Ancestry Citation Length Experiment

Have you ever had the family disappear off of the profile screen in an Ancestry tree?

I'd experienced it before but when I recently encountered it, I decided to seek guidance from one of my Facebook communities.

Armed with that response, I returned to my tree and, sure enough, there was a citation that had been uploaded with the original gedcom that could be considered 'lengthy'.

When I clicked on 'view', I could see most of the citation.

Clicking the 'Edit Source' button took me to a screen where I could hopefully make some changes to shorten the citation.

So I decided the easiest way to shorten the citation without losing some essential information was to remove some of the subtitling.

I then scrolled to the bottom of the page to locate the button to save the source.

That's when I got the dreaded 'We're Sorry' page

I've tried editing the source multiple times and it always comes to this page.





So, now I'm playing with a 'test' tree to see what happens when I delete the source. If I click the View button for the source, the source window opens. On this window is a 'Remove' button

After verifying that I indeed want to remove the source, the screen immediately reverts to the normal profile screen.

So, my Facebook 'friend' was correct --

There is a limit to the length of a citation on Ancestry!

I have called Ancestry on this issue since I want to know what that limit is. The support person I reached had not seen this issue before. She was very thorough in reviewing the problem and discovered another, potentially related issue: The person's name could not be searched but was in the list of people. My case is being reviewed and hopefully, I will find out the maximum length for a citation.

Ancestry Tree Limit Question

During the middle of beta testing for RootsMagic, my husband asked a very scary question:

"What happened to my tree? It's not there!"

Afraid that in my deleting test trees, I had mistakenly deleted his tree, I was scared too.

Upon investigating, we discovered that his tree was still there! However, it wasn't showing on the pull down list of trees.

Instead it had been shoved aside (to the bottom) by all of my 'trees'. Several of those trees were trees uploaded for the beta testing. Other trees on the list were ones I created for some of my DNA matches.

To get to his tree we had to scroll clear to the bottom of the list of trees and click on the link to 'Create and Manage Trees'

From there we could locate his tree and click to 'View Tree Overview'

On the overview screen, there was the familiar tree icon with a pull down menu that would take us to the tree view.

Relieved that his tree was still there (big relief), I then started cleaning up my 'trees'. I deleted some of my beta test trees and combined my DNA trees into one larger tree. As soon as I had reduced the number of trees I was managing to under 10, his tree popped back up on the pull down list.

So the lesson learned is that there might not be a limit to the number of trees, BUT  there is a

Limit of Ten Trees on the Pull Down Menu

TreeShare - Downloading Sources

Randy Seaver recently posted, Looking at My New RootsMagic Upload Ancestry Member Tree and Source Citations. A reader posted a comment asking about the downloading of citations from Ancestry. I replied based on my experiences during beta testing. However, I decided to re-look at the issue with the newly updated version of RootsMagic.

To experiment with this, I imported a gedcom of a small portion of my database into RootsMagic.

I then uploaded that database to Ancestry, creating a new tree. Within that tree, I looked at the hints for Albert Hutchinson.

I accepted the hints for the 1850, 1860 and 1870 U.S. Census. On the Ancestry side, this created one source citation and linked it to multiple facts. For example, the 1850 census was linked to both the birth and the residence fact.

On the RootsMagic side, TreeShare indicated that there were three new 'Residence' facts on Ancestry that were not in RootsMagic.

 Working with the 1850 residence fact, I selected 'Add as new event in RootsMagic' and accepted the changes.

The process was repeated for the 1860 and 1870 Residence events. Now RootsMagic 'agrees' (solid green) with Ancestry.

In RootsMagic, the source screen for the 1850 Residence fact contains the newly downloaded census information.

Editing that source reveals a new master source: 1850 United States Federal Census. This source is using the 'Ancestry Record' template.

The 'Ancestry Record' template appears to follow guidelines for citing a book.

The source list reveals that the citations will be 'lumped' together under the broad title of the database:

This handling of downloaded sources is much cleaner than what I experienced mid-beta testing.

TreeShare - 'Bumps in the Road' with DNA

As we all learn to navigate the new RootsMagic TreeShare features, there will be 'bumps' along the way. Having made the decision to UPLOAD my RootsMagic data to Ancestry, I knew that a new tree would create issues with DNA. Expecting to loose both circles and shared matches, I had already documented both.

