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Help for New Ancestry.com's Lifestory feature

Help for New Ancestry.com's Lifestory feature

Posted: 5 Jul 2015 10:56PM GMT
Classification: Query
I keep my files at home on FTM and periodically update to Ancestry.com. I have been looking at the New Ancestry.com. In particular, I have been looking at the "Lifestory" feature. Does anyone know where to find any detailed "Help" for this new "Lifestory" feature?

For example, in FTM I have a number of "facts" for each person. I saw quickly that all facts in FMT for a person do not automatically show up in the person's Lifestory on New Ancestry.com. I started using "Help" looking for an explanation for why some FTM Facts get lost but found almost no "Help" relating to "New Ancestry.com" or "Lifestory". I figured our a few simple things such as an undated FTM Fact isn't likely to show up in the Lifestory and a PDF file stored in an FTM Fact will also not get into the Lifestory (but if you can convert the PDF to an IPG if will transfer usually).

Has detailed "Help" not been issued yet?

Re: Help for New Ancestry.com's Lifestory feature

Posted: 5 Jul 2015 11:11PM GMT
Classification: Query
LifeStory is still a "work in progress."

While there are some features that can be edited or ignored, I would strongly recommend staying away from that, for the time being. As it is still evolving, anything you do may be lost.

Re: Help for New Ancestry.com's Lifestory feature

Posted: 9 Jul 2015 12:36PM GMT
Classification: Query
To get a Fact to show in Life Story, you need to go to the fact on the person's Ancestry profile page. Pick Edit. Then in the box that comes up, you can select Life Story options and choose to have that Fact show in the Life Story. What you are seeing right now are the defaults that go into Life Story automatically. You can also remove a Fact from the Life Story with the same procedure. Simply edit the option in the Fact to not show it. This is particularly useful when there are several residence facts for the same location but different years. You might not want all of them to show in the Life Story.

Re: Help for New Ancestry.com's Lifestory feature

Posted: 30 Jul 2015 9:41PM GMT
Classification: Query
I found these responses helpful and they fixed a number of issues. However, my biggest problem now seems to be where I have a "Fact" in FTM on my computer that has a multipaged pdf file attached to it. When I transfer this Fact to Ancestry.com, the multipaged PDF file never transfers and becomes part of the Life Story. I saw that the Life Story "help" seems to state that pdf is not a supported format. It is bothersome that FTM supports a multipage pdf file but Life Story does not. Does anyone have a work-around for this issue ? The problem also seems to exist for multi page TIFF formats as well.

Re: Help for New Ancestry.com's Lifestory feature

Posted: 30 Jul 2015 10:44PM GMT
Classification: Query
On line, Ancestry has never supported directly viewing PDF files, not even single page PDFs. You always had to download or open them with Adobe Reader. So it is not something that is a function of new vs old ancestry interfaces.

Re: Help for New Ancestry.com's Lifestory feature

Posted: 2 Aug 2015 12:11AM GMT
Classification: Query
I agree with BurgessDonnelly that LifeStory is still evolving. But, please don't ask me where, when, or what that may be.

Last week I had one irritating experience with LIfeStory and could not correct something I had edited and then saved as per instructions. Of course, I noticed a typo right away and wanted to fix it before I left the page. I could not make any changes. I could not exit the LifeStory. Clicking everything and everywhere I could, I finally escaped to another "locked box" and could not seem to exit that one either. After I had clicked multiple times, I finally escaped.

The next day I received an email from an ACOM staffer that they noticed I had visited their ancestry university and signed up to take some training courses (apparently some are free and some have a price tag). I had already made a complaint via one of the infamous surveys about the LifeStory experience foul up. And, I immediately replied to the email , explained what had happened the day before, and stated that I had not signed up nor enrolled in any of the training courses, free or otherwise. I don't even know what courses they offer as I did not see anything like that when I was "trapped" in limbo. All I want is to be able to access the site to accomplish my research without any new twists or turns that disrupt my focus. Is that too much to ask? Apparently ACOM doesn't see it that way, or they are blinded by $$$$$$$ being waved in front of their eyes.

I read something earlier today that FB has jumped on the bandwagon and is acquiring genealogical research sites to likely create its newest empire.

In MHO, this is a slam dunk effort to add lots of bells and whistles to ACOM to stage the site as a desirable and profitable acquisition. I don't feel that this is a well-planned and orderly transition to benefit the membership. Therefore, I am keeping my distance from the "NEW" and "IMPROVED" version as long as possible..
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