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AncestryDNA’s new BETA

Discussion in 'DNA Questions and Answers' started by jorghes, Feb 28, 2019.

Page 15 of 21
  1. peter

    peter Administrator Staff Member

    Example of triangle:

    upload_2019-5-22_13-4-57.png
     
    peter, May 22, 2019
    #281
  2. peter

    peter Administrator Staff Member

    Example of hearts:
    upload_2019-5-22_13-7-18.png
     
    peter, May 22, 2019
    #282
  3. Tim

    Tim Megastar and Moderator Staff Member

    Is this your tree Peter? If no, then the owner may have added these symbols into the Suffix field? The hearts to maybe denote the ancestrial line?
     
    Tim, May 22, 2019
    #283
  4. peter

    peter Administrator Staff Member

    It's not my tree, it's the public tree of a distant relative. How would the tree owner have added those symbols - I can't see any easy way of adding them to my own tree? I was hoping it was a new Ancestry feature in beta test
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2019
    peter, May 22, 2019
    #284
  5. Helen7

    Helen7 LostCousins Superstar

    As Tim said, it looks like the tree owner has added the symbol in the Suffix field of each direct ancestor. I hadn't seen this effect before, but I just tried it for one of my ancestors and it showed up in my tree in the way you have illustrated. It could be any symbol, not necessarily a heart or triangle. Not sure how you access symbols on a PC but they are directly available from the Character Viewer on my Mac, so easy to put into the suffix field (after last name) of the 'quick edit' window for any individual.

    There may be another way of getting Ancestry to mark selected ancestors this way, other than by manually editing the Suffix field, but I can't see it at the moment. (the 'direct ancestor' tag in MyTreeTags doesn't seem to produce a symbol in tree views).
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2019
    Helen7, May 22, 2019
    #285
  6. Tim

    Tim Megastar and Moderator Staff Member

    In Quick Edit, there is a suffix field. When you type ALT+3 you get a heart symbol. Make sure you have numer lock on and only use the numeric keypad.
    upload_2019-5-22_15-47-29.png
     
    Tim, May 22, 2019
    #286
  7. peter

    peter Administrator Staff Member

    No numeric keypad on my laptop..... but what this experience indicates is that there's an opportunity for Ancestry to make trees much more useful by indicating which relatives are in the direct line of the home person.
     
    peter, May 22, 2019
    #287
  8. canadianbeth

    canadianbeth LostCousins Star

    I just checked a couple of trees to which I have access and the owners there have not done this. It sounds interesting if that is what the symbols mean.
     
    canadianbeth, May 22, 2019
    #288
  9. Helen7

    Helen7 LostCousins Superstar

    So that's how it's done in Windows, assuming you have a numeric keypad (doesn't apply to Mac where you can select any symbol directly). But I agree with Peter, it would be good if Ancestry could provide a way of automatically indicating direct ancestors. I notice some people put their direct ancestors in capital letters to make them stand out.
     
    Helen7, May 22, 2019
    #289
    • Agree Agree x 1
  10. Tim

    Tim Megastar and Moderator Staff Member

    That feature is in FTM, but as you say not Ancestry. Personally I have used Pictures with the names of the family line in colour to denote my 4 grandparent lines. All my ancestors are coded this way

    upload_2019-5-22_20-13-8.png
     
    Tim, May 22, 2019
    #290
  11. Tim

    Tim Megastar and Moderator Staff Member

    Are you sure Peter? Laptop Keyboard
     
    Tim, May 22, 2019
    #291
  12. peter

    peter Administrator Staff Member

    Yes, I'm sure - I don't even have a NumLock key.
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2019
    peter, May 22, 2019
    #292
  13. peter

    peter Administrator Staff Member

    The Suffix field is intended to be used for descriptions such as Jr, III etc. But those are used so infrequently in Britain that repurposing the field seems like a good idea - provided it doesn't confuse the Ancestry system. There are plenty of symbols on a normal keyboard that could be used, eg the caret (^).

    Marking relatives who emigrated would be another good use of the suffix field.
     
    peter, May 23, 2019
    #293
  14. Bob Spiers

    Bob Spiers LostCousins Superstar

    Yes I have always used CAPS to pick out direct ancestors and find this quite sufficient. However, Tribal Pages (TP) uses a series of 6 colour tags to identify direct & bloodline relationships to me as the Home Person, or whoever I nominate as Home Person in my other Trees. Different colours to pick out ancestors and descendants. This can be very useful, including the absence of any colour where no such relationship exists.
     
    Bob Spiers, May 23, 2019
    #294
  15. peter

    peter Administrator Staff Member

    The important thing is for there to be consistency - if everyone has a different system then it isn't going to help other users, and could be counter-productive.

    For example, I still don't know what the triangles meant in the original example - they're certainly not the direct ancestors of the home person.
     
    peter, May 23, 2019
    #295
  16. Tim

    Tim Megastar and Moderator Staff Member

    I'm surprised. Not even when you have to press the Blue Fn key first?
     
    Tim, May 23, 2019
    #296
  17. peter

    peter Administrator Staff Member

    There is no key with Num Lock printed on it, and there are no keys which obviously double as a numeric keypad - not that I've needed them before.
     
    peter, May 23, 2019
    #297
  18. Bob Spiers

    Bob Spiers LostCousins Superstar

    Sorry, I am not concerned what others do in Ancestry, I just use CAPS for my direct ancestors (as do many others for that matter), which satisfies my requirements. What others do is down to them and if we wait for Ancestry to cotton on to colour coding (like Tribal Pages) or symbolic hearts and triangles, then we are in for a long wait.
     
    Last edited: May 23, 2019
    Bob Spiers, May 23, 2019
    #298
  19. Bob Spiers

    Bob Spiers LostCousins Superstar

    I have not long had a session sorting out my daughter's laptop which also had no keypad, Num Lock, or the 'makeshift' DIY keypad mentioned by Tim (an abomination at best). Having to enter numeric characters a fair number of times I asked her why she chose a model without a separate keypad? Her answer "I don't need one there are numbers along the top...besides those with key pads were too big and bulky". I know when I am beaten so didn't pursue the matter further.
     
    Bob Spiers, May 23, 2019
    #299
  20. peter

    peter Administrator Staff Member

    That's the sort of public-spirited response we've come to expect from you, Bob!
    As someone who grew up with typewriters I'm perfectly happy using the numbers across the top - a numeric keypad would be very low on my list of priorities, especially since I'd have to put the mouse down in order to use it. The one laptop I have with a numeric keypad weights as much as the other three combined.
     
    peter, May 23, 2019
    #300
Page 15 of 21

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