Introducing the new Family View (BETA)


We’re excited today to introduce a new view option for your family tree. This new “family” view shows up to two generations of ancestors and two generations of descendants for the focus person.

Also new for us on the technology side is our use of Flash to create this view, which makes it nice because you can drag the viewport around and also zoom in or out to get a better look at a single person, or at the entire window.

To check it out in your own tree, go to the family tree tab (where you normally see the pedigree view) and select the “family (beta)” link.

We’re still in “beta” on this, which means it mostly works, but there are still a few things we’re working on to polish it up. If you notice something not working well, please be patient as we finish up, but also please feel free to let us know how this view is going to work out for you. Add a comment to this blog, or if you prefer, send me a quick email (kfreestone at tgn.com).

(01.04.08 update: Wow! thanks for all the comments and feedback. This is very helpful. There are two issues widely reported that we’d like to give an update on: First, for some customers the printer-friendly button on the 5 generation pedigree view has disappeared. We have a fix for this and plan to roll it to the site shortly. Second, for some users the photos are too big and cover the text. This we’re still working on, but hope to have a fix soon. Our apologies for this inconvenience. Thanks for your patience! –Kenny)

(01.09.08 update:  The two issues mentioned above have now been fixed–sorry for the long wait.  We look forward to adding more of the features you mention.  We’re listening and excited about what comes next.  –Kenny)

family view

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Reader Comments

I like this Beta version of my tree. Hope it is taken to a full programme.

REAL SURPRIZE WHEN I LOGGED ON TODAY. FAMILY BETA LOOKS GREAT. WILL ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO ADD MORE PHOTOS. HOPE IT MAKES IT TO A FULL PART OF THE SITE.

What a great addition. I hope that it becomes a permanent fixture. Keep up the good work!

This looks look a great addition. I’m new to Ancestry.com, so having a bit of trouble keeping up with all the changes in the 2 weeks I’ve belonged. But I’ll adjust.
Request: Please provide a “Printer Friendly” selection for the Family View and the other one (Family breakdown), as you have for the Family Tree. I need to be able to print information. Thanks

Wow! The Family View looks to be a great addition! I have been hoping something like this would be released, well done!

How do you get to this page? Sorry to be so dumb.

I think this is great except when my grandmother is the center person…I am not shown and I am the home person/owner of the tree!

I think it ia a much better version.
It is easy to look at. I have only
been doing my family tree a few months. I hope this new addition will be a success

Thank you! I have had to draw my own tree in Visio unti now to keep track of the different family relationships. What a relief.

Great addition, pleaseant surprise. Would be good if Child Last name defaulted to Father’s name when editing, then could change it if necessasry(in the minority of cases)

It would be nice if you allowed users to set the number of generations they would like to view at once (ie 5, 10, 20, infinity). A desendency tree would be nice too.

I really like the BETA Family view. However, I would like to see an option that allows me to float sibling or children information boxes in other formats to allow for seeing the entire family AND keeping the info big enough to read!

Great new features!!

What a lovely suprise when I logged on tonight. This is brilliant, it shows family relationships so clearly. Please make this printer friendly. Also hope photos can be made to fit as they obliterate details.

Plusses and minuses, but mostly plusses. The only “buggy” part for me is in the choice of spouse when there are multiples. For my grandfather it showed his second wife, although they had no children, and did not show the mother of the children shown. And in my case, it showed my first husband, again the relationship without any children. Odd. Either both spouses should be shown (preferable) or only the ones with descendents.

The family beta is good in principle however some labels are overlapped by photos. The concept is good!

Isn’t that great! Well done! But the photograph problem is one I hope you can sort out, the fact that they block info; and also multiple marriages! It’s rather sad to find one no longer exists.

I absolutely love this. It makes the tree look so professional.

That’s what I like about you guys, you’re not afraid to try new things. I don’t know if it will work for me, but I appreciate the effort most of all.

Awesome job on this beta, I hope it stays!

