Leaving the New Ancestry

New and returning Ancestry.com subscribers are being thrown directly into the "New" Ancestry. New subscribers have nothing to compare it to but returning subscribers will notice some basic functions missing.
Some people have the option to switch back to "Classic" Ancestry, others do not. If you have the option it will be ​in the drop down under your Ancestry user name.

Image taken from Ancestry's Help page for "The New Ancestry."

If you don't have that option you just need this link: http://home.ancestry.com/newancestry/leave. It looks as if Ancestry's crack social media team is under orders to keep this link a secret. Anyone asking for help with this problem on Facebook is asked to contact them privately with their account info. Wouldn't just posting the link be easier?
If you happen to call Ancestry for the answer you might get the same answer a friend of mine did. She was told "they can't do it and the developers have removed the link that will give you the option." The customer service rep also told her "the new site is fully functional." HA!
I called as well. My phone call started with, "I just subscribed again and was thrown into the new site. I don't have the option to go back to the old site. I either need that option or I need you to refund the money I just paid your company 10 minutes ago." The rep sent me the link to the New Ancestry help page and told me to keep scrolling. Keep scrolling. Eventually she just read me the "leave" link which she could have done in the first place to save us both some time. It's buried on that help page and in a teeny tiny font.
Whether you switch back to "Classic" using the link or the drop down you should have the option to give feedback. If you have writer's block feel free to use the following in whole or in part to get you started:

I am paying, giving you my money, to use a fully functioning, established website, not to be a guinea pig. Most of the ongoing issues were reported at the end of January, during the first week of BETA testing. I am willing to use and give feedback on the site you released to the public too soon in exchange for a 6-month subscription. If that's acceptable feel free to contact me.

If you have spent time using the new site be as specific as possible with your feedback. "I hate it!" and "Don't change it!" responses will just be tossed aside. Leave feedback when you switch back to Classic. Leave feedback on their message boards and on their community boards. Leave feedback on Ancestry's Facebook page and their other social media pages.
The changes being made may actually be improvements, once they're functioning, but we are not paying to use a site that is under construction. From the customer viewpoint I have to say that releasing the new site to the public months, maybe even years at the rate they're going, before it's ready is one of the worst business decisions Ancestry has ever made.

Here are some of Ancestry's posts about the new site. The comments make for entertaining reading. ;-)
Announcing the New Ancestry Website
New Ancestry: Feature Update 
The New Facts View: Make Sure You Are Climbing YOUR Family Tree and Not Someone Else's


PREVIOUS POST: Baby Love
NEXT POST: What's In A Name?

Switcheroo Follow-Up

Monday's post was shared on a number of Facebook pages/groups. After reading the comments I can divide them into three categories. These apply to pretty much every article ever posted on Facebook.

1) Those who read the article and understood it.
2) Those who only read the headline.
3) Those who read the article but completely missed the point.

The first group doesn't need a follow-up to Monday's post. The second group won't read this post either. This post is for the third group. After the jump I'll try to put this is the simplest, clearest terms.

Subscription Switcheroo

*NOTE: This is written from the perspective of a U.S. resident and Ancestry.com subscriber. I am not aware of any new subscription plans for Ancestry.co.uk, Ancestry.com.au, or any other Ancestry sites.

If you have your Ancestry.com account set to auto renew you might not be aware that Ancestry is "testing" a new subscription strategy. These are subscription options we are familiar with:

You should still see these options if you are a current subscriber. That would lead me to believe that if your subscription is set to auto renew it will renew at the same level. Of course Ancestry hasn't actually said anything about testing a new price plan. Nothing on the community news board. Nothing on their blog. Nothing on the message boards.

Screen caps are included after the jump but if you'd like to see Ancestry's new subscription options for yourself click this link. You may have to log out of Ancestry to view the new options. It's because it can only be seen on certain browsers. Even clearing cookies/cache won't change that. (Stopping myself from going on a rant about Ancestry's programmers here.)

AFTER THE JUMP: What they're willing to tell us

Ancestry Tech

There has been so much I've wanted to write about that my brain just froze up and I haven't written in weeks. Sorry about that. So here I go trying to kick things into gear again.
Earlier this month The Ancestry Insider wrote an interesting summary of a presentation given by Ancestry.com at the RootsTech Innovator's Summit. You can read that post here. Three things stood out to me.

