Is it me or is it Ancestry?

Tabs appear within the same browser window, so you can quickly go from one to another. I keep all of the key websites permanently open in different tabs - this is just a small selection:



The main advantage of separate browser windows is that you could have two or more windows open on the screen at the same time (if there's a way of doing that with tabs I'd like to know about it).

But the simplest thing is to try each of them out - then the difference will be obvious.

 

I've sometimes dragged a tab out by mistake, but it created a new window and I couldn't put it back again. Maybe you have a tip for that as well?

 

Thanks. Perhaps I've misunderstood, but it only works for me so long as I keep the mouse button held down - unless I put the tab back into place, as soon as I release the button the tab becomes a new window. If all I wanted to do was a quick comparison between screens that would be fine, but if I wanted to copy information across from one tab to the other (eg setting up a new payment from my bank account) I'd run out of hands.

However a Google search revealed how to merge tabs from one Chrome window into another, which is just what I need.

 

Now I've managed to get it to work even if I release the mouse button. But I'm not quite sure why it works some times and not others.

 

That's right - because it hadn't been viewed at the time you carried out the search (the same is true if you use this technique at Findmypast). But the next time the same match appears it won't have the blue button (similarly, the next time you see the same search result at Findmypast it will have a tick against it).

It's a very small and very temporary inconvenience in exchange for a useful time-saving and a significant reduction in the load on Ancestry's servers. You can, of course, refresh the page at any time.