Today I contacted ancestry.com with some ideas I have for improving the site. They told me that the more people who ask for these changes the more likely they are to implement. I think these suggestions would be very good improvements. If you agree (or even agree with some of them) please copy and paste and send to ancestry.com. It is a good website, but if you get frustrated with some of these issues as I do, please copy and paste in an email and send to them to _support@ancestry.com_ (mailto:support@ancestry.com) Thanks for your help in getting some of these changes done. Some of them really need to be done. Joyce To: support@ancestry.com Sent: 9/25/2012 12:53:22 P.M. US Mountain Standard Time Subj: Some suggestions for improving the site, some of these REALLY need to be done I am working with 3 cousins that have found each other through ancestry.com and we all agree that these issues need to be addressed. My hubby is a programmer so I understand a little about how difficult it can be to make a program do what it should do to make life easier for the user, but I think the things I suggest below may not take a lot of programming to fix...at least I hope so, I am trying to think of this from a programming point of view as well as a user point of view... #1 idea--this one REALLY needs to be done This first one REALLY needs to be done as it is a nightmare when you accidentally duplicate a person, and you need to "fix" it. It can take hours to get the people right, and sometimes you lose an entire family if you don't realize how they are attached, BUT I have thought of an easy way to do it so that it probably would not require massive programming changes, Using the family tree view, (_ Return to family tree_ (http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/24497230/family) ) you can click and drag to combine the two people. That is where it is easiest to see the two people and usually the way I spot duplicate people. Of course you would need to "idiot proof" it with a pop up message asking "are you sure you want to combine "John Smith 1899 and John Smith 1899" but I think that would be the easiest way to program it...it would be just like clicking and dragging files in your computer to combine 2 files. Too often I have accidentally deleted an entire family, or lost a document that I just found that is important. I think that would be an easy way to program a fix for people, as it is TOO easy to create a duplicate person, there is no warning alert saying "you already have a John Smith 1899 in your tree, are you sure?) ands once you have created that duplicate file it is a nightmare to undo it...AND you lose documents if you are not very,very careful... and even when you are trying to be careful it can still happen...PLUS you lose documents on the "extra person" if you are not careful to copy and paste the URL to word or an email to yourself before deleting the extra person. Sometimes, due to the fact that that person is also attached to other peoples files, you can lose them also... You really need to "idiot proof" fixing relationships, especially duplicate people...that is the biggest nightmare and you can easily lose a lot of your documentation. I think the click and drag to combine files would be the easiest way to fix this problem both from a programming point of view but also from the users point of view... **************************************************************************** ******************************************** #2 idea When you are reviewing the results of a search, and you have looked at a file, the records you have already looked at should change color, just as they do in a google search, or most webpages. When you have a list of 20 or more results (or even less) and you want to look at all of them, it is too easy to lose your place and you waste a lot of time looking at the same documents twice...This is the way most websites work, so it cannot be that hard to program. Sometimes you "spin your wheels" a lot looking at files you already looked at a few seconds ago...especially when you have a long list of results and you want to view them all. You would want to do this for "suggested documents also, example: when you are in a census file, and it produces suggested documents in the list to the right of the census, you need to have it change color once you have looked at it...We researchers waste a LOT of time looking at the same files over and over again when you have a long list of then to look at. Anytime you have already looked at a file, the color should change...I cannot tell you how often I find myself looking at document after document that I have already seen. It is a HUGE waste of the users time and frustrating. **************************************************************************** ********************************************** #3 idea Enable people to put notes to themselves when putting someone in the shoebox. This will help people to be able to get their shoebox cleaned up. My shoebox is overflowing and I have been doing research for 10 years now. Cleaning out this shoebox is a daunting project and one I won't do, because I would have to look at every single record and try to figure out what I was thinking 10 years ago...SO it is wasting a lot of space in your system... When I attach a record and see that it is in my shoebox I usually remove it, but there is a lot of stuff in my shoebox I may never run across again and with pages and pages of stuff in there, I am not likely to try to clean it up, since I would have to research a lot of things to do that. If I were able to make notes to myself when putting stuff in shoebox, cleaning it up would be a lot easier. It sounds like this will take more space and it would initially BUT it would enable people to clean up their shoeboxes without it being a nightmare, so I think in the long run, it might wind up taking less space as you will make it easier for people to go through their shoebox and see if they still want to keep that record there or not. ******************************* ******************************************************************************** #4 idea When you get results on a search, have a checkmark for every file you have attached to your tree. I find myself seeing names down the list that may be people I am looking for, so I look at other records, not just the one person I am searching, in case it is "that document that got away from me, and did not come up before" so I waste a lot of time opening other records that I already have attached to my tree. Better to have EVERY file with a checkmark that you have already attached to your tree... Some of these folks can be very difficult to find, so you don't want to miss ONE opportunity to find a record on them, but it wastes a lot of the researchers time to look at files over and over, simply because there is no checkmark next to the name showing you have already attached that file to someone in your tree. I have been using your site for 10+ years, but lately I am using it heavily and I have connected with cousins who also think these ideas would help them a lot so PLEASE give them close consideration. I love some of the changes you have made, your site has certainly gotten better over the last 10 years but still needs some improvements to make it easier for the users. I do hope you will give serious considerations to some of these improvements, they really will help your customers a lot. Thanks YOUR NAME, EMAIL ADDY & ANCESTRY USER ID "What ails most people is not that they are ignorant, its that they know too much that isn't so". Dr. Adolf Meyer, John Hopkins University.