AUTHORED BY LAURA DANSBURY (FROM ANCESTRY.COM)

In January, we began testing a new version of our image viewer to improve consistency and reliability for many different types of browsers, with a cleaner look and interactive features. It is a Flash based experience that provides tools to help you get the most out of census documents.  There are many new features but some of the most noticeable ones are the yellow and green highlights  over the person you are searching for and his or her household.  The viewer also offers brief narratives to explain the data in each column, deep zoom, and a transcribed name column on the left side of the image.

Thousands of members tried it out and sent us feedback and suggestions. Thank you very much!

Based on your feedback, we updated the viewer, added new features, and fixed some bugs too.  As of today, the interactive image viewer has become the primary viewer for the now completed 1911 UK Census.

What if you don’t have Flash installed?

The older viewers are still available.  If you try to view an image in the interactive viewer and you don’t have Flash, your previous default viewer will be offered instead.  If you are viewing images on a non-Flash enabled device such as an iPad, the non-Flash viewer will be automatically substituted.

Can you manually switch to a different viewer?

Yes, you can.   There is a link to switch to your previous default viewer located in the options menu under the actions button. If you previously turned off the interactive image viewer, you can turn it back on by clicking the Interactive Image link that appears in the upper right side of advanced image viewer.  Example below:

How can you send feedback?

Please use the “Send comments” link at the top of the viewer.

Thank you for your input and suggestions on the beta version of the interactive image viewer.  The feedback helped us improve the viewer.  We will continue to read your feedback and use it to improve Ancestry.co.uk. Start searching the 1911 census now with the new interactive image viewer:

• 1911 Channel Islands Census: http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=2355
• 1911 Wales Census: http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=2353
• 1911 Isle of Man Census: http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=2354
• 1911 England Census: http://search.ancestry.co.uk/search/db.aspx?dbid=2352

AUTHORED BY LAURA DANSBURY (FROM ANCESTRY.COM)

Record images are the foundation of your family history, and we want to create a rich viewing experience that will bring these historical documents to life. The new Interactive Image Viewer (currently in beta) includes interactive tools to help you view and interpret the information on the record as well as navigation controls that make it easy to focus on the part of the image you’re interested in. The Interactive Image Viewer is a work in progress; we are still adding new features and functionality. We value your suggestions for improving the viewer.

Where can you try it out?

This beta viewer is available for the following censuses:

• 1911 Channel Islands Census
• 1911 Wales Census
• 1911 Isle of Man Census

It will be available for the 1930 US Federal Census in the near future.

You can access the interactive image beta viewer from the record page by clicking on “View Interactive Image (BETA).”

How can you send feedback?

Please use the “Send comments” link at the top of the viewer.

What’s new?

Family Highlights

Highlights help you find people quickly by automatically highlighting the entire household. This is most useful when there are multiple families on one image.

• Yellow highlight – Whether you selected someone from your tree or searched for someone new, that person is highlighted in yellow when viewing his or her record in the Interactive Image Viewer.
• Green highlight – If the person that is highlighted in yellow is in a household that has any other members, the other members of the household are highlighted in green.
• Orange highlight – An orange highlight is placed on any row that is not already highlighted in green or yellow when your mouse hovers over that row. This will only show up when there are multiple families in a household.

Informative Tips

By hovering over various cells, you can see a transcription of that cell and learn more about the facts in the record. Simply hover your mouse over an element of the record and a text tip appears.

Name Label Overlay

When you zoom in on an image, names labels will appear on the left side of the viewer so you can see exactly whose information you’re viewing.

Moving the image

The new image viewer has many features that are similar to the Advanced Image Viewer many of you are already using. We’ve also added some new features.

• Click and Drag – Click anywhere on the image, hold down your mouse button, and drag your mouse in the direction that you wish to pan the image.
• Onscreen Controls – Use the arrow buttons to pan the image left, right, up, or down. Additionally, you can use the magnifying glass buttons at the top of the onscreen controls or the slider at the bottom of the onscreen controls to zoom in or out of the image.
• Keyboard Controls – Use the arrow keys on your keyboard. This will enable you to pan left, right, up, or down. You may also use the “+” or “-” keys on your keyboard to zoom in or out. Press the “Home” key to move your current view to the far left of the current image. Press the “End” key to move your current view to the far right of the current image. Press the “Page Up” key to move to the top of the current image. Press the “Page Down” key to move to the bottom of the current image.
• Mouse Wheel Zoom – If your mouse has a mouse wheel, you can use it to zoom in or out of the image.

