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AncestryDNA’s new BETA

Is this your tree Peter? If no, then the owner may have added these symbols into the Suffix field? The hearts to maybe denote the ancestrial line?
 
It's not my tree, it's the public tree of a distant relative. How would the tree owner have added those symbols - I can't see any easy way of adding them to my own tree? I was hoping it was a new Ancestry feature in beta test
 
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peter said:
How would the tree owner have added those symbols - I can't see any way of adding them to my own tree?
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As Tim said, it looks like the tree owner has added the symbol in the Suffix field of each direct ancestor. I hadn't seen this effect before, but I just tried it for one of my ancestors and it showed up in my tree in the way you have illustrated. It could be any symbol, not necessarily a heart or triangle. Not sure how you access symbols on a PC but they are directly available from the Character Viewer on my Mac, so easy to put into the suffix field (after last name) of the 'quick edit' window for any individual.

There may be another way of getting Ancestry to mark selected ancestors this way, other than by manually editing the Suffix field, but I can't see it at the moment. (the 'direct ancestor' tag in MyTreeTags doesn't seem to produce a symbol in tree views).
 
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peter said:
It's not my tree, it's the public tree of a distant relative. How would the tree owner have added those symbols - I can't see any easy way of adding them to my own tree? I was hoping it was a new Ancestry feature in beta test
Click to expand...

In Quick Edit, there is a suffix field. When you type ALT+3 you get a heart symbol. Make sure you have numer lock on and only use the numeric keypad.
upload_2019-5-22_15-47-29.png
 
No numeric keypad on my laptop..... but what this experience indicates is that there's an opportunity for Ancestry to make trees much more useful by indicating which relatives are in the direct line of the home person.
 
I just checked a couple of trees to which I have access and the owners there have not done this. It sounds interesting if that is what the symbols mean.
 
Tim said:
In Quick Edit, there is a suffix field. When you type ALT+3 you get a heart symbol. Make sure you have numer lock on and only use the numeric keypad.
View attachment 1583
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So that's how it's done in Windows, assuming you have a numeric keypad (doesn't apply to Mac where you can select any symbol directly). But I agree with Peter, it would be good if Ancestry could provide a way of automatically indicating direct ancestors. I notice some people put their direct ancestors in capital letters to make them stand out.
 
That feature is in FTM, but as you say not Ancestry. Personally I have used Pictures with the names of the family line in colour to denote my 4 grandparent lines. All my ancestors are coded this way

upload_2019-5-22_20-13-8.png
 
The Suffix field is intended to be used for descriptions such as Jr, III etc. But those are used so infrequently in Britain that repurposing the field seems like a good idea - provided it doesn't confuse the Ancestry system. There are plenty of symbols on a normal keyboard that could be used, eg the caret (^).

Marking relatives who emigrated would be another good use of the suffix field.
 
Helen7 said:
I notice some people put their direct ancestors in capital letters to make them stand out.
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Yes I have always used CAPS to pick out direct ancestors and find this quite sufficient. However, Tribal Pages (TP) uses a series of 6 colour tags to identify direct & bloodline relationships to me as the Home Person, or whoever I nominate as Home Person in my other Trees. Different colours to pick out ancestors and descendants. This can be very useful, including the absence of any colour where no such relationship exists.
 
Bob Spiers said:
Yes I have always used CAPS to pick out direct ancestors and find this quite sufficient. However, Tribal Pages (TP) uses a series of 6 colour tags to identify direct & bloodline relationships to me as the Home Person, or whoever I nominate as Home Person in my other Trees. Different colours to pick out ancestors and descendants. This can be very useful, including the absence of any colour where no such relationship exists.
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The important thing is for there to be consistency - if everyone has a different system then it isn't going to help other users, and could be counter-productive.

For example, I still don't know what the triangles meant in the original example - they're certainly not the direct ancestors of the home person.
 
Tim said:
I'm surprised. Not even when you have to press the Blue Fn key first?
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There is no key with Num Lock printed on it, and there are no keys which obviously double as a numeric keypad - not that I've needed them before.
 
peter said:
The important thing is for there to be consistency - if everyone has a different system then it isn't going to help other users, and could be counter-productive.
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Sorry, I am not concerned what others do in Ancestry, I just use CAPS for my direct ancestors (as do many others for that matter), which satisfies my requirements. What others do is down to them and if we wait for Ancestry to cotton on to colour coding (like Tribal Pages) or symbolic hearts and triangles, then we are in for a long wait.
 
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peter said:
There is no key with Num Lock printed on it, and there are no keys which obviously double as a numeric keypad - not that I've needed them before.
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I have not long had a session sorting out my daughter's laptop which also had no keypad, Num Lock, or the 'makeshift' DIY keypad mentioned by Tim (an abomination at best). Having to enter numeric characters a fair number of times I asked her why she chose a model without a separate keypad? Her answer "I don't need one there are numbers along the top...besides those with key pads were too big and bulky". I know when I am beaten so didn't pursue the matter further.
 
Bob Spiers said:
Sorry, I am not concerned what others do in Ancestry
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That's the sort of public-spirited response we've come to expect from you, Bob!
Bob Spiers said:
I have not long had a session sorting out my daughter's laptop which also had no keypad, Num Lock, or the 'makeshift' DIY keypad mentioned by Tim (an abomination at best). Having to enter numeric characters a fair number of times I asked her why she chose a model without a separate keypad? Her answer "I don't need one there are numbers along the top...besides those with key pads were too big and bulky"
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As someone who grew up with typewriters I'm perfectly happy using the numbers across the top - a numeric keypad would be very low on my list of priorities, especially since I'd have to put the mouse down in order to use it. The one laptop I have with a numeric keypad weights as much as the other three combined.
 
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