Ancestry Adds All "Events" to the LifeStory Page

The Ancestry.com Blog posted The New Ancestry: September 28th Feature Update on 28 September 2015, which highlighted changes in the past month to the Ancestry.com website.

The changes include:

*  Tree Viewer – You will need to now click to select a person on the tree. Hover effect has been removed due to incompatibility problems with touch-screen devices as the new Ancestry is about improving the experience across all device types. - See more at: http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2015/09/27/the-new-ancestry-september-28th-feature-update/#sthash.KxdOQ9ji.dpuf

*  Person Card on the tree viewer – Quick Edit has been moved forward to the main view of the card so users can more easily access it to update any information. - See more at: http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2015/09/27/the-new-ancestry-september-28th-feature-update/#sthash.KxdOQ9ji.dpuf

*  Show all events on LifeStory – All events now show on the LifeStory by default. This means that any facts that are added on the Facts view will be immediately available in the LifeStory.  Right now we show events like birth, death, residence, and etc. on LifeStory with auto-generated narratives. You can now easily view and create your own stories behind any facts or events for your ancestors on LifeStory. - See more at: http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2015/09/27/the-new-ancestry-september-28th-feature-update/#sthash.KxdOQ9ji.dpuf

*  Media viewer –The people that the photo is attached to has been brought to the main screen from behind edit. This also allows users to more easily select who they want the picture show as a profile picture or to unlink the picture. - See more at: http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2015/09/27/the-new-ancestry-september-28th-feature-update/#sthash.KxdOQ9ji.dpuf

Here are the top six Events on the LifeStory for my great-grandfather, Henry Austin Carringer (1853-1946):

There are 29 Events in his LifeStory from birth to death.

Some of the Events, with a short narrative, are automatically added by Ancestry - birth, marriage, death, etc.  Others were added as Events by me - the census events, occupation events, property events, residence events, etc.  When I added a document image and attached it to an Event, the LifeStory now shows the document image.

Then there are the "Historical Insights" - there are only two for Henry Austin Carringer, for "Homesteading in the West" (he didn't homestead) and "Colorado Statehood" in 1876.  He lived through the Civil War (didn't serve), migrating to Iowa in the 1850s, migrating to Colorado in the 1870s, migrating to San Diego in 1887, living through the Spanish-American War (didn't serve), World War I (didn't serve) and World War II (didn't serve), and many more historical events.

I'm glad that the LifeStory now includes all of the Events from birth to burial that I have input to the profile and that the document images for the Events are included.  This is a significant change.

These LifeStory Events can be edited, so I have added some content to some of the Events for Henry Austin Carringer.  For instance, here is the 1900 U.S. Census Event with some narrative added:

However, I tried to add a lot more to this Event - a summary of the Carringer family from the 1900 U.S. census.  But the Ancestry description can take only about 255 characters.  I couldn't add a line break.  So a user cannot add much information to the Event description.  That's unfortunate and makes it not worthwhile to even try to add family stories, research notes or event notes - mine are all more than 255 characters!

I guess the family stories, event descriptions, a life sketch, etc. could be added by creating or uploading a Story in the Gallery section of the profile.  I haven't done that because of the sheer volume of my Notes.  Of course, only persons invited to be a Guest, Contributor or Editor to my tree can view my Person Notes.

The user can Hide the Family Events or Historical Events by clicking on the Gearwheel at the top of the LifeStory page, as shown below:

Apparently, you cannot "Hide" the Individual Events (e.g., census, occupation, property) that the user has added to the Facts list.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/09/ancestry-adds-all-events-to-lifestory.html

Copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver

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