We have also added some new options under the “Image” menu (below the Save button).

• Rotate Clockwise and Rotate Counter-clockwise – These menu items will rotate the image by 90 degrees in either the clockwise or counterclockwise direction.
• Flip Horizontally and Flip Vertically – These menu items will flip the image.
• Invert Colours – This option will reverse the colours of the image (black becomes white, white becomes black). In some cases, this will improve the readability of the image.
• Increase and Decrease Contrast – Use the increase or decrease contrast menu items to improve the contrast on the image.

Actions Menu

Use the Actions menu to print, view record source, remove highlighting, and more. Please note that this interactive image viewer is still in beta and some of the features you may be used to seeing are not available yet.

Print – Print the image or the current view

• View highlighting – By default, household highlights are displayed on the image. Select this menu item to disable household highlights.
• View source – Select this menu item to open the source panel and learn which organisation provided the image.

What features are coming soon?

• Index panel – See a transcription of the key fields underneath the image.
• Change locations by browsing – Change the focus of your browsing by selecting a new location directly from the image browse path.
• Improvements to save to tree – Saving to tree is available but the features which recognise whether you have come from a hint or if you have already saved this image are not implemented yet.
• Comments and corrections – We will add the ability to provide comments and corrections soon. We value all of your additions to our records.
• Sharing – Sharing the image via email, Facebook, or Twitter is coming soon.

Thank you for your input and suggestions on the beta version of the interactive image viewer. We will be making many updates to this viewer in the upcoming weeks to add more new features and the other “coming soon” features listed above.

AUTHORED BY KENDALL HULET (FROM ANCESTRY.COM)

For all of our Ancestry.co.uk users that have been patiently waiting for an Android app, your wait is over! We’re happy to announce the launch of our new Android app just in time for the holidays.

Download the app now.

The new Ancestry app for Android phones and tablets allows you to interact with your Ancestry.co.uk family tree while on the go. Not only can you view and edit your existing family trees, but you can also build new family trees from scratch, add new family members, edit their information, add and edit life events, and view historical records that have been attached on Ancestry.co.uk – anytime, anywhere. You never know where or when you’ll make a new discovery. It’s like having your entire family tree in your pocket!

Here’s what you can do with the new Android app:

• View your family tree on your Android phone or tablet (you can easily zoom in or out to see anywhere from 2 to 5 or more generations)
• Start a new family tree or add to an existing one easily
• View life events and family members for the ancestors in your tree
• Add, edit and delete people, life events and facts
• Easily locate any ancestor in your family tree with our handy search tool
• View historical documents and indexed information that you’ve attached to your family tree on Ancestry.co.uk
• Many more features (like photos) coming soon… stay tuned!

To get started, download the Ancestry Android app here.

AUTHORED BY JIM MOSHER (FROM ANCESTRY.COM)

Thanks to all of you who have provided feedback on the new Advanced Image Viewer on the blog, via the message boards, through the survey, and directly via email (feedback-imageviewer@ancestry.com). We appreciate the input – both positive and negative – and have used it to further improve the viewer.

If you aren’t already using the new viewer, you can get to by clicking the Options button in the green toolbar above the image. You can switch back to a different viewer the same way.

The updated viewer includes

• Print the Current View
• Better keyboard support for zoom and panning
• Better support for Newspapers and similar collections
• Improved performance

Print the Current View

You can now print the current view of the image. This is the most-often requested print feature that we had in the previous Advanced Image Viewer. Position the image in the viewer (zoom in or out, move the image where you want it), click the Print button, and then select the Print the current view option. A preview window will appear and the Print dialog should open. (We generally recommend printing in Landscape; you can select that in the printer properties).

