How does it work?

Select one of the duplicate people in your tree

Go to the person’s overview or profile page and from the “More options” menu, select “Merge with duplicate.”

Select the other duplicate person

On the left side of the page, you’ll see the person you’ve already selected. On the right side of the page, you can select the person’s duplicate in a few ways.

• Select a possible duplicate. We’ll suggest people who might be duplicates (for example if they have the same first and last names and their birth years and birthplaces are similar).
• Type the person’s name.  If you know the duplicate’s name, simply type it in the field and select the person from a list of individuals who match the name you’ve typed.
• Select from a list of people. You can browse a list of everyone in your tree and select the correct individual.

Select the facts you want to display

After you’ve chosen the duplicate individuals, they’ll be displayed side-by-side so you can compare the two and choose which facts you want to display for the merged individual.

• If facts are identical. A same label shows which facts are the same; they’ll be merged into one fact.
• If facts are different. Both facts will be included in the merge, but you can choose which fact is preferred (the default fact that displays). The other fact will be added as an alternate.
• If you’re not sure what to do. You can click the Compare button to see more details about the two individuals.

Already, I’ve been able to clean up some of the messiness that existed in my own tree by using this new feature and hope it helps those of you who have been looking for a solution for merging duplicate people in your own tree.

We’re interested in your feedback so we’ve set up a specialized survey for it.  If you have feedback for us please share it through our survey here.

We also recognize that the Person Overview page is very heavily used and that changes of any kind can sometimes be frustrating.  We are really trying to improve the site for all our users.  We’ve gotten a number of helpful suggestions already, but the main concern we’ve heard is that there is sometimes a greater need to scroll with the new design than there was with the old design.  We wanted to reassure you that we’re actively working to address that.

If you have additional feedback you can share it through our survey here.

UPDATED 10/24/2012

We appreciate the feedback that you’ve provided over the last week after changes were made to the person profile/overview page in Ancestry Member Trees.  In response, we’ve made a few tweaks that we hope will address the majority of the concerns.  Here’s a list of the key changes we’ve made:

• We’ve added a subtle gray background color around the different page elements
• We’ve reduced the font size of the events and dates in the timeline
• We’ve reduced the spacing around the timeline elements
• We’ve added boxes around the sources and member connect containers on the right side of the page

These changes should help reduce the amount of scrolling, help to differentiate between the various elements on the page and help to increase the contrast.  Please let us know what you think of the page with the latest updates by leaving feedback here.

We will be updating the servers that provide member uploaded photos, so some portions of Ancestry Member Trees, My Canvas, and any other areas of the site that display member contributed images, will not function properly.    You will still be able to access and make edits to your tree data, but you will not be able to add or delete photos or import or export a GEDCOM file. 

For the vast majority of our members living outside Mountain Daylight Time, 1:00 – 3:00 AM MDT is the same as… 

If the merge incorrectly suggests that a person is new or matches the record to the wrong person in your tree, you can choose the person that the record should be merged to.  

To try out this feature, I looked for my grandfather’s 1930 census record because I knew it would likely have additional family members.  When I got to the merge page, sure enough, I saw his parents and siblings included in the family portion of the page. As I scrolled down, I noticed a sibling named Wilber, who was listed as a “New person”.  I looked at the mini-tree at the top of the page to make sure Wilber was really a new person.  There wasn’t a Wilber, but I did have a William, who was born the same year.  Since my grandfather only had one brother, I knew Wilber was really William (who was known as Bill, which is apparently short for Wilber, not William. Oops.) 

I clicked the “Not a new person?” link to fix the merge.   

Once I clicked the “Not a new person?” link a window appeared. Wilber’s information was on the left and a list of all the children in my grandfather’s family were on the right.    

After selecting William from the list of individuals, I was able to select which individual facts I wanted to save from the record, such as the name Wilber.    

Another scenario you may come across is when two people with very similar names are incorrectly matched in the family record merge. If that happens, you can also select the “Not a match?” link and correctly match the right individual to the record.

In the 1930 census below, Jean Curry is listed as a match to Jen Curry. I knew that Jean is really Jeanette, who is already in my tree, so I selected the “Not a match?” link.

By selecting the link I was shown the same window as before that allowed me to choose the right Jean in my tree.   

After selecting Jeanette as the match for Jean, I was reassured that the record was now being saved to the correct person in my tree.  

