Ancestry: Family History & DNA

I started my quest in 1983, to trace my family lines as far back as I could. It stated with asking family members and many times getting information that was wrong or they forgot. I traced a couple major lines back 7 generations with old bibles and traveled to many libraries and I felt I had exhausted my leads, and then joined Ancestry in 2003. I have now traced my family tree back to the 1100’s on every single line on my tree and now have over 29,000 records in my tree. Not every green leaf or hint is for the individual in your tree you have to vet the information. Ancestry must have an incredible staff loading records of births, deaths, immigration, wills, census record, church record and photos from past events. In 2013, I added the European records to take my records back even further to the families beginnings. The DNA that was added a few years ago has turbo charged my trace again. I have been finding cousins from ancestors siblings that I never knew existed. Perhaps, if that were not enough, the collaboration of others searching shared ancestry are in most cases willing to reach out to give assistance. Likewise, some will also ask for help. My experience with ancestry has also helped me refocus my energy into a legacy that I can pass on to future generations and pass the torch. I have even considered doing my passion on a full time basis. I recommend Ancestry, if you have a passion to find your family’s beginnings. Thank you.

As usual, this app is riddled with problems. The hints no longer contain the links to the information, so if there is a hint for, say, a Find a Grave profile, I can’t tap the button to go look at the Find a Grave profile (which almost always has a lot more information). The button isn’t there. Same thing for hints that I’ve saved to an Ancestry profile- no links. I also can’t upload any photos. I can open the gallery in a profile, and I can tap the “+” to add a photo, but when I try to tap the photo I want to upload, nothing happens. I’ve tried many times over the last week, and no matter what I do I can’t upload. I use an iPad Pro with super fast WiFi; the problem is not my equipment, it’s the app. I use this app literally every single day, and I’ll never ever understand how an entity as enormous as Ancestry has SO MUCH TROUBLE making an app that works well. We spend a LOT of money for your service. We should be able to use it conveniently on the app. All of my other apps work great. This is the only one that has been consistently buggy for years, and it’s the only service I pay this kind of money for. It’s so frustrating. You’d think you’d want your users to be able to, you know, use your app. And of course you can’t just send a help message to Ancestry. That doesn’t exist. You have to call and sit on hold forever, only to be told that they are “always working to improve the app.” I keep waiting for them to finally get it together and make an app that works consistently, but it’s been a lot of years, so I guess I won’t hold my breath. It’s time to hire a new tech team, Ancestry.

I have been using ancestry for many years now. By the time I became interested in research, and had the time? Sadly my parents, grandparents and most of my parent’s siblings were no longer living. A family Bible, and a family tree existed, but were never shared, on one side. Over the years ancestry has improved and is a joy to use. As with anything, you learn by trial and error. I have my dad’s side back to before the year 1,000, they were in England. I love history and details, so it is perfect. You can start a tree for free. It is the wonderful research capabilities that you pay for. If you have your settings set to public, you will eventually be able to connect with cousins and others. Please prove your work with census, birth, death, marriage, military and other records. And be careful about using info from other people’s family trees. Use only those with records proving their info. If you want an accurate tree. I have a huge tree on my dad’s side, with thousands of people. My mom’s side has been a bit more more challenging. I use the international version. I have reconnected with cousins I met as a baby, an uncle and many others. I hope that you try it, utilize it fully, and enjoy your journey.