Better keyboard support for zoom and panning

The previous version did not have full keyboard support for zooming and panning on all of the browsers. We believe this is corrected. The + and – keys on both the keyboard and keypad now work for zooming in or out. Arrow keys, as well as Page Up and Page Down keys, are supported for panning. Home will take you to the left side of the image; End will take you to the right side of the image.

Better support for newspapers and similar collections

We have improved our support for newspapers and similar collections (those that are processed with Optical Character Recognition, or OCR, technology). The viewer will now highlight the search terms and center the current hit within the viewer. Additionally, the Next Hit button should work.

Improved performance

We continue to work on performance issues to make the new viewer (and the underlying services which support it) faster and more responsive. There are still steps to take, but we hope you find that the experience continues to improve over time.

Other miscellaneous improvements

There are other improvements you may notice as you work with the new viewer. Images should now load to the “Fit Width” zoom level by default. The viewer now remembers your zoom settings as you move between images in a collection so you don’t have to reset it as you browse between images during the current session. And we prevent the new viewer from showing up on iOS devices (such as the iPad).

The Standard Viewer Remains Available

The Standard Viewer remains available. The Standard Viewer doesn’t have all of the same advanced features, but it does work on all browsers and operating systems (including iPads).

Regards,

Jim Mosher

[Updated on 8 August 2012]

AUTHORED BY KENDALL HULET (FROM ANCESTRY.COM)

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to view and merge Ancestry.co.uk’s “shaky leaf” record hints into your family tree directly on your iPhone, iPad or iPod?  We thought so, too.

Today, we announced the availability of an enhanced version 3 of our iPhone, iPad and iPod app, Ancestry, that now offers several new features:

• Ability to access Ancestry.co.uk’s “shaky leaf” hints for new discoveries of historical records about your ancestors directly in the app
• Merge functionality that identifies and extracts information about family members from historical records to help you grow your tree
• In-app purchasing, allowing non-subscribers to access record hints without a subscription
• Improved ability to add information to photos
• Ability to easily change your family tree privacy settings
• A more stable app with better performance

Don’t have an Apple iOS device?  Don’t worry, our Android app is in beta testing and will be available in late December for download.

For more information, or to download the app, visit the App Store.

AUTHORED BY TANA L. PEDERSEN (FROM ANCESTRY.COM)

Over the years, we have received requests to include some charting features that were available in Family Tree Maker 2006/version 16. In Family Tree Maker 2012 we’re brought back two of them: direct-line descendant charts and generation labels.

Direct-line Descendant Charts

In recent versions of Family Tree Maker, the descendant chart showed all of an individual’s descendants. With only one or two generations, this chart can get quite large and difficult to understand. Now you have a simple alternative. You can create descendant chart that shows the direct-line relationship between two people you select.

Generation Labels

Another option available in 2012 is generation labels, which identify the relationship between the primary person in the chart and other family members (such as parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents). These labels appear above chart columns and help you identify relationships in a glance.

Text Boxes

A new feature in 2012 is the ability to personalize charts by adding your own free-form text boxes. Write a story about the individual, add a caption to a family photo, or include information that doesn’t fit elsewhere on the chart.

AUTHORED BY JIM MOSHER (FROM ANCESTRY.COM)

Several years ago, we launched the Advanced Image Viewer. This viewer provided some much-needed capabilities and was welcomed by the users who could take advantage of it. Our other users – almost 50% of our total user base – continued to use a basic image viewer which provided somewhat limited capabilities. Over time, as browsers changed, the Advanced Image Viewer worked for fewer and fewer of our users.

Today, we are pleased to announce that a new (beta) image viewer is available on the site. This new viewer should be useable by the majority of our customers while still providing the “advanced” capabilities of the previous viewer.

We have written this experience in a way that will make it easier and faster for us to support the most popular viewer technologies. For the present, this is Adobe Flash; in the future, we anticipate this will evolve towards technologies such as HTML 5 as browsers that support those technologies are more broadly adopted by our users.