The Beta “Family” view is very nice. It, however, has a few bugs, to wit:

1. When there are multiple wives, it seems to choose the second one, in the case of my tree, the one with no children. I saw the “select spouse” feature, but when you select it and go back to see the “family” view, it reverts back to the original.
2. When showing children, it does not get them in the correct order (sort of random), and puts some of them in the reverse order of birth (right to left rather than left to right).
3. Need “print friendly” feature.
4. Would like to to see a “descendant” view over at least four or five complete generations. This takes up space but the screen can be scrolled around.

Great addition to the website. I have been desiring some kind of descendency chart and this new family view fits the bill (for at least 2 generations). I also like the new “view” toolbar for easy selection of varying views of the same person. May want to compress the amount space at top of page used by toolbars and titles, etc. Would be nice to see descendency for siblings as well. Also like use of flash fixed tool for zoom-in/out and scroll up/down - makes navigation very simple and intuitive. I also hope this remains as a feature of the website. Would like to see descendency view and option to select number of generations.

Surprise! Surprise!
What a good Chrismas gift you have given us in the “Family View”

It’s great. Keep up the good work. Will post you more comments (if any) after trying it out more.

Seems like you all are also upgrading the PHOTOS link. Will be good if photos can be sorted by albums also.

Thanks and Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.

Hi there, great feature! Love it, just to note, soemtimes the photos cover up the names and i couldn’t select them as the root person. Otherwise fantastic!

Fantastic addition previously had to use Genopro…mind you it would be great if you allowed users to set the number of generations they would like to view.
The desendency tree would be brilliant idea too as a lot of previous comments have already highlighted.

I really like this new feature and find it very useful. I would love to be able to print this out and share my findings with my family.

Fantastic, but we really need to be able to print it. That’s quite frustrating.

Good. It’s a great way to see siblings etc. but my photos seem to be too big for the space.

I really like the BETA. I do have to say, I’d like to see more generations and would like to have the ability to print. This also would be great on Family Tree 2008 - hopefully we can get this without having to purchase a new FT software package.

I love it! It would be a great thing to send to family to get them to come up with more info and pictures from their branch of the tree. Would also be nice to send as a surprise for birhtdays or any speacial days in someones life. It is a great addition would be nice to be able to use both at the same time.

Wonderful! It helps to put things in context hope you can sort photo problem,
to be able to print is a must.
You are slowly getting nearer to a full tree.
It would be lovely to be able to view this Full screen
Merry Christmas to you all,keep up the good work.

It can only get better. My photos are too large it seems, they cover all the print. Also when I am the centre person my children are off the edge of the page for some reason. Will be great when you get see all the five generations on the screen

Absolutely brilliant,can you expand it to show even more.

A wonderful feature.

I am also concerned about the handling of multiple spouses. My other comment is how do you edit the wife on the family view page if she has no parents or children listed??
If the page was entered from the husband there seems to be no way to edit the wife’s information.

The new feature is GORGEOUS! Will it be integrated into the AncestryPress layout options?

One bug — when navigating with someone who has multiple spouses on screen both spouses don’t alsways display, and it’s not clear why one gets picked over another.

Tried the new Family Tree View and liked it. Hopefully, the next step is to be able to view more generations and make this printable.

Next I hope that Ancestry press can have a feature that allows printing of a persons profile with just their profile photos and text listing of their events. So much more can fit into a page.

Timeline are great but so limited

Would it also be great if we have a view that show how one person is related/linked to another person on a tree. This would be most helpful when the two persons are generations apart or three/four times removed.

Photos are obliterating information. Also how can I print the 5 Generation Pedigree Chart?

This new option is terrific, however I would also like to use the pedigree option that used to be available. When will that be reactivated?

It’s useful to be able to print the information.

Looks OK, but the photos are too big, they cover some/all of the text. What about the print facility that was available for the 5 generation tree, what has happened to that? Will printing be available? If not go back to the way it was!

When editing someone in the Family view it would be nice if the screen refreshed to the same position on the tree rather than re-centering to the primary individual; ie edited child or granchild of primary individual with alot of children or siblings of primary, also if siblings selected they should remain on the refresh.

Great new feature - I like it! Couple of comments: the tree title doesn’t seem to display the same in Firefox and any photos attached to a person seem to cover most of their info (not scaled to the size of the box).

