Writing in the (official) Ancestry.com blog, David Graham has described a new feature that will be soon be added to the online service. It sounds like a service that will help people who are researching the same families connect with each other.
David writes:
There are millions of people researching their family histories on Ancestry.com and some of them are likely researching the same people you are. We are working on a new feature called Member Connect that we will be releasing later this summer to help make it easier to find, connect with, and collaborate with these other members.
He then goes on to describe the service that will help Ancestry.com users connect with others through historical records about your ancestors. The service will build a network in your Ancestry Member Tree of other members researching your ancestors. Users will also be notified about any new research activity about your ancestors on the site.
You can read more in the Ancestry.com blog at http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2009/06/19/coming-soon-a-new-way-to-connect-with-others-researching-your-ancestors.
Why is it every time I see the words "Ancestry.com" and "connect" in the same sentence, I let out a small groan?
Posted by: jking | June 19, 2009 at 09:22 PM
lol.
My thoughts exact.
Ancestry.com are like a troubled child - 'oh what have they done now'
Posted by: bobby | June 20, 2009 at 03:21 AM
I am very disappointed in ancestry.com with regard to their supposed "public" message boards. Many people block their email addresses so you have to rely on ancestry's system to contact them. Or if you are not a subscriber then you can forget it in most cases. Also, when ancestry took over rootsweb and then migrated some of the pages on so many websites are no longer there. The whole purpose of public message boards is to make connections and ancestry.com makes this very difficult to do. They also require subscriptions to see some family tree's so in effect they are charging people for content they did not create, but only host. Shame! Shame!
Posted by: David | June 20, 2009 at 06:59 AM
they are no worse than rootsweb.com..they are a nightmare to try and get thru. I have yet to be able to add anything to the site and try and find anything is worse..its either blocked or just can't find...
I think ancestry.com and rootsweb.com have gotten too big for their own good.
We need something simple to work with...I don't want to have to go and hunt for hours to try and find something.
Posted by: kaye jonas | June 20, 2009 at 09:22 AM
David, why is it Ancestry.com's fault that people unrelated to Ancestry choose to block their e-mail addresses? Why is it Ancestry.com's fault that people unrelated to Ancestry chose to move their pages from Rootsweb to some other hosting site?
Ancestry.com does not charge anyone anything for access to user-contributed family trees. Never has and has promised to never do so in the future. With OneWorldTree, what you are paying for is the convenience of having all of the trees on one site, stiched together. The underlying trees are still at whichever database the user submitted the tree to, and are still accessible there for free. You don't need to go through OneWorldTree to see them.
Posted by: Zadruga Guy | June 20, 2009 at 09:49 AM
My worry has always been the people posting and digging for information who are only superficially related. The vast majority of the trees posted on Ancestry and Rootsweb are not concerned with an individual's ancestors, but with thousands of relations and their spouses and descendants of their ancestors. And most of the research doesn't quote sources; most of it is done by culling inaccurate information from the net and from other people's family trees.
It is for this reason I do not put a tree onto Ancestry, Rootsweb or any other site. I think a fifth cousin three times removed posting my immediate family's information in a public tree is an invasion of privacy.
My concern with Ancestry's latest twist is that the information I uncover on their site privately, and the connections I make about private information I have on my family, will be co-opted by the people culling thousands of names and "collecting" information that is really none of their business!
Posted by: Linda S. | June 20, 2009 at 11:27 AM
Thanks for the comment on blocked email addresses. I went back to review my profile and find the address is blocked by default. Took the opportunity to update my profile and remove the block.
Posted by: Bob B | June 20, 2009 at 12:14 PM
You can't see the World Tree data unless you are a paid member who is logged in. Unless you are a member, when you find a relative it will then take you to a screen offering a paid membership. You can not view the Tree.
Posted by: CV | June 20, 2009 at 01:31 PM
The problem I have with ancestry is they are spending alot of money on things that do not further your research, a system to connect trees is not what I want from ancestry I want documents & records I will find a way to find the people I would like to reach without wading through countless mistakes on other people's trees.