Summary of key features

• Faster image loading. We’ve invested in the backend services that power the image viewing experience. We’ll continue to optimise and improve performance, but this experience should be faster for most of our users.
• Works on more platforms and with more browsers. Windows and Macintosh. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.
• New and improved features. Rotate, mirror, and better zoom controls are new for all users. Magnify, thumbnail view, and enhanced images are new for anyone who couldn’t use the previous Advanced Image Viewer.
• Familiar interface. The basic user interface around the viewer is relatively unchanged. Some of the interactions have changed (such as zoom and pan controls).
• Simplified installation experience. For most of you, the viewer will just work. Some of you will first need to install a more recent version of Adobe Flash.
• BETA. We’re still working on this. There are some known issues. We’re also taking feedback for further improvements. Let us know what you think at feedback-imageviewer@ancestry.com.

What this means to you

Some of you will start seeing the new viewer immediately. Everyone can choose enable the new viewer. If you don’t like the new viewer, you can go back to using the old viewer. Over time, we will be directing more and more people to the new viewer.

To switch to the new viewer (or switch back to the old viewer), click the Options button and then click on the viewer you wish to use. (Your options may be different than what is shown below, based on your browser and operating system.)

What’s new

The new viewer, and the backend services we’ve built out to support it, is faster, feature rich, and easier to install. It retains the general capabilities of the previous Advanced Image Viewer and adds some new features that our customers have requested. It runs on both Windows and Macintosh operating systems. It is supported on Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari. And it is available now.

When you first look at the new viewer, you may not notice many changes from the previous Advanced Image Viewer. If you are used to the Standard Image Viewer, there will be some new features to try out. Regardless, we have tried to keep the user experience very similar. There are a few changes that we’d like to point out:

What’s Changed. We’ve added a link that describes what has changed and takes you to a survey so you can provide us with feedback on the new viewer. Let us know what you think!

Rotate and Mirror. Two new features are available on the toolbar. Rotating an image 90 degrees at a time or mirroring it (flipping it over) can make reading some images easier.

Zoom drop down. We have updated the options in the zoom drop down: Fit Image, Fit Width, Fit Height, and Full Size give you broad control over the initial size of the image. Additionally, we have removed the percentage-based zoom options.

Zoom controls. The Zoom in/Zoom out buttons remain to help you zoom in or out on an image. We have also added support for zooming in and out using the scroll wheel on your mouse or using the plus (+) and minus (-) keys on your number keypad.

Image Manipulation. Use the mouse to click and drag an image around on the screen. Alternately, use the arrow keys to move the image. Please note that there are no scroll bars within the viewer.

What else has changed

Other changes may be more subtle. You will notice that images load to the “Fit Width” zoom value. Images start out a little fuzzy and then clarify – this is due to the “Deep Zoom” technology we are using to optimise download speeds (we don’t download the entire image all at once, which make the image faster to load). The Magnify option actually magnifies a bit more than the previous version.

Printing & Saving

We had to make some changes to the Print and Save Image features. This version doesn’t support a “Print Current View,” which the previous Advanced Image Viewer did. “Print Current View” should be available before the end of the year. Saving an image is also different. If you have been using Chrome or Firefox, saving was a right-click operation. You will now need to click the Save button and select “Save this image.” The file will then be downloaded by the browser.

Known issues

Yes, this is a Beta release. Yes, there are things that aren’t quite the way we want them to be. And, yes, we want your feedback so we can continue to improve.

For this release, there are a few known issues:

• Zooming in and out using the “+” and “-” key on the top of your keyboard doesn’t work. It should work with the “+” and “-” on the numeric keypad. Except that…
• Zooming out using the “-” key doesn’t work with Chrome, and…
• Scrolling the image using the arrow keys doesn’t work with Safari.
• The popup that displays when you first load the new viewer is currently English only.
• If you resize your browser window , or have the Member Connect/Source panel open, some of the toolbar options may wrap on the screen.
• While we highlight terms in our OCR collections (such as newspapers), this version doesn’t move and center the image on the current highlight.
• There are a few odd cases where canceling the install of Adobe Flash on older browsers can cause the browser to crash.

With the exception of the Adobe Flash issue, we plan on fixing all of the other items. You won’t need to do a new download or make any changes – they should just start working as we roll out the updates.

