New Tree Tool ???

[larzus]

Oh yes! Instead of a photograph, you mean? That certainly would work. Although some have beautiful photographs in their FtDNA trees, would be a shame to lose them. It would work for me though since I only have photographs for my active kits. Alternatively, I suppose I could add a photograph only for DNA confirmed ancestors, but others would have to know my system to understand it.

I'll have a play . I have just connected my matches to my tree, I'll give that a few days and see if there's any fallout and in the meantime I'll try the DNA Helix log to see how it looks.

[keigh]

I only use 2 photos on my family tree. One is a sign saying "Caution Road Work Ahead" and the other is the DNA double helix. I don't put photos, or documents on my tree at Ancestry, and so far I haven't put up a tree again here at FTDNA. Don't care for the format FTDNA is using.

[dbethards]

Family View/Ancestry View - utterly frustrating

I find this page nearly impossible to use. Maybe I'm too stupid. 1/2 of the page is blank! Only way to view older generations is to scroll forever or click on a dot, if you got good aim on a tablet. I have found this page to be tedious and almost useless. Please help! I'm despondent over this new feature.

[John McCoy]

You're not alone! I have given up on looking for relationships in the Family Finder. Very few of my matches are at all close, and almost nobody has posted a pedigree anyway. For the few cases where a match is possibly close enough to be interesting, and where there is also a pedigree, the tree itself is far too difficult to navigate. I don't think this situation will change until there is a way to display a pedigree in a simple, concise format, as has been suggested by many customers. If it is possible to display the pedigree in a form that is easy to read, maybe more people will be induced to upload their information. As it stands now, we have genetics, but very little genealogy.

[ragnar]

I won't take the time to put up one of these hard to use trees. I just refer people to my Ancestry tree. I don't understand why ftdna is being so stubborn about keeping their unusable tree format???

[grahcom]

I don't find getting around the family tree's on FTDNA any more difficult that on Ancestry or My Heritage. You can search for name or location, or to go back or you can 'click' the mouse on any part of the tree (just above Search area) to go to any part of the tree you want. Admittedly it would be good to be able to switch back and forth to a pedigree view but you can't do that with My Heritage anyway. As for using tablet or phone for any real computing all I can say is good luck, I much prefer to use computer for most things internet.

[Tenn4ever]

I don't find getting around the family tree's on FTDNA any more difficult that on Ancestry or My Heritage. You can search for name or location, or to go back or you can 'click' the mouse on any part of the tree (just above Search area) to go to any part of the tree you want. Admittedly it would be good to be able to switch back and forth to a pedigree view but you can't do that with My Heritage anyway. As for using tablet or phone for any real computing all I can say is good luck, I much prefer to use computer for most things internet.

Ancestry's pedigree trees rule FT trees are almost useless and MyHeritage are not much better.

[Jim Barrett]

Ancestry Rules - NOT!

Ancestry's pedigree trees rule FT trees are almost useless and MyHeritage are not much better.

Any genealogy program that allows people to have children before the parents were born or years after the parents died isn't worthless. I seen many trees where a couple has many children, all with more or less the same name, more or less the same dates of birth and death and more or less the same places of birth and death. I have seen ALL of this on Ancestry in far too many cases. These are all conditions that any go tree program would prevent.

Too many people think they are doing genealogical research when they get all of their information from undocumented trees. Saying information was copied from another undocumented tree isn't documentation, yet that is the documentation provided by many of these trees.

I agree that the trees on FTDNA are of little value. I agree that the trees on MyHeritage are all but worthless, I disagree that Ancestry rules. I feel their trees are just as worthless as the other two, for the reasons given above.

I'll share my information with anyone who wants it and is willing to share their information, but I'll never put it online where anyone can copy it. Sharing is a two way street.

[travers]

Jim you are misunderstanding as I think they mean that Ancestry's trees are the easiest to navigate, and I would agree. FTDNA's trees are very difficult to navigate and they don't seem very willing to correct it.

[keigh]

Jim, That's how I read the Ancestry Trees Rule comment too. Anyone who has looked at most trees know that generally speaking they are genealogically a mess. But Ancestry does have the easiest tree to navigate quickly through the mess for simply locating possible connections.

FTDNA's tree is cumbersome even just using the Ancestry View (Pedigree View) and bring the icon size down to the smallest size possible. All that dragging and clicking.

[travers]

Jim, That's how I read the Ancestry Trees Rule comment too. Anyone who has looked at most trees know that generally speaking they are genealogically a mess. But Ancestry does have the easiest tree to navigate quickly through the mess for simply locating possible connections.

FTDNA's tree is cumbersome even just using the Ancestry View (Pedigree View) and bring the icon size down to the smallest size possible. All that dragging and clicking.

Of course there are many trees that are a genealogical mess, this would hold true no matter what site you go to. Wherever there are family trees there are going to laughable mistakes, untruths and trees with mistakes that were copied from somebody or somewhere else. This is not the point of the thread though.

[Tenn4ever]

Of course there are many trees that are a genealogical mess, this would hold true no matter what site you go to. Wherever there are family trees there are going to laughable mistakes, untruths and trees with mistakes that were copied from somebody or somewhere else. This is not the point of the thread though.

Correct. Yes, Ancestry's trees along with everyone else's trees can be a mess. Ancestry software does give a warning when a date of a child is entered and it is before that of the parent...also if the surname is different than the paternal surname a warning will flash. The warning can be ignored. On any tree the information has to be vetted by the researcher.


I was specifically speaking of the layout and the information that can be accessed easily. To open a tree in the pedigree view on Ancestry is great and then to easily extend that pedigree all the way out and see it on the page is much better than other programs. To be able to click on any person to see their overview and records is the best.

I don't like Ancestry's family view which opens first so I immediately change to the pedigree view. It's a much cleaner look and the big overall picture of the tree can be seen immediately.

[WCoaster]

Agree with the above, and would only add that the old system of populating a surname list from each uploaded tree needs to be revived. Many tree owners don't add a surname list, or if they do, list only a handful of their ancestral surnames. Problem is, the surname search feature doesn't turn up names in trees - only the ones in surname lists.

Meanwhile, we're offered a dazzling new feature - a list of our matches' top three surnames (gee whiz! Smith, Jones, and Williams!).

Why? Just why??

[keigh]

Of course there are many trees that are a genealogical mess, this would hold true no matter what site you go to. Wherever there are family trees there are going to laughable mistakes, untruths and trees with mistakes that were copied from somebody or somewhere else. This is not the point of the thread though.

Travers, I realized when I re-read that part of my comment was unclear, I had tried to quote the section of a thread that commented on the "Ancestry Tree Rules" comment and it didn't come out.
This was the comment that I was agreeing with:

"travers Jim you are misunderstanding as I think they mean that Ancestry's trees are the easiest to navigate, and I would agree. FTDNA's trees are very difficult to navigate and they don't seem very willing to correct it.
22nd February 2015 06:09 AM

The above comment is the way I read and understood the "Ancestry Rules Comment". I simply added the comment about trees being a mess all over, in agreement with something Jim mentioned. I don't have a Family Tree here at FTDNA, because it is so danged hard to navigate it compared to the tree I have over at Ancestry. But trees are a mess genealogically all over, but some tree formats are simply easier to navigate through. Ancestry being one of those formats that moves well. Did I get it cleared up?

[travers]

Did I get it cleared up?

Yes, I gotcha.