Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Now here's an interesting interaction I had with the friendly folks atAncestry.

Now here's an interesting interaction I had with the friendly folks at Ancestry.com tech support. I've always had good luck with them. They answer within a reasonable amount of time and are consistent with their friendly, knowledgeable assistance. Until yesterday. Don't get me wrong, they were responsive but I managed to stump them.

It began with my Chapin family project. Someone asked to join my "Descendants of Deacon Samuel Chapin" Facebook page and I always check to make sure they are, in fact, a descendant of the Good Deacon.

When I tried to double check whether the Deacon was my own 8th or 9th great grandfather, I discovered, much to my surprise, that he was a 6th cousin 4 times removed of the wife of.....and on and on.

Curious to see how that happened literally overnight, I checked my FTM database and there he was correctly indicated as the 9th great grandfather as he should be. What happened between the last sync and the thousands of sync's I had done in the past.

Ancestry.com, I found out, doesn't have a category for "divorced" as FTM does. In a tree that I've had running for 16 or 17 years, suddenly I could only indicate "other." Since I've been a member since 31 Dec 1899 according to my profile (really...check yours out, too!) I can't believe that I missed this. So, I changed the status of my first wife from whom I was divorced in the mid-90's to "Other." Then the relationships that had been correct for the past 16 or 17 years suddenly fell into place

Two things: 1) Ancestry doesn't know why the relationships suddenly went berserk and 2) the tech support person who was assisting agreed completely that there should be a "Divorced" option in the relationship drop-down menu. After all, I told her, it's not a new concept! She said she'd put it into customer feedback/suggestions or something like that... We'll see what happens. At least I know that I am still the 9th great grandson of Deacon Samuel Chapin (1598-1675) and I can continue to be a member of my own Facebook page!

http://Ancestry.com

This is why I link to follow Shaky Leaf Hints in FTM2014 (or FTM-3)

This is why I link to follow Shaky Leaf Hints in FTM2014 (or FTM-3)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ycd2Qd5vUvk&feature=share