Faster image loading. New and improved features. A familiar interface. A new viewer.

We hope you will try it out. Let us know what you think. Click on the “What’s Changed” link in the viewer to learn more and to take a survey. Or send a message to us at feedback-imageviewer@ancestry.com. If you like it, we want to know. If you don’t like it, we want to know. And if you have problems with it – especially if images don’t load correctly – we want to know (please let us know which collection you were viewing).

We look forward to your feedback!

Best regards,

Jim Mosher
Search Product Management

AUTHORED BY TANA L. PEDERSEN (FROM ANCESTRY.COM)

By now you’ve probably heard about TreeSync. It’s the latest innovative tool available in Family Tree Maker 2012, which gives you the ability to sync one Family Tree Maker tree and one online Ancestry tree.

Now you can make changes to your tree anytime, anywhere. Maybe you’re at the library and you find your grandma’s birth record. Record this information in your online linked tree using your laptop or mobile app; then when you get home, open Family Tree Maker, click the Sync Now button, and your desktop tree will be updated with the new information. Or, add a bunch of family photos to your desktop tree, sync it, and friends and family all over the world can see them in your online tree.

Why Would I Want an Online and a Desktop Tree?

If you only have an online Ancestry tree or you’ve always used Family Tree Maker, you may be wondering why you would want both. Many people enjoy online trees because they can update and edit their tree anywhere they have Internet access. And they can invite friends and family to view the tree, which makes sharing family history quick and easy. Others prefer desktop software because they can quickly build a tree without worrying about Internet connections, refreshes, and upload times. And they can create a variety of beautiful charts and reports to help with their research. With TreeSync, you can enjoy the best of both worlds. You’ll have the mobility of an online tree with the advanced features of a desktop software program.

How Does TreeSync Work?

If your main tree is in Family Tree Maker, you can upload your tree to Ancestry by clicking the Upload and Link to Ancestry button on the Plan workspace. This will create a new linked online tree. (If you’ve already uploaded this tree to Ancestry, you will now have two duplicate online trees; you can simply delete the old one.)

If your main tree is on Ancestry.co.uk, you can download it into Family Tree Maker by clicking Download from Ancestry on the Plan workspace. This will create a new linked desktop tree.

Once the trees are linked together, you can access and edit it online or on your desktop. You can even use our Ancestry iPhone and iPad apps to update your tree.

Can I download and sync my Ancestry tree to more than one computer?
You may download your Ancestry tree to any computer that has Family Tree Maker. However, you can only download and sync your tree to one computer—even if you have installed Family Tree Maker 2012 on two computers. Be aware that you cannot synchronise a tree between two computers either.

Can I exclude people when I upload my tree using TreeSync?
No. You must upload your entire tree if you want it to sync between Family Tree Maker and Ancestry. However, you can upload only part of your tree to Ancestry if you simply want to put your tree online and not sync it.

How long does it take to upload and sync a tree?
The first time you upload a tree to Ancestry.co.uk it may take a while, especially if you have a lot of media items. However, after the initial upload, the syncing process takes much less time because only your changes are synced and not your entire tree. Due to the different Internet connection speeds that are available and various tree sizes we cannot estimate the length of your syncing time precisely.

What if I already have an online tree and a Family Tree Maker tree? How do I link them together?
You cannot simply link the two trees together. You would need to download your online tree and merge it with your Family Tree Maker tree. (Remember; make a backup of your tree before making any large changes like this.) Then, you’d re-upload the new “complete” tree back to Ancestry.co.uk using the “upload and link” option.

Are there parts of my tree that won’t sync?
Although most tree content transfers easily, there are a few exceptions. For more information on potential differences between linked trees on Ancestry sites and Family Tree Maker, please read this article.

What About Privacy?

Whenever I mention online trees, I am generally met with one concern. Privacy. Some people feel like their tree is a work in progress and isn’t ready to be shared yet. Others have accumulated a lot of confidential information that they don’t want to share publicly. Fortunately, TreeSync provides with you several privacy options so you don’t have to sacrifice security for mobility.

