Are there good things about the new format?
Comments
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Does anyone have anything good to say about the new format, It is more time consuming and difficult to maneuver around the site now, everything that was easily accessible is far more difficult now. It would be advantageous for family search to go back to the old format or at least have it available like it was last week. In other words the new format still does not work, it is a clumsy overwrite to what was working before.
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I have good things to say: I made objections about the layout early on, along with many others. But because the layout is customizable (possibly reacting to people like me), I have moved my [beloved] Brief Life History to the top. You can customize your look. I have also set up an alert for one ancestor warning people not to merge certain individuals (as there is not enough info to confirm they are the same person.). It appears as a warning for anyone who visits that ancestor's details page. I have also added enslaved / enslaver relationships with an ancestor in the early 1700s New Jersey who was documented as owning a slave. I will continue to document the enslaved as I can, and will also document business relationships found in paperwork I've inherited. All this using the new "Other Relationships" feature. I am also going to make a point (on my to do list, anyway) to carefully date the items in my memories so they can now be viewed in chronological order. None of this was available on the old person page, and they are the reason I dumped the old person page months ago and never looked back.
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Please use the New Person Page Group for discussion of the New Person Page.
Thank you.
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It took a little while to get used to some of the changes, but overall I love the new format. In addition to the things @Gail Swihart Watson mentioned, I would add:
The two-column format requires less scrolling than in the old format.
Tagging sources to all conclusions is a wonderful addition to make clear what conclusions a source documents and which sources back up a conclusion.
The red note for "Non-standard Place" lets you know at a glance which places are not standardized. And the removal of that horribly misleading location pin icon is a huge improvement (no longer are people as tempted to remove helpful details from a place name in a misguided effort to make that location pin appear).
Option to "dock" the sources in a panel to the right makes it easier to view, compare, and add sources while working on vitals.
New Memories layout makes it easier to see all the memories together, sorting them or filtering them with more flexible options.
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-Memories "one" consolidated view vs sections...am different from some and upload rarer docs and photos profusely. the ability to add dates and date ranges helps put order to what was a mess in the past.
-Agree with @Alan E Brown on docking...am on a PC and so thankful for the "docked" source panel for streamlining the changes from the recent availability of the expansive Soc. Sec. NUMIDENT matches.
-New Alert notes now viewable to all in their workflow ie. "Do not confuse with". Wished for this for a long time. This seems a no brainer and critical when the working in collaborative "one profile per person tree" where so much conflated similar named family clutter is out there on paid sites and private family research libraries. have seen a reduction in my British colonial America ancestors conflated entries. I understand conflated entries will continue, this collaborative tree thing is really quite young....but, nice to have the "flag" alert tool to help.
-Ability to tag sources to other and alternative facts like names, nicknames etc. Also, I'm finding when cross checking others and my own entries on fact fields I'm now using the side panel view that opens the sources connected to each fact now. this was probably a feature in "old" but now as I build out supporting the "other" facts, my workflow is changing for the better.
-customization of screen views. Single column is better for me. 2 column was too much of a change for now...slow and go.
How long on "new"?: forced myself onto the "Inevitable" about 3 months ago. I've got OneNote and Windows 11 coming up soon as PC on last legs and hear change is come'n in those two....those two changes to workflow and new stuff cause more anxiety when compared to the "new" tree interface. .so just attempt to embrace the temporary learning curve now vs. later. smile.
Edit add:
-Discovered feature (likely not new) and use for my in and out of genealogy hobby follow up "to dos". Found and utilize the custom "Labels" on our followed ancestor profiles to include custom labels (all users get up to 10 custom) for creating lists on the fly later when actively working within the collaborative tree: "New content" and "Fix Later" ...."New content" is new stuff found on my directs I want to save when have more time to our PC and "Fix Later" use for profiles needing attention but don't have active subscription to Ancestry or time to do the deep dives.
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