Merry Xmas.

Do anybody knows where can I find a software to make a family tree of descendants of one person ?? Do anybody knows a Website of software of descendants ??
Thank you in advance.

I like the Beta Family view, but would really like it to include more generations, and make it printer friendly so that I can copy my whole family tree at once, great stuff.

Great idea but the pictures do not line up at all for me which is disapointing
Cheers Dave

I am new at this, but I love how BETA shows our family. Great job….

I think we should be able to choose MUCH more then just two generations. 5-10 maybe? Ill like to view the most of my family

I can’t view the new family view and I seem to have trouble with anything flash on ancestry.com - e.g. I can only rarely get the publish functionality to display my projects. What version of flash are we supposed to have?

This is an exciting addition, but would like to see it expanded to more generations at some point.

The new “Hints” helps to coordinate information when running more than one version of the same information.

Printable would be good as well.

Ditto on the second marriage with no children problem. I only have one child and he doesn’t show up! Some respondents are saying the first marriage shows and some say the second marriage shows. What is the rule for this and can it be written to give the viewer a preferred spouse to display? Other than that - WAY TO GO! I’ve been waiting for a descendent view for some time.

no matter what I try I cannot get my great grandma to show up. any suggestions? thanks. jenny

I also would like a printer version of this, I have such a large tree that it is quite difficult to see where you are without printing.
It looks good though

I like this view except that only the children from one marriage are shown unless the person who remarried is the central person.

This means that out of my Grandmother’s 30+ grandchildren this view only shows about 18!

Also the order of the children is random - date order would be good.

All that’s missing now is a descendent view (like a pedigree in reverse)

Beautiful like many said,
But when the mother had ten child
It does’t give as much anought horizontale place like Broothers could do it . Display many sheets

It would be great to be able to choose which spouse to show, or have an “x” to remove a person from view.

great

New Family View (BETA) is great, but it realy is essential that it is possible to prit it. When and how will this be available?
Is it possible to include other information such as Marriage details etc?.
Would you please provide your answers to these readers comments as we’re sure that would be of great value to all users.

Anyone know how to merge two individual profiles into one? I am using the free tree maker that’s available on the internet.

Thanks very much!!

I have been hoping you guys would some up with something like this. Nice work. Right now my photos are not resizing correctly (way too big) but I guess that’s what beta is all about. Hope you can make this a permanent feature.

I like the new development but I am dismayed because I seem to have lost the ‘Printer Friendly’ icon and I can’t print out my family tree.

The new format is very interesting, looks good, but is unfortunately subject to the several problems which have already been adequately stated by other writers. And where is the printer friendly format ? For me the old style 5 Generation Pedigree Chart is a “must” - can we still get this or something very similar please - if not it is a step backwards.

Like the look of the new Family view (beta). when viewing my tree the default photographs for each family member are overlapping the main tree view. Is this a known problem or a just a problem with my particular tree ?

I like the addition but you seem to have deleted the printer friendly selection on the original family tree and I can find no way of printing it, as before, with the births and deaths of five generations.

When there is more than one Husband or Partner for a spouse, you cannot specify which one or which order they display on the new Family Tree. Only one displays and not the one I want.

Great, interesting only trouble is it’s not possile to print out and the old stlye 5 generation pedigree chart is a must, to help to collate info as you can print out what you have as a back up or reminder. Can we have it back please. Nothing wrong with two verstions.

My grandmother was married twice and had children by both husbands. This is not on the Beta. Will it be eventually?

I think this is a nice addition to the site. I would love if you had the option to view more generations with it.

I agree with what some of the others were saying about the multiple spouses issue. Whenever I view my grandparents, I see my mother along with her first husband and my half sisters, but I don’t see her second husband (my father) or me listed anywhere.

Also, I noticed that children listed were not in order. They appeared to be in random order on the tree instead of oldest to youngest.

Overall it looks great! It makes the family tree a little easier to display and I like it. :)

Hey, this is very nice!
I hope to see this soon available for the whole tree? That would be great!
Have to print it out on wallpaper…

Family Beta loks great its a great idea. Can we print it if we need to?
I think the old version should stay as well as the new idea for those who like the old one as well. Keep up the good work.

