City directories sometimes use a letter code to designate smaller communities in the featured city's area. In this case, the 1970 Ojai, California directory designates places like Oak View (OV), Saticoy (S) and Meines Oaks (MO). A full key is probably in there somewhere. #ancestrytips #genealogy

Ancestry city directories often index all people in a directory as if they lived in the featured city. But most directories contain residents from multiple locales. In this instance, Ojai is indexed but Port Hueneme is where the person lived. #ancestrytips #genealogy www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/...

When you add a Find a Grave family group, maiden names can be "lost". To correct married daughters' records quickly, click NAME, fill in maiden name, click PREFERRED (not ADD NAME), click ATTACH SOURCE, click FIND A GRAVE (+), then EXIT (X). Then update wife's maiden name. #genealogy #ancestrytips

Have you ever tried linking a photo to an internal message on Ancestry? It's a nightmare. The photo has to be on your tree. Fine. Then you either have to scour every photo you've ever uploaded or scroll through the names of every person who has an attached photo. Not good. #ancestrytips #genealogy

Ancestry sometimes mistakenly attributes high schooler ages to school administrators, teachers and other staff during the bulk processing of student age estimation. Be sure to keep an eye out for your research targets working as educators. #ancestrytips #genealogy
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While I am fascinated at how Living DNA breaks out my English ethnicity into smaller zones than Ancestry DNA, they can't justify making me three-quarters British. A quarter of my maternal Germanic/Slavic ancestors are misattributed to England. Ancestry DNA gets it right. #genealogy #ancestrytips

I have a 14 cM DNA match on Ancestry. The DNA Painter cM Tool provides much better suggested cousin solutions than Ancestry. Over 60% of the most likely solutions -- all in the highest tier - aren't even offered on Ancestry. #ancestrytips #genealogy #dna

Collaboration is impossible when the two dozen relevant Ancestry family trees are all marked private back to the 18th century. I mean really? Why message asking me for help? It's not only stupid, it's unproductive to hide your research. Crowd sourcing can be useful. #genealogy #ancestrytips

If you can't find Matawan, New Jersey in the 1850 US Census, there's a few reasons. It was part of Raritan Twp from 1848 to 1857. It was called Middletown Village until the Borough was established in 1857. It was labeled but the margins are cropped online. #genealogy #ancestrytips #matawannj

If I have to clear the Ancestry Holiday Sale ad from my Ancestry workspace one more time, I might scream. The ad isn't given me warm fuzzies about the app. #ancestrytips #genealogy

The niece of a difficult to resolve maternal DNA match wrote today on Ancestry. Her uncle, subject of a floating tree I used to explore our ties a few yrs ago, is my highest cm match not to find a spot in my tree. Hope we can sort things out after she sees him next week. #ancestrytips #genealogy

Ancestry has made my work more difficult. The census enumerated a Kieffer family as Kiefer, so I imported Kiefer as an Alternate Name. Ancestry has been ignoring my Alt Name designations for months, so I had to revert the Kiefers back to Alt Name status for each individual. #ancestrytips #genealogy

Many US World War I draft cards provide a registrant's occupation, city of residence, as well as name and residence of spouse or parent. (I use the registration date for residence date.) Be sure to add and link those items that Ancestry omits from the import into your tree. #ancestrytips #genealogy

When a marriage record index includes an undated place of residence for the bride and groom, I add the marriage's month and year to the 2 blank date fields while processing the record import into my Ancestry tree. #ancestrytips #genealogy

Has Ancestry changed a name priority in your tree lately? When I import a "John H Doe" grave record as an Alt Name into "John Henry Doe", somehow the full name becomes the alternate. This happens on my laptop and iPhone, so it's not a cache issue. Support was no help. #ancestrytips #genealogy

If you import a Find a Grave record to Ancestry, be sure to add, source and prioritize all maiden names. Here's how to do it:
- Click add (choose name)
- Click edit (type the maiden name)
- Click attach source (choose Find a Grave)
- Click edit fact (check off Preferred)

#ancestrytips #genealogy

Ancestry rarely differentiates between marriage certificates and marriage licenses. If the two acts are on the same document, they ignore the license and its date and place. Also, Ancestry hallucinates parental places of death on certain records. Always check when importing. #ancestrytips #genealogy

Be sure to capture the wife's maiden name from Find a Grave when uploading a family into Ancestry. It's a second but important step. Add the maiden name manually, then source it to Find a Grave and change the priority so the maiden name appears on top. #ancestrytips #genealogy

Lately when I import a record, Ancestry pushes my subject's existing primary name down and makes the newly imported name primary. It's maddening. I called customer service, but the rep didn't understand my issue. He was such an automaton that I asked if he was a human. #ancestrytips #genealogy

Ancestry continues to provide a bogus place of death for the parents on their child's death certificate. I ran into this again today on multiple Pennsylvania death certificates indexed on Ancestry. #ancestrytips #genealogy

There are limits to what we can ask of artificial intelligence. For the moment, at least, AI won't look at the previous page to find the beginning of a town name. But we can ask AI not to hallucinate. Liberty TP, Ohio isn't Odenville. #ancestrytips #genealogy

Ancestry doesn't allow me to create tags for my Network. Their suggested tags can be lacking. My military themed Networks, for example, rarely get useful tags. Why WWI but not WWII? Why not British Navy and US Army? Wherefore art thou, Merchant Marine?? #ancestrytips #genealogy

This Michigan marriage certificate provided the age of bride and groom as of last birthday, INCLUDING that last birthdate! Those DOBs were easily derived. Ancestry only imported approximate years of birth. POB was there but not imported. Always check the original doc. #ancestrytips #genealogy

Ancestry is deluging me with promos that block key spots on the site and either offer no option to delete them or they come right back. Yesterday they started asking me to use their scan tool. Today they want me to try their transcriber. This strategy is annoying as hell. #ancestrytips #genealogy

Users can edit or add to Ancestry's index of a record, with notable exceptions. They cannot add to an existing but blank field; hypertext is required. A resident they skipped in a city directory cannot be indexed. Only the closest relatives can be added to probate items. #ancestrytips #genealogy

The Ancestry import feature can ignore the letter E at the end of a name or as a middle initial. If you are importing Lucinda E into a record for Lucinda, Ancestry might suggest a match and offer to merge them. This can also happen with Ann vs Anne, Smyth vs Smythe, et al. #ancestrytips #genealogy

When I add Occupation in Ancestry, I leave the date and/or place blank unless specified. Ancestry has begun including census occupations in the Residence field. I guess that's ok but it isn't sortable. Census and marriage records provide date refs, but obits rarely do. #genealogy #ancestrytips

I came across a supplemental list of active military personnel in the 1865 NY State Census today. It was in the back of the enumeration I was viewing. It was keyed to the individuals by census page and line number. Should be of value to those with US Civil War ancestors. #ancestrytips #genealogy

Today I stumbled upon a death record in the 1865 NY State Census. Ancestry listed the woman as residing in Tioga County. Thet omitted that she was dead. There were rich details: age, place of birth, cause of death. She was not with her family, so I missed her until today. #ancestrytips #genealogy

Ancestry indexes Mrs John Doe as a female named John Doe in vital records and newspaper articles. Since I source alternate names, I remove the spouse's given name and leave that field blank, source the married surname, and add "as Mrs John Doe" in the notes field. #ancestrytips #genealogy