empty accounts'. ie those that have no tree or DNA results. I know of people who have joined umpteen times for the free weekend etc- under different names and not used them again once the offer runs out.
BUT not all of us who have Ancestry accounts WANT to put our trees onto Ancestry, nor do some of us WANT or feel the need to do DNA tests. OH and I have had a basic Ancestry UK account for a large number of years AND what we do with it is entirely up to us. :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X :-X
Completely agree. The idea of the thread is about ideas to improve Ancestry. There's a bit too much desire to have things removed that people don't personally like, without thinking how other people want or need to use the site.
Likewise, folk perhaps don't understand if Ancestry doesn't make a profit it eventually won't exist. If it doesn't exist then we'll all (those of us who use it) be worse off. I don't see nationalisation of Ancestry happening anytime soon - so it has to operate commercially.
I also don't understand how an account which doesn't contain a tree or DNA results can have an adverse impact on any other individual?
Those of us who have had our DNA tested have thousands of DNA matches that are nearly impossible to ID due to no trees and a user name that means zilch.
Having these useless DNA matches clogs up the system.
What is totally inconsiderate is for people to invoke the Privacy rubbish as their get out.
If you do not want to be Identified then make your Family Tree Private.
If you do not want your DNA results visible to others then make them Private.
Your Privacy concerns are then as good as it gets.
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Those of us who have had our DNA tested have thousands of DNA matches that are nearly impossible to ID due to no trees and a user name that means zilch.
Having these useless DNA matches clogs up the system.
What is totally inconsiderate is for people to invoke the Privacy rubbish as their get out.
If you do not want to be Identified then make your Family Tree Private.
If you do not want your DNA results visible to others then make them Private.
Your Privacy concerns are then as good as it gets.
On the contrary - the information would only be 'private' up to the moment in time someone manages to breach Ancestry's security. It isn't like a data breach of a company holding this kind of information hasn't happened before -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4grggw4n56o
And 'It can't happen to us' is so out of date.
The problem you have with excess matches could be resolved by having the filter tools to exclude results where there is no tree and/or a lack of contact information. And/or defaulting accounts to private. There's no need to risk breaching other people's privacy to achieve what you'd like.
If someone sets up an account without contact information and with a random username I'd take it as a strong hint they don't want you contacting them... and that if you did manage to make contact with them the contact wouldn't be very productive.
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My original idea when I started this thread was to wait a few days and then consolidate all the suggestions and send them to Ancestry.
The response has been much greater than I anticipated, so I cannot spend the time consolidating everything, but I will forward this thread link to Ancestry and leave it open so that people can add to it in the future.
Perhaps just one or two of the suggestions might get listened to.
Zaph
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This is my Ancestry wishlist from a point of view of ease of implementation, obviously Chromosome Browser is no. 1 on everyone's list but would require a lot of screen development, this list is more the things they could give us fairly easily.
1. Segment data download - simple download of zip file containing the matching segments between dna matches.
2. Triangulation - show which Shared Matches actually triangulate.
2b. Include triangulation segment data in 1.
3. Admit that outside of the USA the place name database is a total mess and start fixing it.
Adding Parish Names, Township Names and Registration District Names would be a good place to start.
4. More fully integrate the DNA and Tree data sets so that for example the normal (and quite good) search function could be filtered by dna matches.
This would allow more complex searches than just surname and location to be carried out on the trees of dna matches.
5. Add the ability to save the searches for future use.
6. Add logic functions to the filtering of dna matches. Give us AND, OR, NOT and brackets so that we just see the matches we want to. Admittedly this would be more work than the others but would be really useful.
The real improvement I'd like to see is stop treating everybody the same, make all the limits they hard code in be changeable so that they can be adjusted to suit our particular needs. Oh and stop making it so easy to add the wrong data to peoples trees, not sure how to do this though.
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I don't do DNA, so most of that last list are useless for me! ;D
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I don't do DNA, so most of that last list are useless for me! ;D
Me, three!!!! ;D
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Me also - always thought DNA stood for something else!
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I don't do DNA, so most of that last list are useless for me! ;D
Well we'll all have our own lists I suppose, but can I ask why not ?
As soon as I read about it, a lot of years ago now, I thought it would be just the thing. My tree had got moribund and hadn't changed for years, I got dna tested as soon as it became affordable for me and it's been marvelous. I've pushed back my tree in many branches, confirmed and dismissed many other branches and given me the chance to break down my two big brick walls.