1) They "noticed that new users came to Ancestry.com and typed in their own names, then left when they found nothing." Tech Department meet Marketing Department.

You two might want to chat occasionally.

2) It's pretty standard to use stats to tout the site...

...but the numbers are not all that impressive once you take a look behind the curtain. The 60 million trees include junk trees and trees created users who click, click, click and are never heard from again once their free trial is over. A single tree back to Adam & Eve requires hundreds of unsourced, completely made up profiles. Hints accepted include clip art (ships, flags, coats of arms, etc.), images of fruit, urinals, and who knows what else. Urinals? Seriously? Even the number of records attached is worthless because it includes these collections, redundant Find A Grave collections, and tree owners who will attach absolutely anything and everything.

3) Of course I saved the best for last. This is the next to last paragraph:

"In the question and answer segment, someone asked that if Ancestry.com was so interested in learning from their customers, why wasn’t there a feedback link somewhere on their site. They explained that Ancestry.com has millions of customer interactions and that if they had a feedback link, they would not be able to review all the submissions. It’s a bad idea to ask for input and that you don’t actually read."

If they don't want feedback it's a good thing there's no feedback link on their site. Oh wait...

The screen cap is from this page which can be found by 
going to Ancestry.com and clicking the "Collaborate" tab.

Ancestry's answer confirms two things about their tech team that we knew all along. First, they don't read the feedback and second, they don't use the site.


PREVIOUS POST: Do Not Ancestry
NEXT POST: Wilder Than Your Tree

New Year's Resolutions

A couple of suggested New Year's resolutions for Ancestry's programmers:

1) Communicate with Ancestry.com users.
2) Finish what you start.

Sometimes new features are just sprung on users with no explanation. No opt out and all Ancestry employees can say is, "That feature is being tested and until it is widely available, all I can do is acknowledge it is intentional - not an error." Helpful, really helpful.
Other times things are taken away with no notice whatsoever. If you're like me you probably hadn't noticed that links for locations are gone. We can no longer click on the location of an event and be taken to a map. It doesn't take much effort to use Google Maps instead but that's not the point. Lack of communication is the point. Apparently communication within the company is not a priority either. In this thread it took Ancestry employees over two weeks to figure out the feature had been discontinued.
Photo tagging disappeared when "global commenting" was added. Apparently it's never coming back. Has Ancestry said anything about this other than a random comment on their message boards?
Meanwhile, the programmers continue to add new features without ever fixing issues with existing ones.

MEDIA

✿ Photo labels - Portrait / Family Photo, Site / Building / Place, Headstone, Document / Certificate, Other - have been around since at least 2009 but they have yet to serve a purpose. You cannot sort or search within a tree's photo gallery by label. You cannot include/exclude a photo label in a global photo search. I'm so glad I went through my entire gallery and assigned the appropriate label to each item. It's been so helpful. </sarcasm>
✿ Photo captions and comments cannot be formatted. If you're typing and hit return it looks as if you've started a new paragraph, until you save the caption/comment and view it. The return is not recognized. Same goes for the transcription section for "Document / Certificate" images.
✿ Formatting doesn't always work on stories either. Write a story in a word processing program, copy and paste to Ancestry and it looks fine. Save and suddenly all bold, italics, font changes, and paragraph indications are gone. Luckily you don't have to re-type everything but you do need to re-do all the formatting despite the fact that it looks fine on the editing page.

AFTER THE JUMP: Search, Hints & FTM, Records, Messages & Invites, Gift Memberships, and more.

Social Disgrace: Double Down

Note 1: I am going to refer to the admin as "he" in this thread but the admin may very well be a she. It is just easier to write and read a single pronoun rather than constantly using he/she.
Note 2: This is an updated post. After publishing (and sleeping) I, hopefully, figured out how to make this easier to read. There are also corrections to the comment timeline. The original post still exists and is after the jump if you're curious.

Ancestry.com's social media team is so inept I could write these posts on the daily basis. Sometimes their answers are just painful. This admin doesn't understand that the link he's posting contradicts the point he's making. Shirley and Jane keep trying to get him to see his error but he refuses. My comments are after the screen caps.