I love that I now have some control over how people in records are matched to people in my family tree It’s been really great being able to merge a record to people that I previously would have had to skip over because they were either mismatched or incorrectly listed as “new.”  I hope this new addition to the record merging feature helps you as much as it has helped me.

When I close my browser and return to my tree, why is my view the new “family view” and not the “pedigree view”?   We felt that some users prefer pedigree view to the family view and vice versa.  The tree now remembers which view you were in last.  If you prefer one view over the other, just select that view prior to leaving your browser and it will open your tree in that preferred view the next time you view it. 

Why doesn’t my root person in my tree change when I select “return to tree” from a person’s overview page? We made it possible to return to your tree the way you left it.  We also made it possible to view the tree with a different person at the root from the person’s overview page.  If you want to go back to your tree the way you left it, select “return to tree”.  If you are on a person’s overview page and want to see the tree for that particular person, click “view his family tree” and you will go to the tree viewer with a new person in the root position.

Where did all my navigation links go like “tree settings” and “family group sheet”?  We made the navigation on all tree pages consistent.  Prior to the change, not all options were available everywhere in trees.  We consolidated the links in the header under two dropdown lists.  If you mouse over the link next to the tree name in the header that says “Tree pages” a dropdown list will appear with “Tree settings” “Family group sheet”, “Tree overview”, “Media gallery” and “Share your tree” as selectable options. 

Where did the “Last person viewed” link go? If you mouse over the “Find a person in my tree” area on the right, the options of “Home person”, “Last viewed Person” and “List of all people” will appear.

Why did all the links on my person overview page change? They only changed names and position, but all the features that were there before are still available.  Here’s a list of the new link names along with what the links used to be called:

•  Search records (formerly Search historical records) – We moved this link from the middle to the first position on the left and it works exactly the same as it did before the changes.
• View his family tree (new link) – This link will take you to the tree viewer with the selected person in the root position. 
• View relationship to me (same name) – This link is the same, we just took away the “new” label, gave it an icon and moved it over
• View family members (formerly View Immediate Family) – It works the same as before; we just moved it over to the right.
•  Print (formerly Print & Publish) – does the same things, we just made the link title shorter.
• More options (same name and location) – No change

How do I print more than 5 generations with the pedigree view? We increased the number of generations that can be printed in the pedigree view.  You can print more than 5 generations by expanding a selected family branch and hit print.  It should print as many pages as necessary to fit all of the expanded branches.  Based on feedback from Mac users, there may be an issue with printing using a Mac that we’re looking into.  We also realize that printing from the site is an area that could be improved.

What is the “See what’s new” blue bar at the top of my view? We added a new feature to help users understand the changes we made called “What’s new”.  If you mouse over the feature boxes in the blue area at the top of the tree viewer, little feature boxes appear that tell a little bit more about what changes have been made.  Once you’ve reviewed the changes, you can click the little “X” at the right of the blue area to close it.

I’d like to thank all of you who have given us feedback on what changes they’d like to see.  I know that some of you have mentioned issues or bugs that you’d like to see addressed or fixed as soon as possible.  If you are seeing a bug or have a suggestion, please email me at newtreeviewer@ancestry.com with the specific issues you’re seeing so we can address them as soon as possible.

For those that haven’t tried the new viewer and want to know more about the  changes, you can click here to read the blog post from November that details all the great new features.  Here are some highlights:

• We increased the number of generations you can view at one time in the pedigree view
• We made it possible to drag your tree around the screen to view more of your tree
• We adjusted the borders so the view will expand to the full width and height of your monitor
• We built a new family view so you can see more of your extended family like siblings, aunts and uncles.

We did receive a couple of suggestions from you that we felt would improve the experience and have included those changes in this new feature.  One of the most requested changes was to bring back what was formerly called the “Show immediate family” link on the person’s profile page. It’s now called “view family members” but has the same functionality as it did before.

We’ve made a couple of other minor tweaks here and there to make the family view more stable and improve the layout to be more user friendly.  We hope you are as excited about this new feature as I am and as so many of our other members. We hope this will help with your genealogy research.

This downtime will affect Ancestry Member Trees, OneWorldTree, some portions of My Canvas, the sections of the Home Page that are related to Member Trees, and the sections of MyFamily.com 2.0 that are related to Member Trees. Other than that, all other areas of the site will remain functional.  

For the vast majority of our members living outside Mountain Standard Time, 1:00 – 2:00 AM MST is the same as… 

This downtime will affect Ancestry Member Trees, OneWorldTree, some portions of My Canvas, the sections of the Home Page that are related to Member Trees, and the sections of MyFamily.com 2.0 that are related to Member Trees. Other than that, all other areas of the site will remain functional. 

