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Are you an Ancestry.com subscriber and want to ensure you get the most out of the platform and have the best experience possible? Then, I invite you to change some of the settings on your trees, protect your privacy, and enhance your family tree profiles.
Change Your Site Preferences
Site preferences on Ancestry.com help you filter out the hinting and messages you receive. You're telling your virtual research assistant how much or little communication you want. Let's review some of the options.
Show Member Tree Hints
Do you want to see hints for other people's trees in your hint list? I have written about Tree Hints versus Record Hints before and which ones professional genealogists prefer. Ancestry lets you choose whether to see either one or both.
I'm not a big fan of the Member Trees, but I'll look at them if I get stuck. Thus, I turn off the member tree hint suggestions. Yay!!!
Ancestor Hints
These hints are different from the Member Trees. The Ancestor Hints will appear on your pedigree chart or DNA match tools. What Ancestry does is recommend potential ancestors for you based on other members' family trees. Of course, not all of the recommendations are going to be accurate. But I don't mind this as much as the tree hints in the hint list.
Now, I prefer to leave this on. I recommend you do that as well.
Which Trees For Hints?
You can upload more than one tree to your Ancestry account. You'll notice that I have several separate family trees. This is because I am working on various projects in the Southwest of the United States. So you can see the different trees I have there.
Look at the hint icon in the top menu bar. When the drop-down menu pops up, from which trees do you want to see hints?
For example, maybe I only want to see hints from my Geiszler/Brown tree. Then, I can select hint prompts for that tree and turn off suggestions from all other trees. This action is not permanent. We can change the hint preferences at any time.
Community Preferences
Do you want to connect with other family tree researchers?
Please be honest here.
If yes, choose to connect through Ancestry's message system.
If no, then select "Do not allow other members to contact me."
If you choose members to contact you, I hope you'll respond when you get messages.
Tree Color
Did you know you can change the color of your family tree in the pedigree view?
Well, you can. You can choose the background colors, which can be gray, blue, teal, purple, or white.
To see how to adjust the Ancestry.com settings, watch this video.
Notification Preferences on Ancestry
I might be odd, but I don't particularly appreciate receiving tons of emails from different websites I actively use in my inbox. Ancestry allows me to customize the communications the platform sends to my inbox. Be sure to adjust yours to fit your research needs. You can opt to receive emails or on-platform notices for each of the following categories.
Family Tree Hints - You can choose which trees you want Ancestry to inform you of new hints.
DNA Matches - Whether you made one or multiple kits, you chose how to receive messages about new DNA matches or ThruLines.
Family Tree Collaboration - Would you like an email each time other users update their family trees with photos, stories, or records?
Education - How do you want to learn about new record collections, tools, or how to be a better genealogist?
Feedback - Do you want to help improve the Ancestry platform?
The ability to change how Ancestry.com communicates with you is one sanity saver I hope you'll take advantage of immediately.
Adjust Your Ancestry Family Tree Settings on
For each tree, be sure to add details in the following option:
Tree Name
Tree Description - Let others know the purpose and the goal of the tree you're building.
Build Stories for Tree - This impacts the timeline in an ancestor profile. Do you want Ancestry to turn facts into story starters?
Select the home person for the base pedigree chart. (Also, identify who you are, if applicable, in the tree.)
Privacy Settings -
Do other users find your family tree? Use the Public Tree option.
Do you want your research privatized but take advantage of genetic genealogy tools like ThruLines? Then select the Private Tree option.
Are you working on a theory tree or a client research project? Then, make your tree private and select the option to "also prevent your tree from being found in searches."
Suppose you ever want to export your family tree to save to your computer or use it for GEDmatch, MyHeritage, or Findmypast. In that case, you'll see the export option. Transferring information between FamilySearch and RootsMagic is quite a process.
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Grab your copy of these FREE Genealogy Research Guides.
Your Ancestry Public Profile
Ancestry's internal research studies have shown those who have a public profile with a photo and a little bit of biographical information receive more responses from other researchers. If you want to take advantage of the collaborative nature of Ancestry, be sure to:
Add a photo
Write a brief biography.
Identify your family history experience level
Specific your research interests - be clear about the lines in your family tree you most want to investigate
Answer some fun questions
Express whether you're willing to help others
It isn't often that someone who isn't an Ancestry employee tells you to change your settings on Ancestry.com. However, as I have adjusted my settings, particularly the email notices and my profile, I have interacted with this genealogy website more positively than before.
I also really like the teal background on the pedigree chart and ancestor profile pages. Which color do you like?