Yesterday, I not only uploaded my tree but I connected my DNA tests to that new tree. As expected, both the circles and the shared matches were gone. HOWEVER, I was pleasantly surprised to discover all of my circles were back within the hour.

To get my shared matches back is going to require some work on my part -- accepting hints. Yesterday, I started that process by working with hints for my great-grandfather, Judson Foster Crawford. Knowing that several of my DNA ancestors have him in their trees, I was hoping to get their shared matches back. Unfortunately, they are still 'missing'. This could be caused by my not accepting the exact same hint as my 'cousins' or by a processing time lag on Ancestry's part.

I'm going to continue working my way thru hints for my great grandparents knowing that these shared matches will start reappearing.

RootsMagic TreeShare Resources:

• RootsMagic TreeShare for Ancestry Video (on YouTube)
• RootsMagic and Ancestry Help (provides chat support)
• RootsMagic - Magic Guide: WebHints and  TreeShare for Ancestry

RootsMagic / Ancestry -- My Plans

RootsMagic released their long awaited update today that will allow sharing of data between RootsMagic and Ancestry.

I was fortunate to have been a Beta tester. That allowed me to do a lot of experimentation and think thru exactly how I will implement these new features.

Thanks to the early release of some of the details about how tree sharing would work, I had already decided to UPLOAD my tree from RootsMagic to Ancestry. From my playing around, I made some additional decisions about my RootsMagic data:

• Trim the tree -- Over the years, I had researched spouses of nieces and nephews in order to build a family history for a new baby. I archived a copy of my tree and then removed these branches so that I wouldn't inadvertently upload details about living individuals.
• Private Facts -- I had information regarding my DNA matches in my tree. I made these facts private and elected to not include private facts in my upload.
• Media -- I ultimately decided to NOT upload any media. First, I didn't want all of the photos in my RootsMagic tree uploaded to Ancestry. Second, I didn't want birth certificates and marriage licenses uploaded for anyone living. Thirdly, I didn't want to wait for them all to upload.

With the new release, I have uploaded my tree to Ancestry. I have watched the video (several times) and printed (and skimmed) the FAQ [scroll down on page and look for link to Magic-Guide: WebHints and TreeShare for Ancestry]. After working with a great-grandfather, I have concluded that I will likely be a ONE-WAY TreeShare user -- sending information UP.

• Images - I will continue to use the option to 'Save to Your Computer' so that I can control where images are saved and how images are named. This will make it easier to attach the image to the fact.
• Sources - I would prefer to craft my own citations versus using the downloaded citation
• Duplication - My experience during beta testing indicated that a source attached to multiple facts would get downloaded multiple times. 

So - some might ask why not continue using Ancestry as I had in the past. My response would be that I will continue most of my current practices. At the same time, Ancestry TreeShare and WebHints will allow me to

• Push up sources that I've found outside of Ancestry
• Push up individuals I've added to my tree
• Use the WebHints for Ancestry in the same way I already use them with FamilySearch 

Getting rid of the yellow shading on the light bulb will provide an excellent opportunity to work thru my tree and review my data while learning how to use this new feature.

Thank you to everyone that helped make this possible!

Taking Advantage of Area User's Groups

I love living in a rural community, but at times I miss the opportunity for face to face discussions about the challenges of doing genealogical research. Thus, I took advantage of the opportunity to visit a couple of societies and really enjoyed those visits.

My husband and I attended the RootsMagic Users group meeting sponsored by the Johnson County Genealogical Society on June 3rd. We learned a lot from the presentations on publishing family histories using RootsMagic. I loved being able to see how others are using the software! We are hoping to attend their next meeting in August. Their events calendar is full of opportunities to learn.

Last week, I traveled in a different direction to attend a genealogy Roundtable sponsored by the Riley County Genealogical Society. I really enjoyed this opportunity to meet Manhattan area genealogists. Even though I don't have ancestors in early Oklahoma, I enjoyed hearing about the book, Killers of the Flower Moon and the impact of the discovery of oil on the Osage Indians. Their events calendar also provides lots of learning opportunities.