Well I don’t know about being very good,,…You have some of the children in my tree as grandchildren..I don’t know how to correct it

I TOO LIKE THE BETA LOOK AND HAVE THE SAME PROBLEMS AS OTHERS HAS MENTIONED. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK

I just love the new beta version the only thing i find some of my relations are missing as in my family 2 family tree will these be updated thank you for the new format ps my family loves it too

I really like this new feature. I have one problem with it, however. For any person in my tree who has a primary photo associated with them, this module attaches the photo to them. Unfortunately, the photos come out too large and they obscure most of the written information about the person. In the sample on your website, this does not occur, the pictures fit into the frame of each person as a small thumbnail image. Is this something to do with the way I have uploaded my photos. Note that I do not have this problem when I am in th4 Pedigree View

new version is great but PLEASE can we print out pedigree again,thanks

great addition… can it show second marriages?

I like this version a lot, but is it missing the “merge individual” option? I accidentally created two of the same person, but simply deleting one won’t wouildn’t be wise at this point. It would screw up the tree. But the merge feature seems to be gone. Any suggestions? Help!

How do I change my son’s wife from his first wife to his now current wife…in the Beta format.

This is a great new concept. You can also help us to copy in a CD

Looks great,but oh what a surprise you have taken the printer friendly option off the pedigree page and l’am in the middle of printing off a copy for my grandson for christmas

I think this is a wonderful new addition to the ways of visualizing the family tree on Ancestry. I have been hoping for something like this for a while - so was much delighted to discover it today. Thanks a lot.

What a nice suprise and what a great addition to all the changes that you’ve been making. Ancestry.com just keeps getting better. Thanks.

Very nice! I tried to print it both Portrait and Landscape, but couldn’t get it to fit on a page either way. A printable version would be great.

Very interesting works quite well.

Please set up the print operation to do landscape so more of the Family Group is printed. I love the set-up but printing leaves something to be desired. The helpful hints at the bottm could be made smaller.

Love it. I would like to see hint boxes (green leaf) on every one of the people displayed!

Ican still not dowload the family tree with the oldest ancester shown at the top. The new beta version limits you to two generations but sets the family out the way that I want to show it. it seems that you can not print it out in that form. Your tech peopl have told me to purchase family tree maker which I have. When that arrives does it integrate directly with ancestry.com.au.
please respond
kindest regards
graeme

The inclusion of photographs in the family view is obtrusive. Please could a switch be included to enable the photographs be hidden?

This is really good. You need to make the photos smaller as they are too big and obliterate the details but the idea is lovely.
It would be nice to have a print option too.

I like the Beta version and hope it makes it to full production soon. Can you give me an idea of how to add a photo image into the area that seems to be designated for an individuals photo…it appears in the person view of the existing software too I believe but I’ve not been able to figure that out…your beta example shows that it can be daone though apparently…thanks.

It looks good but the photos in it are too big and hide the information. Can i alter it.

What a surprise to open our family window and see the connection this new feature provides with our family tree. Hope you take it to its’ fullest potential, anyone using Ancestry.com will be very pleased. Thank you for the updates to this website.

I enjoy this view. I hope to see more than 2 generations in the future!

Would like to show “Multiple Marriages” to enable seeing all children, or step-children.

Looks good but would like to print out family tree as before.

I think this is a great addition! There is one thing that I haven’t been able to figure out. When a person has multiple marriages, the last marriage for that person is shown and there doesn’t seem to be a way to choose a different marriage. Addressing this issue would be great!

Fantastic, I don’t have enough Techincal knowledge to critize anything, so I’m sure if there is room for improvement you will do it.

This is an excellent addition to the various Family Tree views.
Would it be possible to remove or reduce photographs included in this view so that they do not obscure the names of the parties?

The Beta version is the best, I love the layout, I think I speak for others, this is more in line with what we need in building of family tree. Thanks for the improvements, now if this version can be made permanent with printer friendly capabilities it would be complete.

Love the look of this. Really great to have something that incorporates the whole family graphically. Hope there is a printer-friendly layout, like with the pedigree charts. Nice to have a hard copy to show sometimes.

