Comments on: New Search is available for everyone

By: Don

Don — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 19:28:35 +0000

I ran into several problems using the new search feature to show and add other family members in a record. This may not be the correct place to report them, but when I tried to use the search’s Provide Feedback link, it didn’t work. Rather than taking me to a feedback input page, it took me to a blog “New Record Merge Feature” Posted by Kenny Freestone May 29, 2008. The only apparent feedback option there was a Comment Feed, but that just took me to a page of HTML source code for some of the other responses already entered into the blog.

The problems occcured when I was looking at the record for Arden R Steveson in the Oregon Death Index, 1903-98 (http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/MergeFamily2.aspx?tid=212371&dbid=5254&rpid=1278132&pid=-2069648850&ssrc=&pg=&ret=). The record description shows the following information:
Name: Steveson, Arden R
County: Multnomah
Death Date: 14 D 1963
Certificate: 17281
Age: 77
Spouse: Phoebie

First problem: When I click on the “Show relatives on this record” link, it shows two siblings who weren’t listed in the above info. Were they included in the record and the record description just doesn’t list all of the info on the record (if would be nice if the page told us that), or is the search pulling in the sibling info from somewhere else and somehow linking it to the death index? If the latter is the case, how can we know whether to trust the info, and will it be cited correctly or cited as coming from the death index?

Second problem: When I click on one of the sibling to be added, a message comes up: You must select at least one parent in order to add a new sibling. However, no parents are listed among the relatives to select.

Third problem: The wife, Phoebie, listed on the record does not show up in the list of relatives on the record.

Also, when trying to merge other records in the census databases, after going through the merge options for the primary person’s data, the merge function frequently asks if I want to merge a blank person (i.e., it says there is a person but no info for the person is shown) with my person’s father and then another blank person with my person’s mother. The record contained no info about the father or mother.

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By: Elnora Smith

Elnora Smith — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:46:41 +0000

Ada Brunson, Gilbert, Lawson, Robison, Smith, Drew
Born: 9/18/1891 Died: 2/14/1969 Donaldsonville, Seminole, Ga. USA
Mother: Josephine Brunson Gilbert
Grandmother: Juddie Brunson
Father: David Lawson
Married: Hugh Robison, Morgan Smith, and Albert Drew
Ada was this authors grandmother whom she raised.

By: Tarra

Tarra — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 07:59:03 +0000

Sad to say, I am not too happy with the new search. It’s harder now to find family. The older search was easier to configure. The new search is more confusing and a lot of the results don’t match what I put in.

By: Ann Love

Ann Love — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 21:30:54 +0000

The Texas Marriage Collection has information on both marriages of a family member, Savannah Roberts. However, I can only enter the source for the first marriage. When I attempt to add the source for the second spouse, it will only substitute the first marriage date, not add the second.

By: C. Woods

C. Woods — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:12:45 +0000

To those who think Ancestry.com is going to go into a funk over losing old customers, I doubt it. The name of the game is to get new customers.
This site will continue to show up in links and in searches by novice genealogy researchers and will remain just as it is, I would imagine.

Maybe this ‘busyness” as someone else put it is being done to impress, and maybe it’s also being done to do just what it looks like it’s doing: creating busyness. The longer one researches, the more determined he becomes, and the more time (and money) spent.
I don’t think Ancestry.com is so keen on having its customer base find its elusive ancestors so readily. The money is in the all-day foxhunt, folks! That’s my opinion on the matter in any case.

By: pat atkin

pat atkin — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 06:56:54 +0000

nEW FEATURES ARE GREAT but please dont take away the old birth, death, and marriage indext

By: Nerida Robinson

Nerida Robinson — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:03:40 +0000

I recently upgraded my “Family Tree Maker” progream and was suppoded to be offered 3 months FREE subscription to ‘Ancestry.com’ I have been constantly told to ‘choose’ a subscription opption and enter my credit card No in case I go over my limitted ‘FREE’ subscription time.
I really just wanted to see what was on offer before paying anything. I have now lost interest in pursuing this FREE offer aand my time is fast running out anyway. I am very dissappointed!!. I have been using an old version of Family Tree Maker for many years and am sorry that I bothered to “Update”

By: Fran

Fran — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 13:10:40 +0000

What is going on. Looking at your plan, it looks great, but it does not work. I am looking for an article on my Grandfather who was a state senator, who died several months after leaving office. I know the year, 1947, the location Nebraska, but I can not get there. I tried searching on newspaper locations. The first time I was able to get a list of Nebraska newspapers. The next time I tried to limit locations to search, I am told that once I click USA, to limit I am told that there are no news papers. Now you and I know this is not true. Why can’t I simply go through and select that I want to search Nebraska Newspapers for a specific name, in a specific year (or even better month). I am not interested in looking at other years. I know he was frequently in the newspaper and another time I will search there. However, sometimes you are looking for information within a narrow time frame. You know where it happened and even if there are other articles in the collection that may be relevant, you purpose is to be specific. Why do you not provide a list of all the newspapers in the collection, subdivided by states and cities or towns and the dates available for each newspaper. It is truly frustrating. I would rather have an unsuccessful search that get 1000’s of responses that have absolutely no relevance. I am afraid to make stuff exact because of the possible misspelling of names.

By: Jade

Jade — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:00:40 +0000

Lfmccauley is right: the new search interface makes it **harder** or impossible to get results from the databases.

It is true that the majority of ancestry users seem to be Tree People interested in the silly inaccurate gedcom files. Thus a huge proportion of your constituency is interested in nonancestry.com.

I disagree on the point of adding databases. Many thousands have found the Revolutionary War Rolls images, added a year ago, very useful. The World War I Draft Registration records are also very useful – would be more so if the Tioga Co, PA images for the last 2/3 of the alphabet were accessible, as you have known for nearly 2 years now. Other recent databases appear to have been indexed in only a cursory way, such as the California Voters’ Registration database – cannot retrieve people I know are in there except by tryng to search addresses instead of names.

Scrap the ‘new search’ skin. It is more frustrating than the present one to use. Instead, please fix the basic search engine.