"Anne Chambers" <anne@privacy.net> wrote in message news:b4pluiF5ss5U1@mid.individual.net... > Interesting - as one of the "2%", I have had a letter from them too. I > find it strange that Ancestry claim that only 2% use Old Search, given > that I don't recall anyone on this group saying they prefer New Search and > most posts on the subject are asking how to get back to Old Search ! > Since this group is probably pretty representative of any genealogy group, > I wonder what % actually do use Old Search. They claim that they actually analyse usage across the entire customer base. Of course, Old Search has been so well hidden for years, that it's only old-timers like us who know it's there. The problem is that their income base isn't "genealogy groups", but "everybody", and we pay the same as everybody else. So if 98% of their customers are incompetent, and 2% know what they are doing, who are Ancestry going to pander to? In their defence, it is clear that data collections need to be indexed differently for Old Search and New Search, which consumes a lot of unnecessary resources. They have claimed that Old Search users will be listened to and that the "new" New Search will include features that we need. So we'll just have to wait and see. I think I've found workarounds for all my potential problems, so I'm more hopeful now that it will be manageable once I get used to it. (As a former FamilySearch refusenik, I'm now so comfortable with the new set-up, I've more or less forgotten the old one, especially as the new one has much better search facilities - typing in place names rather than searching for batch numbers is a huge plus. So these things may sort themselves out in time.) Steven