New Ancestry vs. Ancestry.com "Classic"
It has been awhile since I really have written on the blog pages. I apologize, but I do maintain my Pittsburgh Genealogy group, and continue with my facebook version of Allegheny Ancestry and Genealogy Trails. I also particpate on a number of other genealogy websites.
Now to talk about the NEW Ancestry. First, I do not care for the overall look. Ancestry.com "Classic" was streamlined and had the perfect timeline. They had to screw it up with their over ambitious insertion of the so called "LIFE STORY". Sorry ancestry, that is your version of my ancestor's life story, not mine. I did not ask for that, whether or not I am a free guest user or a subscriber, I do not care for it, nor do I want it. And the feeling is mutual among most serious genealogist that have used your website from its early beginnigs and are long time subscribers using the website/product for years.
Here is an example of one of my ancestors who has a quite lengthy timelime. To me, this was perfect in almost every sense of the word.
The above has a very excellent reprentation of the facts, the events, and the sources are all under one subheading of: SOURCES. ON NEW Ancestry, you have divided my source information into two groups, One which is ancestry.com only sources, and the other is non ancestry.com sources under another heading OTHER SOURCES. This really got to me, when all four years of my work of anywhere from 4 to 10 hours a day for 365 days for the last several years was transformed into garbage and clutter. Yes, unlike many I work on my tree steadily, and am not just a casual user. I had well documented information, and all the hyperlinks I created for my source citation vanish under NEW ancestry.
Here is the transformation into the FACTS page on NEW Ancestry:
I will comment further as to I dislike and hate the circles on photos and profiles. They were prefectly represented on Ancestry.com "Classic" as a thumbnail of the actual image. It was not cropped, not repositioned, nor was it interfered with in any way by the ancestry.com website. Now, I look at my tree on NEW ancestry and think to myself, I am related to the headless horsreman because nearly all if not all my photos of my ancestors have their heads chopped off. Good Grief! What idiot thought this one up. Who really took the time to even think of destroying the ultimate ancestry website and turned it into one big joke. Adding three columns, and expanding the boxes on the source information does nothing for the appeartance of the page, just adds more white space. This is what I would call dead air as in a commercial being on TV and there is no signal. Same premise. Waste of time.
A side by side comparison.
Side by Side comparison.....
Clicking on any of the photos, and they will take you to an enlarged version, but from uploading somehow they are not actual size, so I will throw them into a dropbox to see if I can get a larger version online. for your perusal. Look carefully at how the NEW Ancestry in comparison to Ancestry.com "Classic" is just a tad longer in length and overall is not more streamlined, fancy, and new except cluttered with fluff. It has added space, and waste of white space from making everything appear a little larger in size but does not hold the same content as it was changed from one version to the other. What happened? You tell me, I read more and more complaints all stemming from day1 of the release of NEW ancestry, and having Kristie Wells of ancestry.com state: Kristie Wells (of Ancestry.com) "As I have stated before, it would behoove us all to provide feedback and suggestions on what you would like to see changed, tweaked, added, or removed on the new website.
'Keep Classic' is not one of those options, but if you send in what exactly you liked about Classic, the developers are reviewing every piece of feedback and will continue to build out the site so that new and experienced researchers can use it successfully."
That in itself is poor customer relations on her part as to whether she is paid to say this, or say this to customers in general. Work with the subscribers.
Now going to the GALERY This is what I see:
This looks like a cluster n'yuck!
http://1drv.ms/1JJmaPZ
Although, on classic it is divied into pages, I would rather see this as thumbnails of the actual images, not just partially visble images.
I would love this instead of the above!
I like seeing the actual thumbnails versus cropped or repostioned photos:
http://1drv.ms/1HaSyar
Some last thoughts, they have been lackluster in answering their own customers, worried about getting new customers to the NEW ancestry. Really thoughtless all the way around, forgetting the customer is always right. There are quite few who have voiced their opinion and signed the petition to Save Ancestry.com "Classic".
Voice, your opinion. Like the preacher said: "speak now,or forever hold your peace."
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/600/803/575/save-ancestrycom-classic/
http://alleghenyancestryandgenealogytrails.blogspot.com/2015/07/save-ancestrycom-classic.html
AA>
My other example:
Makes Grandma looked like she got run over by a reindeer? Something chopped off her head!
Well, I am working on this and wanted to give a represial as to my dislikes, now here is the most disasterous LIFE STORY captured in full images, and re-assmebled, to show you what an entire was of transforming a quality streamilined timeline into a compltete and utter mess.
Now for the full picture of an entire LIFE STORY.....