If you can zoom, I wish I could see more than 5 generations at a time. I wish I could do that for all screens.

I like it, more user friendly, hope it works out.

I can not pull up my great great grandma

I love this new feature. I’ve used it constantly since I found out about it and hope it becomes permenant. Great work!

Great view. The only flaw as far as I can tell is when there are multiple spouses. For my husband, it showed his first wife and not me (his second wife). Both wives have child(ren).

Beautiful feature. I agree with the other comments saying you need to see more generations in this view.

Being able to print is extremly important.

importing this feature into FTM 2008 would also be great.

Nice Job

Love it - now how do I print it?

My beta doesn’t show up at all. For all the 30 times I tried in several days, Only one time it shows. What’s wrong?
Also can we start with grandapa and have 4 to 5 generations on the tree?

How about you focus on restoring missing features from previous versions before you give new toys?

How do you get an exploded view? On the example that you show, it shows sibs and full family. Mine only shows grandparents, not my children or my siblings.

I tried to print out the BETA Family page. Showing how everyone is related in the family, but it was not printer friendly. I had to go back to the Generation Pedigree Chart and print it from there. It would have been so interesting to have preinted out BETA.
Thank you for updating Ancestry. We love it!
Barbaara

I’m reading a few comments about photos overlapping the text in the new family view. We’ve tried all sorts of things to replicate this issue here, but haven’t been successful. If you are seeing this, please send me an email to help us track this down. kfreestone at tgn.com

Our thanks,

Kenny Freestone
Ancestry.com Product Manager

Wish I had this when I made up my weird family tree–it would have helped greatly.

I like the look of this way of displaying and printing my family tree. Thank-you and keep up the good work. Will be taking the print outs to a family reunion today.

An exciting and much needed addition to this rather cumbersome site. However I do agree the comment posted by Barry (December 20, 2007 at 4:48 pm ) that the user should be able to determine the number of generations shown. I would suggest that a significant number, if not most, of those using the site do so to construct and view a historical family tree and would like to see it in entirety.

A further improvement would be the ability to print the tree in a set of pages that can be fastened together to give a physical presentation

Final comment. Where there are pictures they are obscuring the persons name & details.

An excelant add to the ancestry Site,Keep up the good work. Next may be to make it Printable?

I really like this view, thanks! I am disappointed about the view features in general though- my main goal is to make descendent charts for my large extended family, not petigree charts. I can’t find a descendant chart view, and although FamilyBETA is nice, it is not able to display enough generations.

What a great addition. It makes the print outs of each family group more attractive.

One suggestion for a further improvement - how about a printer friendly version of the timeline?

Pictures do not fit in the fields as shown on the example they block out most of the text

Perhaps the programme has been introduced too soon as there does not appear to be a facilty to print this or the family tree anymore?

Family view is a good effort - it would be even better if the whole tree could be viewed in this configuration and retain the facility to navigate around the ‘page’.

However, it appears that the introduction of the Family Beta option has deleted the Printer option on the Pedigree view! Please reinstate the Printer option for the Pedigree view as I cannot find any other way to print the family tree!!

Your Beta Version is great. Hope in the final version there will be a print option. Also I noticed that if the “main person” has multiple marriages that only one spouse shows.

I’ve tried several times to print this very attractive layout from my online family tree, but can’t get beyond ending up with just a portion of the page. Is there a way to print what’s on my monitor screen?

I was greatly shocked when I noticed the Family View! I think it is awesome, keep up the superior work.

Just found this beta that has been added, saves jumping back and to between this site and Genes R. which I had been using to do a full tree print out. Many thanks.

Love the concept. However, it does not reflect multiple spouses and is arbitrarily selecting which spouse to display.

If there are numurous siblings (eg. 13)in the 1st generation, they should be displayed on each side of the person of interest (thus centering the person of interest). Otherwise, most will be displayed off the page. The user should have the ability to move relatives left to right in order to balance info on the page. More generations would be useful.

I like the looks of it and the dragging feature, but would like to be able to view more than just two generations at once.

love this feature - for some reason, my photos for each person are not formated neatly within the box - they are larger and block some of the text inside the box. does the photo have a maximum resolution or pixel size or such? Great Job!!