When you upload your tree to Ancestry, you can make your tree public, which means that other Ancestry subscribers can view your tree (except information about living individuals and private notes), and your tree will be shown in search results on Ancestry.co.uk. Or, you can make your tree private, which means that limited information about individuals in your tree (name, birth year, birthplace) will appear in Ancestry search results, but no one can view the contents of your tree unless you invite them to. Additionally, you can choose to exclude your tree from appearing even in search indexes on Ancestry. And, you can change your preference at any time, and as often as you like.

What If I Need Help?

I get an error message when I try to sync my desktop and online trees. What do I do?
Occasionally you may get an error message when you try to sync your linked trees. This can occur when your Internet connection is interrupted during the synchronisation process. First, make sure your Internet access is enabled in Family Tree Maker. (Go to the File menu and select Go Online. If the menu option “Go Offline” appears, Internet access is already enabled.) Second, check your Internet connection. If you have a dial-up Internet connection, or you have disabled your broadband connection, establish your Internet connection before you open Family Tree Maker. Make sure you are able to get to other websites.

I cannot edit my online Ancestry tree. What happened?
If you cannot edit your synced online tree, it may be because the online tree is temporarily unavailable while the desktop and online trees are being synced. Please wait a few minutes and try again.

Can I delete my tree if I decide I don’t want it online?
Yes, you can delete your online tree at any time. Be aware that once it’s deleted or unlinked, it can’t be re-linked to your Family Tree Maker tree.

If you have questions about TreeSync that haven’t been answered in this post or you are having issues syncing your tree, please contact our Customer Support at 0800 404 9723.

We’ve been working hard on an Android version of the Ancestry mobile app, and we’re looking for Android users to help us test an early beta version. If you are interested in being a beta tester, regularly use an Android phone or tablet, and are an Ancestry subscriber, please click here to take a short survey. We will contact a small group of respondents that meet our requirements. Watch this space for future testing opportunities and announcements on the Android app’s progress.

Survey link: http://ancestry.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_0TWfUEG80omFPgw

AUTHORED BY TANA L. PEDERSEN (FROM ANCESTRY.COM)

Have you accidentally spelled an ancestor’s name incorrectly throughout your tree? Or discovered that a cemetery name you’ve recorded is actually the wrong cemetery? If you’re like me and make these types of mistakes regularly, you’re in luck. Family Tree Maker has a Find and Replace tool that lets you search for specific terms and names in facts, person notes, media captions and descriptions, to-do tasks, and sources–and replace the incorrect terms when needed.

For example, in my tree I have a tendency to transpose the I and E in my great-grandfather’s name, making him Neils instead of Niels. Instead of sifting through every fact, source, and media item for the incorrect spelling, I use the Find and Replace tool to search for the mistake and correct it.

Before you use the Find and Replace tool, you’ll want to make a backup of your tree since these types of changes can’t be undone.

1.  To open the tool, choose Edit>Find and Replace.
2.  Enter the term(s) you want to search for in the Find field. You can choose how exact you want the search to be and which parts of your tree to search. In this situation I want to search all available options because I am looking for a misspelled name. If you know the term you’re looking for is in a source or a note, you can select only that option.

If your search term includes a date, keep in mind that text in Date fields cannot be searched. A date shows up in search results only if it appears in the Description field or in a note, source, or media item.

3.  Click the Find button. The window expands to show the first item that matches your search.
4.  If you want to open the record or workspace where the search term is used, click the Go To button. If you want to replace the term, enter a new term in the “Replace with” field and click the Replace button. To find the next matching term, click Find Next. Continue searching and replacing terms, as necessary.

Although you can replace all matching text by clicking the Replace All button, I recommend viewing each search result individually. For example, if I had chosen “Replace All” when replacing my great-grandfather’s name, it would have changed a record transcription in a source citation. This is an instance in which I wanted to keep the name as I found it in the record.

Also, don’t feel like you have to use the Find and Replace tool just for correcting mistakes. It can be useful if you simply want to locate specific information. Perhaps you’ve entered important facts in a person note but you can’t remember which individual it’s linked to. Search all notes for the text you remember and then click the Go To button to open the individual and the note.