What I’d Like From Ancestry.com–Nine Years and Waiting

This is part of a blog post I wrote nine years ago about Ancestry.com. It’s still true and, as far as I’m concerned, it’s still a problem. They aren’t going to listed to me of course–this is confirmation of that.

From 26 January 2009 on my rootdig.blogspot.com site:

Just like the dogs are waiting for something, we’re still waiting for improved search results at Ancestry.com

What I would REALLY like to see at Ancestry.com is a way to really work effectively with the search results. Now there just is NO real way to work with and analyze the results, particularly eliminating the false matches or the results I have eliminated. Here are some options that I would like to see explored:

  • The ability to tag matches as ones that are negatives with perhaps a box or some set of options for me to indicate to myself why I think it’s a negative match. If options are not possible, at least a comment box where I could type a short note (“wife wrong name,” “wrong kids,” etc.). I don’t think I want others to see my notes.
  • The ability to download results (not images, just an excel type file) so that they can be manipulated in some type of spreadsheet or database. I’m not asking to be able to download all entries in the 1850 Ohio Census, but a limited number of matches to my search so that those results can be analyzed.

The way the site is now, when there is someone I cannot easily find it takes FOREVER to wade through the hits. If search terms are changed or altered, it is exceedingly difficult to go through those results as well.

When someone is easy to find, Ancestry.com is great. When they are not easy to find, it’s not always so easy to use.

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