(1) Shirley points out that a post on Ancestry.com's blog clearly contradicts the admin.
(2) Shirley also links to Ancestry's help section that clearly states what is and isn't included with the purchase of an AncestryDNA test.
(3) The admin states that updates have been made and then posts a link that goes to the exact same page Shirley posted. Uh, okay.
(4) Shirley quotes the linked page.
(5) Jane quotes the linked page.
At this point, shouldn't the admin be questioning himself? "Maybe I'm reading this wrong. I'll should go back and read it again."
(6) Instead he blames the site developers because he couldn't possibly be wrong. Here's the link he suggests to Shirley, "Providing feedback about Ancestry."
How's this for feedback? Dear Ancestry, please hire competent reps.
(7) Now he just doubles down and posts the link again!
Dear Admin: Posting the same link again will not change the fact that it contradicts what you're saying. Here are some steps to follow: 1) Read 2) Comprehend 3) Answer customers' questions. If you can't do steps 1 and 2 don't even try step 3.
(8) The final comment looks to have been made by someone from a different department. Notice the "signature." Maybe they can give the previous admin a tutorial on reading comprehension."The information in the article is correct...Once again, we are sorry about the miscommunication," by other Ancestry employees who are clueless, "and invite you to send us a private message with your email address if you have any further questions about this issue. We can then provide you with information specifically pertaining to you and your account." It will also allow us to answer questions without other customers pointing out errors by Ancestry employees.

The thread above was from Oct. 31st and can be found here.


PREVIOUS POST: What the WHAT?
NEXT POST: AncestryDNA News

Pet Peeve: Ancestry Search Sliders

I posted this issue on Ancestry.com's Facebook page the day the sliders were introduced and it was acknowledged by one of Ancestry's genealogists. Of course, like all reported issues, she said that it would be passed on to the appropriate department. Unfortunately my psychic ability was failing me and I didn't think of getting a screen cap. Since I have been banned from the page all my comments and posts there are unavailable. Disappointing. Here's the problem...

[Above] On the left is the view from a search results page. If you were to hover over the surname slider on Ancestry.com you would find it's set to "exact, sounds like and similar." Open up the full "Edit Search" box and you'll see the view on the right. It shows the surname search set to "default settings" which should be the broadest search possible.

[Below] Move the slider to "Broad" and click the "Update" button. How does that appear in the search box? "Restrict to exact, Soundex, phonetic, similar." Ummm...

Okay. Let's try editing the surname search in the edit box rather than with the sliders.

[Above] Well that's an improvement. (Is the sarcasm coming through?) I couldn't find one setting that appeared the same way in both boxes. Ugh!

The programmers added the sliders when the "old" search was retired over 7 months ago and they have known about the problem since then. Apparently they have no intention of fixing it. Instead they are working on adding features we don't need. Like this one:

The filmstrip icon is shown above on a census record but is available on other collections as well. Click it and this appears:

If you hover over an image on the filmstrip a thumbnail about twice the size of the filmstrip image pops up. Even in the larger pop-up most, maybe even all, records are completely illegible. So how is this helpful? We can already skip to whatever page we want by changing the page number and using the 'enter' key. So Ancestry's programmers are replacing the out-of-date, slowing-down-the-page, old search code with newer, we-don't-need-this, slowing-down-the-page, useless feature code. Meanwhile features we've been asking for, e.g. ability to organize photos and DNA comparison tools, are nowhere to be found. Well done, Ancestry.


PREVIOUS POST: Doppelgänger?
NEXT POST: Etched in Stone

Social Disgrace III

The more I see social media's so-called "experts" at work the more I am convinced they are the snake oil salesmen of our generation. They convince unwitting suits that they have the cure for all their company's ills while knowing nothing about the company's products or services. Managing social media is needed for many companies so there must be people competent at it. Unfortunately they don't work for Ancestry.com.
Ancestry.com has a number of knowledgeable genealogists on staff. Unfortunately knowing anything at all about genealogy, the Ancestry.com website or Ancestry's other products is not a requirement for employment in Ancestry's other departments. Sometimes it seems as if Ancestry prefers to hire people who know nothing at all about genealogy. It would be nice, however, if they at least knew something about their field of expertise.

Can you spot the errors? If you found more than I did add them in the comments. My list and much more after the jump.

