Wednesday, November 14, 2018

My New Test Case For Ancestry Member Tree Indexing

In my post Good News and Bad News On Ancestry Member Tree Searches (posted Monday, 12 November 2018), I noted that the good news was that my "test case" for Ancestry Member Tree Indexing had finally been indexed recently.  

I had been checking since November 2017, so it took over a year for my 2nd great-grandfather Isaac Seaver (1823-1901) in my November 2017 Ancestry Member Tree to show up in the search results.

So now I need another "test case" for the next Ancestry Member Tree Indexing event.  I chose my first great-grandfather, Thomas Richmond (1848-1917).  



Today, I searched for records for him (using the "Search on Ancestry" button on the screen above), found several that were correct, and attached three of them to the Thomas Richmond profile.  The three attached records are listed under "Ancestry Sources" in the "Sources" list on the screen above.

As astute readers of Genea-Musings know, having an "Ancestry Source" (and not just any source like those listed in "Other Sources") seems to be a pre-requisite for the person profile to be included in an Index of Ancestry Member Trees.  

Saving an Ancestry Hint when in the Tree person profile adds the record to the "Ancestry Source" list.  Accepting Ancestry Hints using RootsMagic TreeShare does not seem to add a source to the "Ancestry Source" list.  

Now the watch is on for the next event of Ancestry Member Tree Indexing.  I hope that it occurs within a week or a month, and not a year or even never.  So Ancestry, I'll be watching to see if you are naughty or nice - as you know, I'm also known as Genea-Santa in some precincts!  

Just to cover my bases, I've attached records to about ten other person profiles in this Ancestry Member Tree.  Only 51,280 profiles to go!

To my readers:  

*  Does Ancestry index your person profiles who have an "Ancestry Source?"

*  Does Ancestry  index your person profiles who do not have an "Ancestry Source?"  

Please leave me a comment in the Comment link below.  Thank you!


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Disclosure:  I have always had a fully paid Ancestry.com subscription since 2000.  Ancestry.com has provided material considerations for travel expenses to meetings, and has hosted events and meals that I have attended in Salt Lake City, in past years.

Copyright (c) 2018, Randall J. Seaver


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3 comments:

Lisa Van Gemert said...

Thank you so much for this! My mom just did her DNA, and she's adopted. I'm trying to use it to help her find family, and it's more complicated than when I did my own. Thanks for the tip!

Bernie said...

Thanks for covering this issue.
To answer your questions to readers: my Tree is Private but I allowed it to be included in indexing for searching. In over 6 years, I have never had anyone message me about an ancestor that they found in a search result. I have asked ‘cousins’ to search for two particular people in my tree – one had an Ancestry Source, one did not. Neither came up in search queries. Ancestry needs to change their algorithms to include all trees. BTW, most of the people in my tree do not have Ancestry Sources because I manually enter all my data in Family Tree Maker and then sync to Ancestry to share.

Bill said...

Randy-

Thanks for the tutoring on this topic. Something I've noticed, is that if a person in my tree has multiple Ancestry records, e.g. 3, 4, 5 or more, when I do a search on the individual, my own tree often comes up in the box at the top of the search. This allows a researcher to click that tree, or on the "More Like This" link. Clicking the former, brings up that person in a public tree, allowing you to look over the records on the person in that tree potentially showing you some you do not have already. Clicking the latter shows multiple trees that have that person (or someone with a similar name/profile) which can be explored for the same purpose.

Is this a signal of the indexing that you are talking about? Or some other process that Ancestry uses to point researchers to more information on their ancestors? They are obviously doing something to link some individuals in my tree to searches by others.

Thanks,
Bill Greggs

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