Ancestry Home Page

I have had an Ancestry account and subscription since 2008, and recently attached my DNA results to my tree. I now want to attach a second DNA to my tree and as Ancestry allows only one set of DNA results per account, I have created a new account for the second DNA, and I will 'manage' this new DNA. Because this new account's sole purpose is for the second DNA I have not taken out a subscription.

I noticed when I set up the new account that it has a different Home page from my main account, one that cannot be customised.
I have also made a discovery.
If I sign out of the new account and into my main account, it also displays the 'new' Home page - but if I delete cookies and cache between signing out and in, the main account has the Home page I'm used to.
But this does not happen the other way round. If I sign out of my main account with its 'old' Home page, then sign in to the new account without deleting cookies & cache, it still displays the 'new' Home page.




Could it be that Ancestry are trying out a new Home page on new customers? Or is it that there are two Home pages, one for subscribers and one for non-subscribers? Or is there another reason?

Does anyone know why there are two different Home pages?

 

The same happened to me when I had to set up a free account for a relative’s DNA test that I manage. I couldn’t find anything definite in Ancestry support articles but I assumed the homepages were different because those without a subscription (registered guests) have only limited access to Ancestry.

It is annoying that the wrong homepage displays when you go back to your own account, and I likewise dealt with it by deleting cookies etc. It shouldn’t be necessary to keep logging into the guest account once you’ve set things up to manage the 2nd DNA test, but if you do want to, it is perhaps easier to use a different browser or different device, then you don’t have to reset your usual browser to get things back to normal again. The other homepage is useless for subscribers!

 

Thank you for that. I was concerned that Ancestry were trying out a new home page for new accounts in the way that they've done for other things in the past before going on to force us all to have the 'new improved' version. Having a different home page for non-subscribers makes sense since there is very little that can be done without a subscription.


The second DNA kit arrived this morning, my mother provided the sample and I activated the kit, sent an invite to my account and then posted it this afternoon. Then I made myself manager of her DNA.
Since I have not done this before I wasn't sure if I could manage every aspect of my mother's DNA from my account but from what you say it seems as though I will be able to.

 

That is a good idea. I did log in with my Kindle Fire when I first saw the 'new' home page (it was the 'old' one) but I find that very difficult to work with as the screen too small and I can't touch the right part of the screen - it took me 3 attempts to log in as I kept touching the wrong letters in the password.

I use Firefox as my browser but my laptop also had Microsoft Edge installed. Or would anyone recommend another browser? I do have reserves about browsers owned by Google (Chrome) and China (Opera).

 

Browser preferences vary between individuals but it’s usually a good idea to have at least 2 different browsers installed in case of issues. I use Firefox and Chrome more or less equally in W10, and in W7 I mostly use IE but have Firefox as my reserve browser.

I don’t find IE very good in the DNA section of Ancestry as it is very slow and seems to have issues with long running scripts. It works fine for the rest of the site.

But I have other issues with Chrome and Firefox at Ancestry with frequent annoying warnings about having local storage turned off - even though all my browsers are set up to allow all cookies from Ancestry.

 

Do you know having read this posting I could not for the life of me recall the original Home page in Ancestry despite being a subscriber since Adam was a boy. I invariably select a Tree to work on, then pick an ancestral Profile and search from there. So with a little experimentation using Google, Edge & Opera (I have long given up on IE and have shelved Firefox pro tem) I believe I have discovered the two formats. (Incidentally the Opera browser (which I have favoured of late) does not even show a Home page tab as do the others, but one can get to it by clicking on the Ancestry tab icon)

I also found postings on the 'Family Tree Forum' on the subject of old versus new Home page formats. The general consensus seems to recommend customising the Home Page to suit your needs and all Home page versions show 'Customize your homepage'. So whatever constituted an original format -and I seem to recall Record Collections and My Quick Links where an integral part - can now be added back, as can other options.

I tend to use Edge exclusively for Ancestry and I noticed my Home page did not show either the Record Collections or My Quick Links so I added them back. If UK Census Records (for instance) are the bugbear (or part of it), then perhaps customisation is the best course to take. Just a thought!

 

But not the homepage in a free account - there is no ‘Customise your homepage’ option.

 

I am writing this on a Fire tablet so will be brief. I have one Ancestry subscription and 5 Trees; all as part of the subscription. No free accounts. all have the same type home page,all can be customised. Explain please why Susan needed a free ccount for an additional Tree when she was already a subscriber, and could as I do create a new Tree. I am clearly missing the point somewhere?

 

Thanks Peter, I overlooked the DNA registration element and the Ancestry rule about only being able to attach one per account.

 

I have made myself manager of the DNA test attached to my new Ancestry account so hopefully I won't need to log in to the second account.

And by sheer coincidence, as I've been typing this I have received an email to say that the second kit has arrived and it is logged as 'arrived' on the DNA page of my original account.

 

I wondered why in my DNA match results there were a fair few 'Manager' type accounts. Some but by no means all would show (say) J.Smith as a potential match as well as (again say) Fred Jones (Managed by J.Smith). Perhaps this is a work-around to overcome the ...'attach one DNA result to one account'?