Ancestry London Baptisms

[Cockneyrebel]

Have you seen the latest changes to the above? Where there used to be a proper alpha numeric reference number like P/.... now it's 2 long numbers as: Reference Number   2678056 and Additional Reference Number   666124.
Also the baptism place is longer as in: 'West Hackney Church, West Hackney: Stoke Newington Road, Hackney, Hackney, England'; wouldn't it have been easier and shorter to say 'West Hackney Church, Stoke Newington Road, Hackney.'
Why do they need : when a comma will do?
Cr

[AllanUK]

''Why do they need : when a comma will do?''

Because that's just what Ancestry do (they are an American company after all )

[Pheno]

Another niggle about Ancestry that I have noticed recently is the new banner on the home page, below the blue banner, which relates to Common Ancestors.

Why do I want these details here, when all have the DNA match icon attached, meaning that I have incorporated them into my tree.  Seems unnecessary overkill to me.

Pheno

[Cockneyrebel]

I think that Ancestry's pages are created by computer programmers not family tree researchers as most of their records are over long and they desire you to waste more time researching than is necessary.
Cr

[Alexander.]

Ancestry is organising the records by borough in the way that the London Archives does. See the catalogue for West Hackney Church:
https://search.lma.gov.uk/LMA_DOC/P79_WH.PDF

The title:

THE LONDON ARCHIVES
WEST HACKNEY CHURCH, WEST HACKNEY: STOKE NEWINGTON ROAD, HACKNEY
P79/WH

I'm afraid to say the London Archives also uses a colon, rather than a comma. So it is the London Archives, not Ancestry, nor the Americans, who are to blame for this. You could perhaps write to the London Archives about their disagreeable use of punctuation.

I believe the London Archives uses somewhat redundant names and addresses for their churches because there were an awful lot of churches in close proximity that need to be clearly distinguished from one another.

Click the Source tab on the record of interest and you can still see the old reference (P79/WH/001).

[Cockneyrebel]

Thank you Alexander. very interesting and a helpful way of finding the original alpha numeric references.

[Cockneyrebel]

Alexander I can't find the original ref on the source tab?
Cr

[AlanBoyd]

Are they perhaps using the colon to separate two different fields of information – before the colon, name and parish; after the colon, an address? That would make it easier for a computer to use the two pieces of info for different tasks?

[Cockneyrebel]

Alan Boyd Are we concerned about the computer's tasks or the researcher's? Seems Ancestry is more concerned with computer programming rather than ft researchers.
btw found the source ref Alexander.