Love the new beta version of the tree. Just to let you know that it does not show all the connections (i.e., my son has married again, but it doesn’t show his second wife). Keep up the GREAT work! Mahalo

Pictures allocated to individuals hide written details of individuals; and we have lost the printer friendly version of 5 generation family tree, which I use a lot.

Family Beta (first try) failed to place siblings in order by birthdate. What’s that about?

The mapping controls are baffling and no instructions are revealed.

Hope it gets simplified!

Greetings,
This is a great addition! Hopefully, it can be expanded beyond two generations and be printer friendly.

This revised beta version of the “Family View” is much improved. It still needs serious work on:

1. Selection of spouse when multiple spouses are involved. If one goes to the “Family Group Sheet”, it allows the tree creator/owner to select which spouse to use. That selection should be carried over to “Family” view.
2. Children should be shown in birth order from left to right and top to bottom rather than vice-versa since we read and are taught that way in the western civilization. The Beta version would be correct in China and elsewhere in eastern civilizations.
3. By all means, we should be able to print the view in a “printer friendly” mode since the children do scroll way to the right and off the page. One not looking carefully might miss most of them.

Keep up the good work. I want to show it to my extended family but not until it is acceptable.

Correction to my comment above. All spouses are shown, but they are shown in an arbitrary order - last to first. My point is that the creator/owner of the tree should be able to select which spouse to show on the left, i.e., the way we read, and that can be done in the “Family Group Sheet” view, but that selection is dropped when going back to the “Family” view.

I agree with everyone eles it is great.As soon as I come up with photos I will add them.

Looks good, a great addition.

However, the photo that I have attached to my great-great-grandmother does not scale nicely like your example.

Hi Ancestry. What a lovely Christmas present !!!! I haven’t been all over the site yet - it looks so good - can’t wait to explore the rest

What a great view. One comment though, it does not allow for previos relationships and issue. EG I have a son who was in a relationship and had a son. They never married and he is now in another common law relationship which appears as a marriage. That’s not a big problem, but his sonb does not appear on the Beta program. I also have an older Brother who had four children with his first wife. Only his second wife shows up on the Beta view but none of his children. Are there steps being taken which will address this problem, particularly now that their are so many divorced/separated couples and blended families?

On my tree the photos are too big and hide the written information. I like the format, but don’t like that the photos have come out so big.
Also is it possible to print out in the Beta format?

very very great!! i wait for “explose all” to make a big poster!!

There is no print link on the pedigree page. How do I print off a pedigree tree?

Really like this! Would love to see it extended to more generations

Photos overlap individual’s card blocking out their details.

love the beta set up but can i print it off ?

A beautiful idea, though I agree with those people who have seen something which could be perfected: the children are ordered randomly, and not in order of birth.

I was thrilled to see the traditional way of displaying family tree. Is there any chance that you can put siblings in date of birth order across the page? Can you also display first names - when there is more than one person with the same initial it becomes confusing.

its great looking but would love to print it out.

Looks like another great feature from Ancestry. Keep up the good work!

The display of a true family tree is very effective. Expanding this to more generations will enhance its usefulness, especially in trees that have 1000’s of entries. Keep up the good work.

very good addition. Suggestion, would like to see option to center, lose data to right margin.

The new Family View BETA looks GREAT! My only suggestion, which you are probably working on, is to provide the ability to click on any indidivudal display to make them the center of the chart… other then that looks damm near perfect. Good Job!

Beta view great except for right margin loses siblings, line to long to first marriage, but otherwise great fun.

Excellent feature! I really like this new view.

Looks great and I hope it is followed through into a final product.

My only concern is with larger photos they often go outside the information box and the information about the person isn’t readable as it is obscured by the photo. Perhaps either needs to make the text box auto resize to accomodate the photo or perhaps clip the photo somehow

Just to add it would be useful if the number of generations for descended could be increased from two.

after a busy xmas just found this new tree, l really like it especialy the design,easier to read being from top to bottom than side to side,thank you

It’s great, but the photos obscure the text.

a great addition to Ancestory.com i would really like to be able to see further back than the present 5 generations.