Posted by: Donna | June 20, 2009 at 01:42 PM
I don't know if this is too late to post but I relocated to a remote place in the hills and have to subscribe to different ones to research for records on just my family. By the way I did have a 5th cousin removed put me and my folks on the internet I was very upset and let him know it. First I have had FTM since it's beginnings except for the FTM 2009. I have subscribed to
Ancestry for the last 3 or 4 yrs now. I was getting lots of records info for my family then I seen this public tree thing and checked out my family names and found one of my cousins had put our tree and pictures on line so here I found a treasure 40-50 pictures I would never had seen if it hadn't been for her submission. I even emailed my other cousin for this fantastic find. In the meantime after
Ancestry and FTM loosing lots of my info from their glitches I decided maybe I had better put my tree and pictures online in case of losing them again. Right now I am private because I have rechecked my info for mistakes and have found a few. Also backing up my work helped but don't know how to make a gedcom of my work. I don't want anything out there unless it is correct (I am an old retired school sect'y). I am not sure I have done the right thing because mainly I don't believe I have rights to my work I may be wrong can't seem to find any info on this. But I do like finding new records and this is a big help to me esp with the way of mispelled words in the census.
thanks for hearing me out, jp
Posted by: joyce patterson | June 20, 2009 at 07:43 PM
All really good interesting comments. I approach Ancestry's "family tree" concept with some level skepticism in that I've had "distant" family members actually copy information incorrectly while other "family members" go merrily along filling in blanks on my behalf without my permission. I don't upload or download entire trees and I don't want my work exploited. The only lines I put on Ancestry are "lines I'm researching that have reached a dead end." Others may be attached to it also and it gives us a common denominator to collaborate. But many have contacted me to "verify" our connection and I'm more than happy to share what I have "with sources." In most cases though they have been able to share pictures and other info that "basic" BDM evidence can't provide. Sharing & collaborating assists everyone. Remembering professional ethics and privacy rights should be everyone's concern. Unfortunately, WFT is not helpful for those who use only trees to advance their research. Ancestry is another avenue, it's how we choose to use them.
Posted by: BWJ | June 20, 2009 at 08:52 PM
I find Ancestry.com to be invaluable as a research tool. As a pretty competent ancestor searcher, I do not rely upon unsourced material but have located other researchers and tons of data it would have taken forever to locate. Yes, it is costly, but when I think about the time I save AND HUGE amounts of money it would have taken me to get the info I now have, I am grateful. I do not object to a company gathering as much genealogy info as possible. They are not responsible for irresponsible actions of those who post unresourced trees and copy other's trees without verifying or giving credit. I like it that when I pull a picture or story from another tree, it acknowledges the original person. I think it sources people I pull in as well. The info I find is not mine. It is the result of others' work in creating the data in the first place. I do this research to memorialize my family for all time...to honor them...and hiding it from others or refusing to share the info is contrary to my goal. I hope Ancestry.com will make my work available and hopefully available forever. We all have different reasons for doing our research. For me, Ancestry.com is invaluable despite all its faults.
I do really hate the search engines that bring up too much and seemingly irrelevant and unconnected data. It takes me more effort to dig through it, but it has been helpful when I am patient. Some of you seem unwilling to share which is your right ... please, accept that for others sharing is what it is about.
Posted by: Sharon Zingery | June 21, 2009 at 03:18 AM
I have been a long time subscriber of Ancestry.com. I recently met and chatted with a representative from Ancestry and told her of my concerns about the site. She asssured me that there would be no more problems because of a new format they had adopted. I told her about putting a surname in for a search, getting lots of hits but when I go to the hits, only the first letter or first two leters are the same. With the amount of money we pay for a subscription, you would think they could make that stop happening. Linda
Posted by: Linda Hansel | June 21, 2009 at 09:07 AM
I have much less experience with genealogical research than others here. But I do have years of experience teaching the use of computers by the public and by public school educators. Any change, and I mean ANY with computer environments (software, interface, etc.) always creates objections. Some are well founded, while others simply reflect resistance to change.
I confess that I am as guilty as others at resisting change. For example, when the interface of a program changes, many of my "landmarks" are altered in appearance and/or location, and maybe even function. I have learned to expect this resistance from myself, and to give such changes a through trial before passing judgement. Furthermore, I have little use for the social networks.
So, as with other such changes, I will wait to see how these work out. I humbly suggest that others do the same. And if experience shows that the changes bring more strife than reward, then by all means object loudly.
Posted by: Red Sanders | June 23, 2009 at 01:58 PM