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It's getting off topic from my thread, but I will add that I can't believe that anybody with an advanced interest in family history does not do a DNA test. It is a challenge, interpreting and understanding the large wealth of data that you are given, but I can't think that anybody would fail to get a lot out of seeing their results, and I mean just the matches not the ethnicity stuff. The prices have plummeted and anyone not having their DNA tested is just missing out on a major part of a wonderful hobby. It's like having both eyes open after years of squinting.
Zaph
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I don't do DNA, so most of that last list are useless for me! ;D
Well we'll all have our own lists I suppose, but can I ask why not ?
As soon as I read about it, a lot of years ago now, I thought it would be just the thing. My tree had got moribund and hadn't changed for years, I got dna tested as soon as it became affordable for me and it's been marvelous. I've pushed back my tree in many branches, confirmed and dismissed many other branches and given me the chance to break down my two big brick walls.
I have a well-documented paper trail, back to 1550!
I have no need to spend my pension on DNA.
The only DNA my family has done are some zygosity tests to prove that:
1) my daughters are genetically identical twins,
2) my granddaughters are genetically identical twins.
No need to test my brother and I as we are fraternal twins!
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DNA testing can take the fun out of research -- not everyone wants to 'press a button' and build a tree. Often traditional research comes up with information nuggets of gold that have been added to a parish register after the original entry. A good example of this was a great aunt, born out of wedlock, the baptism transcription gave the mother's name, occupation and abode but no father. Eventually found the baptism record and a note in the margin (written in a different hand) gave the father's name, occupation and abode.
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DNA testing can take the fun out of research -- not everyone wants to 'press a button' and build a tree. Often traditional research comes up with information nuggets of gold that have been added to a parish register after the original entry. A good example of this was a great aunt, born out of wedlock, the baptism transcription gave the mother's name, occupation and abode but no father. Eventually found the baptism record and a note in the margin (written in a different hand) gave the father's name, occupation and abode.
The existence of that document is not reliant on dna technology but without dna there is no way to know if the father's name is correct.
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I never said that the additional entry was DNA related. The named father was actually a young man that lived next door to the mother. As other posts have stated, DNA testing is not for every FT researcher.
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DNA testing can take the fun out of research -- not everyone wants to 'press a button' and build a tree. Often traditional research comes up with information nuggets of gold that have been added to a parish register after the original entry. A good example of this was a great aunt, born out of wedlock, the baptism transcription gave the mother's name, occupation and abode but no father. Eventually found the baptism record and a note in the margin (written in a different hand) gave the father's name, occupation and abode.
I don't think of it as an either/or situation. It's another (very powerful) tool in the toolbox to be used in conjunction with all the other tools. It's my electric screwdriver not my magic wand, very useful when used correctly, but it's not going to do the work for you.
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I researched for 15 years and built a tree of 9000.
Then I took a DNA test and half the tree is not my Biological Family.
So bury your anti DNA heads in the sand believing that you have an accurate Family Tree if that is what you desire but your Family Tree will not necessarily represent your Biological family.
DNA is NOT a click and populate a Family Tree method, if anything it requires far more of an understanding of Genealogy and a lot of detective work.
You simply cannot rely on Certificates, citations and family folklore, that will only give you a Family Tree that may or may not be correct, I cannot as the Father shown on my own UK Birth Certificate is not my Biological Father.
Only when you have validated beyond each Great Grandparent into their lines via DNA can you then believe that you have a Biological Family Tree.
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The named father was actually a young man that lived next door to the mother.
I apologise having any doubts in the face of such undeniable evidence.
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Seems to me that there is a fundamental misunderstanding at work here.
Ancestry are not looking for suggestions that involve improving/fixing their product that would involve extra expenditure (for no extra return).
The improvements they are looking for are to their profit margin and income stream.
OK then: Sack 75% of your staff, increase prices by 100% and use AI for everythng done by humans now*
*Warning: I can't guarantee any of this will have the desired effect...
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After umpteen years of subscribing to Ancestry, and at times being very grateful to the information/ contacts on there, then I have paid a great deal over the decades - a discount for loyalty, or special access to something abroad that I've only got a very small interest in, would be good.
I keep thinking of ending my subscription, but don't ... just in case!
Inertia rules, okay?
TY