Apologies Only Go So Far II

Scott Sorenson, Ancestry.com's Chief Technology Officer, has written another blog post. It was posted late Monday afternoon just as a new wave of complaints were posted to the Ancestry.com Facebook page. Oh the irony!
The one thing that stood out for me in Scott's most recent post was, "...we can’t shut the site down while we make these fundamental changes." You can't or you won't? What is wrong with sending an email to all members a month before saying, "Starting on X date our website will be down for X number of days/weeks while we do some necessary upgrades to our system. Subscribers will have their accounts extended by the same number of days/weeks."? ALE subscribers could be sent placards to display to inform their users. The marketing modal for the month prior to the shutdown could tell users of the plan. Or maybe Ancestry just prefers to inconvenience us for months while taking our money and doesn't care if we get fed up and cancel. Of course I could be the only one that would prefer a temporary shutdown. What do you think? Please take the poll that is on the right side of the page.

UPDATE: The poll is now closed. 87% of respondents preferred a complete shutdown, with prior notice, over the constant slowdowns and outages with no warning.

The comments for Scott's blog post are an interesting read too. My favorite is from Karen. [Full disclosure: Karen is a friend of mine but we did not discuss the post before she commented on it.]

It's hard to feel sorry for the issues facing Ancestry.com as most of them are self-inflicted and ultimately lay on the shoulders of the man who has remained remarkably quiet in recent months. That man is -Tim Sullivan-CEO.

-out of date/unstable infrastructure
-marketing beyond infrastructure capabilities
-advertising that misleads the customer as to ease of use of product or over exaggerates results (DNA)
-poor training of customer service personnel
-poor utilization of customer contact channels
-release of products before major bugs worked out (FTM 2014)
-failure to provide 24 hour customer service for a world wide 24 hour business
-spelling, grammar, syntax, and flat out factual errors on company website, blogs, Facebook pages, support pages, advertising e-mails
-failure to provide timely, open and honest communication with subscriber base

There are issues across technology, marketing, product and customer service. The one person in common for all those departments is Tim Sullivan. Despite that he chooses to publicly let department heads and front line customer service personnel take the heat from the upset customers.

We are told he is hearing us but why won’t he speak to us? Why is Tim Sullivan refusing to address the issues plaguing his company with the subscriber base that provides 100% of his company’s revenues?

 After the jump: What YOU can do

Apologies Only Go So Far

From poor spelling to a complete system-wide crash, Ancestry.com seems to be failing on many fronts.

Basic proofreading skills seem to be lacking in just about every department. Here is a "pricess" example from their corporate mission statement.

It was corrected only after it was joked about by fans on the company's Facebook page.
There seems to be some discrepancy about the hours that help is available by phone. This is from a recent email (25 Sep 2013) about getting started on your family history with Ancestry.

This is from the "contact us" link in the help section of the website.

I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt on the difference in phone numbers and assume the number in the email bypasses the options menu and goes directly to subscriptions. But why the difference in times?
If there are site issues between 11 p.m. and 9 a.m. ET then you are definitely out of luck. In this day and age how does a website that is accessible 24/7 (theoretically, though that hasn't been the case lately) not have 24/7 customer service? If you don't want to call for customer service be prepared to wait, possibly days, for a response. This customer posted this to Ancestry's Facebook page on a Friday.

I decided to see what kind of response I'd get from the different addresses, support@ancestry.com and socialsupport@ancestry.com. A few weeks ago I reported a help page that had erroneous, outdated information and copied the email to both addresses. I received a reply from the social address within 24 hours simply saying they passed the information on. The day after that the help page had been deleted. Four days after the initial email I finally received a reply from support@ancestry.com asking me to explain the problem because the link I sent them wasn't working. [heavy sigh] I told them it had already been taken care of. I still do not know what the difference is between those addresses except that one will respond in half the time.
Are there other web-based companies who do not have a live chat option for customer service or is Ancestry the last dinosaur? Here is an example of excellent customer service from a web-based company with live chat.

This customer was so pleased she posted the screen cap on Facebook to share with her friends. My friends and I share Ancestry customer service experiences but for completely different reasons.
James' initial question asked when we could expect photo tagging to return. It disappeared when global commenting on photos changed.

The admin probably decided she didn't want to be fired and edited her comment.

She also posted some revealing comments.

Thanks to Kristin for getting that screen cap of the edited comment. Seconds after I posted this comment:

Let's see...
Customer service and social media reps don't consider learning about the website to be part of their job.
Hiding threads is not just censoring fans but is used to CYA. (This thread is now hidden.)
Admins don't know that everyone can see their previous (rude) remarks just by clicking the word "edited" under their comment.
They also don't realize that screen caps can be sent to bosses. And I don't mean KW.

...the entire thread, and NF, disappeared.

After the jump:  The Crash