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Beware the dangers of the new Ancestry Website

RogerB

RogerB

New Member
Last night I clicked on a new link showing on my Ancestry home page promising me an exciting new way of presenting my family tree, with features including a new timeline for my ancestors bringing them to life! I have over 1,000 ancestors on four trees that make up the complete picture of my family, paternal and maternal of both my wife's and my branches, and I opened just two individuals to view this latest feature.

In one tree my paternal grandfather, who has never been out of England, was married at the Parish Church of St Philip, Lambeth. This new wonder tool has “read” this marriage entry (with certificate attached) and announced that he was married in Parish, Georgia. Each sector of the timeline has an edit facility, so I immediately corrected this, and then moved on to look at another ancestor on another tree.

My wife’s great uncle, who was shot down and killed in combat on 1st June 1918 over Metz, France, was shown as serving in Metz, Missouri. I don’t believe the Western Front ever extended that far west!

This seems to be a classic example of a notion held in the US that the world begins and ends at its own continental boundaries. I am registered with the UK version of Ancestry, yet it still assumes that all entries default to the US rather than the UK. It seems the Boston Tea Party is still raging at Ancestry HQ!

I truely believed that years of research had been destroyed by a single thoughtless click of a switch. Thankfully I have been pointed to the solution. Clicking on the down arrow next to my member profile name in the top right corner brings up "Old Ancestry" as an option. By clicking on that, all my data has been restored in its old format.

My suggestion is to only try the new site if you are absolutely sure that you have the relevant country showing on every entry for every person in you tree, otherwise, leave well alone. However, the time will probably come when the old site is switched off, so be prepared!
 
Very instructive Roger and am pleased I was away from home when I read the email from Ancestry proclaiming their new Website. I would have taken -and possibly even will take -a peek at the new set up, but from the picture you paint it may possibly just be a peek, and it sounds as though I will stay with "Old Ancestry" which I know and quite enjoy with its warts and all.

Ancestry mixing up American addresses with British has been commented on before in the Forum, including by me reporting on Trees in which like ancestors to my own show a place of birth as Birmingham, Alabama instead of the British city it should obviously have been. Often this is caused by the Tree owner not overriding the US default and clicking on the down arrow to ensure it reads Birmingham, England. It's a classic case of give (Ancestry) an inch and they will take a US yard.
 
I started an Ancestry(private)tree years ago but decided not to maintain it. So although it remains on there it is only direct ancestry and unnamed living folk. Out of curiousity I decided to have a look at the new tree. I was quite impressed with some of the new features,paricularly the timeline. However I was dismayed to see that my father's place of birth was recorded as Manchester,JAMAICA, when all other facts/details including his baptism are based in Manchester,Lancashire,ENGLAND !?
I always assumed the incorrect geographical entries were due to members careless clicking of the wrong entry of the suggested list. My father's details are okay as entered by myself on the old Ancestry tree,along with the rest of the Lancashire family,so it would seem to be an Ancestry website mistake/assumption.
 
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Bob Spiers said:
It's a classic case of give (Ancestry) an inch and they will take a US yard.
Click to expand...
In common parlance they think a "yard" is a place where you hold a sale of unwanted household goods or NIMBY ( as in" that's a great philanthropic idea but 'not in my back yard' "). I get a chuckle from the fact that when Americans venture to the Great White North (aka as Canada) they are immediately faced with km, deg.C and price per litre for the petroleum product we both call gas(oline). Weights and measures are a mind boggling subject.
I too am incensed by the new addresses at Ancestry and their insistence on logging me into Ancestry.ca if I am not paying attention. It's a pity because the new layout is generally easier on the eye.
 
That's interesting - I switched to the new Ancestry and haven't noticed any issues like that with my tree - and I have ancestors spread through the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia and at no point has Ancestry overwritten my information to put my Ancestors into the US. Could it have something to do with whether or not your location includes the country? I edit all my location information to remove addresses and items such as "at res of such and such", moving those details to the description, mainly because it creates issues in FTM syncing, so all of my locations read - city, county/state, country; i.e. Newport, Monmouthshire/Gwent, Wales, rather than just having "Newport" as the location, because that could give rise to issues with whether or not the Newport referred to is in the UK, Australia or the United States!
 
I always state city/town,county,England*,rather than the sometimes weird offerings from Ancestry. This applies to FTM also.

* never Great Britain or U.K.
 
My family tree on Ancestry is now looking dreadful, and I am distressed at what Ancestry have done to it. I've been researching for 15 years and strive for accuracy. Thanks to the new-look timeline on my tree, apparently a family member who died in Suffolk (the actual index ref. record is attached) in England, is on the time line of his sister (my mother) as having died in Suffolk, Virginia. Similarly, my great grandfather died in Westminster in London (record attached), but he too was recorded as having died in a U.S. state. Having plucked up the courage to look at my tree again today, I notice that they are giving alternate facts on the timeline which have been taken from census data. So, although I have a birth certificate, and have the date and place of birth on my tree, this is now followed by several alternate dates, and wrong spellings of places - all taken from the various census. Do they have genealogists working on this? surely they should know the inaccuracy of the census data. I had put in my own timeline, so you can imagine what with my own entries plus the Ancestry additions it is looking an utter mess. Have other members been finding similar problems with their own trees?
 
jorghes said:
Could it have something to do with whether or not your location includes the country?
Click to expand...
Almost certainly that will be the cause and I have to admit -hands up - I was as guilty as any at the commencement of my Ancestry trawling, to just stating (for instance) Birmingham and not bothering with a country. In my eyes Ancestors born in England, married in England , dying in England (Census extracts for England) did not suddenly transport themselves to the USA; or if they did it would be recorded. I was inexperienced and blissfully unaware that Ancestry MIGHT 'second guess' the country (with US bias) if a country was not stated.

