Ancestry users what do you think of your new Home page?

Why have I not contacted with my matches on LC? Because the ones I have found I was in touch with already - one from over a decade ago. Which probably explains why she has not contacted me through LC either, in case you also want to put her on the naughty step. We correspond privately by email on the odd occasion that one of us finds something new to share or on which two heads are better than one. Was not aware I had to explain myself to anyone here!

Having been researching since 2000 & amongst my collaborators have cousins who are members of the One-Name Study Society I am as experienced as many of those on LC & have a wealth of experience in others to call on. My sadness is that in recent years 3 of those I regarded as mentors from my early research days have passed away recently. Mary had been researching since 1959, Brian since early 1970s so they have left me a valuable legacy.

 

Head to Account Settings > Trees > (scroll down) Hint Notifications and the third option is "New hint indicator at top of page" which then takes you to another page with a checklist of all your trees.
Just untick those you don't want to appear in that shaky hint menu. It doesn't effect which trees are shown in the "more hints" option though.

 

Sadly not for me.
It has been online for a couple of weeks now, and annoys me every time I log on. I don't have a problem with it in principle, but I'm getting fed up with the same photos, record hints, and school yearbook hints, always from the USA, being pushed in my face very day. And the thing is, I'm not working in the USA part part of my tree at the moment and haven't touched it for months. I'm working on UK parts of my tree but the new "Pick up where you left off" buttons are STILL for people in the USA. PLEASE, CAN I JUST MANAGE MY HOME PAGE AND TURN OFF THESE NEW FEATURES!

 

I no longer use the Home Page. I have Chrome and it is set to open a number of tabs when I fire it up. I have changed my Ancestry tab to my Private Profile where I can access trees if I want to, or, use the Trees list from the drop down at the top which shows which tree I had open last.

I have done as earlier suggested and copied and pasted my Quick Links into an Excel spreadsheet and have Bookmarked my Shoebox.

I have also used the Suggestions, also mentioned in an earlier post, to ask for changes and I'm not holding my breath.

 

My Ancestry homepage keeps getting better and better - not! It's now started showing me a selection of "useful" photos from other member trees, such as this one:



And taking up much of the rest of the LH side of the page, I have new sections on Remembrance, Anniversaries and Birthdays. (Note to self - must remember to post a birthday card to my great grandmother and an anniversary card to my 3 x great grandparents.)

 

I feel your pain.
As I said in #65 I am no longer using the Home page but looking at it now I need to buy a birthday card for my Grand Uncle who will be 138 years old soon and not to mention a sympathy card for my Great Aunt who died in 1987.

The page is getting beyond ridiculous, it used to fill the depth of my screen but now I need a screen that's twice as long.

I cannot see how any of it is really helping with research. What exactly is the point of showing me photos of the wife of my 4th cousin 2x removed.

I shall continue to avoid the page and hope that there are enough 'suggestions' to make Ancestry see the error of their ways.

 

I think it would be better if the new Remembrance, Anniversaries and Birthdays sections could be turned on or off according to user preference, but I haven't yet found any way to do this. I think it's probably the Remembrance ones I object to the most - do I really need a reminder of the date my 6 x great grandmother died in 1838? And with more recent family that I knew well, while marking the anniversary of their death is not something I go in for anyway, I don't particularly want a reminder in my face every time I go to Ancestry.

(I am still using the homepage to access Quick Links and my shoebox, though I do now have my own webpage for the former, and have already needed it to add in new links to the Sussex registers.)

 

I hope you will make that suggestion to Ancestry, you can find the suggestion box here.

 

Have now done, that, thanks for the link which saved me looking for it.

Another thing I noticed yesterday, is that I had stuff relating to someone else's tree all my homepage. It's a tree that's been shared with me, and for which I am apparently a contributor, and although I keep clicking the dropdown option to show my tree, it keeps switching back to the last viewed tree option. Very annoying, particularly as much of what is showing of the other tree is not in the part that has any relevance to me and my ancestry.

 

That's weird because when I use the drop down to the right of "Make Discoveries" it says Select a tree you own and lists only the trees that I do own, the one and only tree where I am a guest is not there but is in the drop down across the top.
My cute little grandson is now on my Home page because I have him in one of my trees with a profile picture. I am being reminded it's his birthday in x number of days, as if I need that sort of reminder

Although I divorced many years ago and the ex is deceased I do wonder if I'll be reminded about my wedding anniversary when the time comes?

I do feel we are being treated like children or is it imbeciles?

BTW, one of my request in the suggestion box was for us to be able to manage the home page like we used to which means being able to hide sections of it.
I can almost see the pigs flying.

 

I also am not remotely hopeful that Ancestry will listen to any suggestions I make. Does feel like whispering from 100 yards away to a brick wall with concrete render.

As I now have my personal homepage working just fine I was however curious to look at the latest default update. OMG! A screen full of stuff that is either irrelevant or of no interest to my current researches. I will not be returning.

Obviously sites like Ancestry will always pander to the lowest common denominator of user - those who have no tree attached to DNA results, no tree at all, no clue even which part of the world they are from. And these days the trend seems to be like social media where people use their real name as screen name. I remember the good old days when we all hid behind non-de-plumes (as we do on LC of course). Of course we genealogists realise that giving our real names, ages, parent names etc leaves us open to being hacked. Only the tax & health authorities get my real DOB & no-one gets my mother's maiden name as a security question. When Thrulines gives me a DNA match that is big enough to appear conclusive that we could be say 3rd cousins but there are all those green boxes for 3 generations with the real name of my match designated as private at the bottom of the tree it does not take long to fill in the info of those green people & even find the BMD of the match along with their offspring.

I wonder how much of the material now being streamed across the homepage can be harvested for nefarious means.

 

Because there are links on the homepage (ones that are not on other pages) that I use very regularly.

 

Lowest interest in pursuing any serious research, lowest level of looking to build an accurate tree through effort not blind copying. I don't really expect to get much advance on my tree from the members who look at pretty pictures & click "save". There is a marriage record saved in over 100 trees of a couple that hints keep saying belongs to my line, along with the 15 children this couple went on to have. Considering the woman was a 51 year old widow at marriage & the last child was born 33 years later I don't feel that the majority are correct & I am a sole wrong voice in the wilderness. Everytime I look at the couple there are more & more trees with them added in, presumably spurred on by hints.

I used the homepage as an index to the wide resources I want to use & being able to tailor it to show my most used/useful resources suited me just fine. So why take away the option? Ancestry can of course do what they please & no doubt financially it is more rewarding for them to pull in as many new people as possible. The site is no longer the domain of the serious researcher, but a dumbed down crowd pleaser.

 

Just to add to what I wrote earlier, what does research experience have to do with it?

Surely it’s just that we all have our different ways of working, and to me a customised homepage, refined and added to over the years, has made an ideal place from which to access all the datasets I use regularly.

 

Ancestry bangs on about how they listen to their users and have told me they 'interview' users.
I know they can't be all things to all people but they could at least allow us to have a preview of proposed changes and ask intelligent questions about what we think.
I've never been interviewed, all I ever get is those questions about how satisfied I am with stupid circles for answers.

 

That is probably what they call an interview. I hope that you always show dissatisfaction rather than ignore.