I think this is realy great good overview of Family tree
could be made better for printing

This is great! But it would be really cool if you could show siblings form everyone not just the home person. Thanks again for this.

I have been doing my ancestry for almost 2 years and the ancestry site is getting better but like Pam Grady says Please Please Please can we have a printer friendly section as I don’t think I could sit at my desk writing my ancestry out by hand ouch. I need to get them printed to send to my mum’s cousin who is 75 as she is quite interested in her family history.
Thanks once again for the new addition to ancestry.

I think this is great. It would be nice if the children and grand children were listed from oldest on the left to the youngest on the right and then the grandchildren oldest to youngest down the line rather than just randomly.

I would like to say that it is a very nice addition to the website. I have just joined today and find it very useful, however I have some suggestions that have already been mentioned here.

Allow custom number of generations to display, as 2 before and 2 after is definitely not enough. Make it printer friendly for those of us that actually use those things still. Allow the clicking of a person to become the focus, readjusting the fore and aft of the generation display. Allow an easier way to enter children of a different parent.

I have a couple of comments.

1) The Family Beta box should be either able to resize to the screen, or be able to be resized manually. It’s OK to be able to zoom out to see everybody, but when I zoom out enough to see a large family, everything becomes unreadable. I have a large monitor and feel it is wasted with all the unused space surrounding the Family Beta view.

2) The view does not show the children (or grandchildren) of the focus person without both parents being known. In my opinion, this is a MAJOR defect, and the whole thing should be scrapped if it can’t be fixed. This can easily lead to the conclusion that those children don’t exist.

3) I agree with others who have said they don’t like that it automatically chooses to focus on the most recent spouse, and appears to put siblings and descendants in random order.

4) It would be helpful if there was some kind of indication when a spouse has been divorced (such as making the connecting like thinner, a different color, or a dotted line).

The Beta view of the Family is tree is excellent. The colors are difficult to read unless you enlarge the tree and then you can’t get everything in the box.

Suggestion: Possibly use lighter colors (blue based are easier on the eys) and allow the view adjustment to be moved within the grid. This will allow you to optimize the space your are using for the tree.

Thank you!

The printer friendly option has disappeared from the Pedigree view. This needs restoring as well as the option being added to family beta. I like to print regularly so stuck at the moment

I am not happy with this new Beta view. When in a persons profile I can no longer see at a glance the parents or other family members. I have also lost the Pedigree view.

The reason I started using ancestry.com is because of the profile. The information that I required I could see at a glance I now have to know who belongs with whom and it is difficult.

Was really pleased to see new Family Beta until realised that there was no longer ‘printer friendly’ on the pedigree view,then couple of other problems appeared like with multiple spouses and with photo’s that block the info.Apart from teething probs which hope can be sorted it’s nice addition, But Please give me back the printer friendly for my pedigree view. Missing it already!

Fine but I seem to have lost the facility to PRINT out my tree. Am I doing something wrong or is this a result of the new facility?

Should look fantastic once the aforementioned glitches have been sorted out. My AV software doesn’t seem to like it much though with pop-up’s warning me of infected files being deleted. (anyone else had this problem?)

I really want the ability to set generations of descendents - I am looking for something that would allow me to plot our entire family on a wall sized poster. This addition seems like a great headstart…but why is it limited to 2 generations?

What a lovely surprise when I logged into my tree today, I love the way the New Family Tree View looks, so far works great for me, but will look into it further, please keep this view it great, but would be nice to be able to print it too

This is going to be terrific! Stay on task to make this come true permanently.

very useful am looking forward to the finished product

This looks great and is easy to navigate.

However, the photo attached to my father is shown so large I can’t read other details around it! I’m still playing with it but it is irritating…

Also, children aren’t shown in any particular order (that I can see!), especially when shown vertically!

Otherwise - Well done, just what we needed!

This is a really fun addition. I am super new to all of this and any helpful items such as this view makes it all the more fun and easy. Thank you for all your hard work on helping us find our families.

I have been able to view the beta site this am (1/1/08) but not been able to view now