What a joke. Next, I do not need an interactive map as I know where my ancestors lived. Now if you are following. Ignore all added photos by ancestry.com inside the dotted lines. The dotted lines in themselves remind me as if they are looking for little children to color inside the lines, or they are ready to hand out the scissors with the rounded ends. C'mon now. Ancestry.com; you can do better than this than to destroy a sound and solid reputation as be the leading ancestry company. You better watch out some hotshot may come along and develop a better program that would allow users to interface with all ancestry programs at once, and you would indeed lose out..
Idiotic ancestry life story, I could not make one long image, so I had to add columns:
http://1drv.ms/1IEFpcf
I converted it the LIFE STORY into five images, so you could follow the flow as if you were on ancestry.com. Sorry, for really lengthy ancestors, this is absurd! I did not like the re-invention of my ancestors LIFE STORY as told by ancestry.com. I will write my own ancestors LIFE STORY as I see fit. I do not need insertion of your so called photos whether they relate to the timeline of my ancestor or not. I will choose my own photos.
I resized this. See if you can view full size.
I would rather see thumbnails versus seeing full sized photos in the Life Story!
So now you can this is a quite lengthy LIFE STORY only due to the oversized images which should have appeared as thumbnails. I had to save images across because of the length and size of the photo.
http://1drv.ms/1IEFpcf
I converted it the LIFE STORY into five images, so you could follow the flow as if you were on ancestry.com. Sorry, for really lengthy ancestors, this is absurd! I did not like the re-invention of my ancestors LIFE STORY as told by ancestry.com. I will write my own ancestors LIFE STORY as I see fit. I do not need insertion of your so called photos whether they relate to the timeline of my ancestor or not. I will choose my own photos.
I resized this. See if you can view full size.
I would rather see thumbnails versus seeing full sized photos in the Life Story!
So now you can this is a quite lengthy LIFE STORY only due to the oversized images which should have appeared as thumbnails. I had to save images across because of the length and size of the photo.
Now going to the GALERY This is what I see:
This looks like a cluster n'yuck!
http://1drv.ms/1JJmaPZ
Although, on classic it is divied into pages, I would rather see this as thumbnails of the actual images, not just partially visble images.
I would love this instead of the above!
http://1drv.ms/1HaSyar
Some last thoughts, they have been lackluster in answering their own customers, worried about getting new customers to the NEW ancestry. Really thoughtless all the way around, forgetting the customer is always right. There are quite few who have voiced their opinion and signed the petition to Save Ancestry.com "Classic".
Voice, your opinion. Like the preacher said: "speak now,or forever hold your peace."
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/600/803/575/save-ancestrycom-classic/
http://alleghenyancestryandgenealogytrails.blogspot.com/2015/07/save-ancestrycom-classic.html
AA>
END.
3 comments:
WOW! Great job of telling it like it is, especially showing the comparison graphics! BRAVO! Do count me in with your opinions. I have been a long time user if not devoted fan of Ancestry. I also admit I was a self appointed promoter of the site because I really appreciated all that it had to offer subscribers, especially the easy way to transfer research from the website to the FTM program. Now all that has changed and it's such a disaster! At first I was mad about the change but now that I have had time to absorb the changes I am so very sad. Actually I am angry at myself for being so trusting that Ancestry would have our best interests at heart in keeping our ancestors' precious histories intact not only for myself but for generations to come. Instead of giving us better searching possibilities-which is what we true genealogists would wish for--they gave us a jumbled up mess of graphics plus deleted the features that were so helpful to genealogists world over. What were they thinking when they did all this damage to what was working so well? I feel my 15+ years of gen research work has been violated. I could go on and on about the specifics of this drastic change but suffice it to say that my time will now be spent in "damage control" and "mop up" while I try to salvage what I had gained over these past years. Shame on you, Ancestry, you had a good thing going not only for you but for your devoted fans and you threw it all away. This is so heartbreaking.
I strongly urge anyone who would like to see the reactions of other Ancestry users to the new site click here: http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2015/06/05/new-ancestry-feature-update/ and if you are interested in signing a petition to get Ancestry's attention to fix this mess click here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/600/803/575/save-ancestrycom-classic/?taf_id=14011262&cid=fb_na#
This is great! I only used the new version for about an hour before I had to go back. I liked a couple things in the new version - like adding the dates of children's births (which Geni.com does) and parent deaths.
The new style is very hard on the eyes. I can override the pale colors on the classic version; I can't override the dark colors on the new version, so it is very hard to work when you can't see the screen to work.
I usually like new things and often switch early. Not this time; I won't use it unless forced to and then, I may opt for something else if the problems aren't fixed to accommodate serious genealogists. There are so many other much more important things that needed fixing on Ancestry other than wasting time on this change. I am really disappointed in this. Ancestry had a really good style and they threw it away.
Barbara
There isn't much more to say. I believe both of you have activally shown the best comparison, its a shame that a spokesman for the company/website actually is saying get use to it or leave. Well thanks, as soon as I can find the best version to back it up I will be gone.
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