THEN ONE DAY I came across another researcher - with common ancestors to my own and with whom I was communicating via Ancestry message - and with amusement noticed the ancestor was recorded as being born in Birmingham, Alabama and mentioned this. The reaction was "stupid Ancestry, they must know I meant England, its plain enough for everyone to see". I even agreed at the time but became aware it might have happened to me along the way and I began to look out for such things and yes, make corrections. From that day forward -with the occasional slip up through inattention - I made the point of adding the country or more likely selecting the correct entry from the drop down box. If you fail to do this then yes, Ancestry might well assume you ACCEPT the default entry which almost certainly will be the same named US equivalent. A case of once bitten twice shy so whilst I now know to check, it was not always so and this, I'm sure is how it happens.
 
OK Bob and several others preceeding. Wrists well and truly slapped! Thinking back, there must have been quite a few isolated instances of the US default popping up from the shaky leaf hints which I have immediately corrected as my trees expanded. However, there are other entries found from other sources that I have put in myself without taking due care, such as the story of the RAF observer shot down over Metz in 1918, taken from my own family documents. I never thought that this could have happened in Missouri! It's taken this expansion of timelines on the new site to flag up all the omissions, and I've now started the long process of checking every ancestor entry for country. It won't be done overnight (about 300 individuals done so far, only another 1400 or so to go!) but I know that, despite my initial feelings of despair, the damage wasn't permanent and it is a lesson well learned. Thank you to all who have responded.
 
I just looked at my private tree on the new Ancestry and it looks really good. As far as I can tell, everyone is still born, married and died in the right country, but then I've always made an effort to record the country (partic. as emjay says, using England, Scotland etc not UK or Great Britain). My only grumble (so far) is use of the word 'passed away' instead of died. It simply sounds wrong, partic. for people who died hundreds of years ago. Does anyone know if it's possible to change the wording? I certainly don't have 'pass away' in the tree I put on ancestry.
 
It only seems to be the parents that "passed away". All other relations died.
 
Even when a fact has been correctly attributed to a UK address Ancestry continues to incorrectly state the location. My father died in Whipps Cross hospital, Leytonstone, UK but the "calculated" fact on my "life story" tells me he died in Cross, Arkansas. I corrected the fact on my father's timeline and that now shows correctly but the fact on my timeline still shows Arkansas.
 
Norman. The thing I've learned over the last couple of days is to leave the town/county/country alone as shown on BMD and Census indexes (always using England rather than UK), then put in details such as hospital name in the comments section. By my trying to be too specific, my grandfather came to be married in Parish, Georgia, rather than the Parish Church in Lambeth!
 
So far I haven't come across any misplaced towns but I haven't looked at much on the new Ancestry. From what has been said on another site, it is the relatives details in the timelines that have this problem.

I have to admit that I don't like the new profiles with all the other family members births and deaths listed there and was so relieved when someone on another site told me how to turn off the Family Events and Historical Highlights. Now the layout is almost the same as the old Ancestry, which I can work with.

Am I the only person who doesn't like these new features? I have no intention of using the Lifestory section and the only images I have in the Gallery are censuses etc that I've attached form Ancestry's databases.


Whatever we think of the new layout, we don't have much choice. They will get rid of the old layout at some point soon.
 
I've just gone back to the old tree for all the reasons stated above. Also, I noticed that for one of my ancestors, whose birth and christening I have, along with the Ancestry showing the correct birth two other alternative births have been added, using the age given from census data. Fortunately over the years I have corrected the census information regarding place of birth, but I obviously missed one, as for the ancestor in my example above, who was from Butterleigh, Devon it has been suggested as an alternative that he was born in Briterly (I've now corrected that). Another thing that upset me was not being able to find the comments section on my new tree. For things like newspaper reports when there were just too many words to fit into the allocated space, I would start off with the basic details in the custom event box, and then add "see comments", and I would know the full report would be there in the comments section. Perhaps I have been using it wrongly, but it worked for me. I have spent a long time making my tree as accurate and as full of known facts as possible (I've been researching, and an Ancestry member, for over 15 year now). I felt it was my tree and I was able to use whatever wording I wanted, but it seems not. I am so upset and feel as if I have been wasting my time.
 
Have you saved a gedcom of your 'old' tree? You could always use alternative family tree software instead of or in addition to your Ancestry tree. Sorry you feel its been a waste of time :-(
 
It looks like your only option would be to convert all your 'comments' to 'stories', which are still there on the new Ancestry, in the Gallery section of the profile.



I have finally looked properly at the Lifestory section and found those American place name substitutes. Since I don't intend ever to bother with that section it won't affect me personally.

Using the Facts section with Family Events and Historical Insights hidden results in almost the same layout as the old Ancestry profiles. That's the way I shall use the new Ancestry once the old version is turned off. I can still click on the source icon for each event and reach the transcription and image as with the old layout so the way I use Ancestry won't be affected very much.
 
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