For the vast majority of our members living outside Mountain Standard Time, 12:01 – 2:00 AM MST is the same as…

Coordinated Universal Time: 7:00 – 9:00 AM
In London: 7:00 – 9:00 AM
In Melbourne: 6:00 – 8:00 PM
In San Francisco: 11:00 PM – 1:00 AM
In New York: 2:00 – 4:00 AM

You can check out the new tree viewer by going to your Ancestry.com member tree and by clicking on a link in a blue banner at the top of the tree viewer.  The first thing you’ll notice is the “What’s new” feature.  You can move your cursor over the headings to see pop-up boxes highlighting some of the new changes.  You can dismiss this at any time by clicking the x to the right. Here’s a list of some of the other new things we’ve done to make it easier to view more of your tree.

More Generations in the Pedigree View – When there are more than 5 generations visible in any branch of your tree, you can click the arrow icon next to your 5^th generation ancestor to expand another group of 4 generations.  You can keep expanding until you run into that pesky brick wall.

Drag Your Tree Around the Screen – Now that you have so much more of your tree to look at, we’ve made it possible to simply hold down your mouse button and drag the background of your tree to move it around the screen without scrolling. 

Larger Display Area – if you’re one of the lucky people with a larger monitor, we’ve made it so the tree view can expand the full width and height of your monitor.

Header changes

• Tree Pages – We’ve consolidated all the links to other tree pages to make them easier to find and give you more room to view your tree.  Just hover over  “Tree pages” in the header for quick access to these pages.

• Find a person in this tree – we’ve consolidated some other features to make more room.  Hover over the “Find a person in this tree” search area to see the “last person viewed” and the “list of all people” links.

Tool Bar

• Home person link – We’ve moved the home person link to the tool bar for quick access
• Re-center the root person – Click the curved arrow icon to position the current root person in the vertical center of the screen and reset the zoom level
• Zoom – you can zoom in or out by clicking the plus or minus icons or by dragging the side bar.  I like to expand branches of my family then zoom all the way out for a star-like view of my tree.
• Print – We’ve moved the print button and made it possible to print more of your tree.  If you have expanded branches of your tree in the pedigree view, you’ll be able to print all the viewable generations at once. 

Mini Person Card – When you hover over a person in your tree, a mini-tree card appears.  When you click the name of your person, you’ll be taken to that person’s overview page.  If you want to see this person’s tree, click the link that says “View his/her family tree” and this will redraw the tree with the selected person in the root position of the tree.

New Family View – Now you can see your relatives in what we’re calling the family view.  This view allows you to see up to 2 generations of descendants, up to 3 generations of ancestors and all the siblings of a selected person.  It’s a great way to see your family grow when adding siblings, children, cousins, aunts and uncles.

I’ve been using this new feature for over a month and it’s been great to be able to view more of my tree as I expand generations of my ancestors.  In the new family view, I love being able to quickly add siblings and aunts and uncles and get the instant gratification of seeing them in my tree.  We’re really excited to offer you these great new changes and hope to hear what you think about the new viewer.  Once you’ve seen the new tree viewer and explored the changes, you can give us feedback by clicking the “Provide feedback” link in the new tree viewer or you can click here.

Click here to see your tree in the new tree viewer.

We’ve just added a new feature in your Ancestry.com Member Tree that will allow you to view the relationship between you and a relative in your tree.  You can access this new feature by going to any person’s profile page in your family tree and clicking “View relationship to me”.  I decided to give it a try for my relative Braxton Cranford to see how he is related to me.

Once I clicked the link, a window appeared that returned how Braxton is related to me well as well as the trail of people who helped create the connection between us.  It turns out that four people separate me and my great grand uncle Braxton.  (I’ve blurred the names of my living relatives)

Now that I’ve selected to see how Braxton is related to me, I’ll be able to see that relationship displayed below his name on his profile page.  I can also pull up the line of people that created the connection by clicking the “View relationship to me” link again.  

Another noteworthy feature is that family members you’ve invited to your tree will see how they’re related to people in the shared tree. We calculate the relationship based on who “you” are in the tree which is sometimes different from the “home” person. If your relative looks at the tree and calculates a relationship, it will be based on who his relative is in the tree. 

As I’ve used this new feature it’s been great to relate more directly to the people in my tree.  Braxton isn’t just a name anymore; he’s my great grand uncle.