Tuesday, May 11, 2021

Ancestry adds more clicks to see source citations

 I usually go with the flow when Ancestry makes a change, however the latest that I found is really annoying me.

I personally love to print/save the transcribe page of a census record, when I have the Head of Household on the screen, their detailed information and then members of the household underneath as one line. Beneath this information, the source information will display.  Here is an example I did last month.



However, today when I went to do the exact same thing, the source is now hidden on a different tab. Thus when I go to print/save the page, only what I see on the screen is available and this is what save's or prints. Here is the example I found today.



If I want to save this as one "pdf", then I have to copy/snip the "detail" onto a Word document and then copy/snip the source after the first image on the same word document. Only then can I finally save as one "pdf". Or I could save two separate pdf's, where one is the detail and the other is the source. Or I could just not save the source page. I already have sourced the census information in my genealogy software program, but that is not the point. I like to print out these pages to share with family members. 

I just don't understand why Ancestry is hiding the source behind another tab which means users have to click another thing on the screen. I have been noticing Ancestry adding additional clicks to basic tasks and I am wondering if they are trying to slow down the users and reduce their speed and thus help the backend services to run better. Okay, as a programmer, I can understand that. As a user, I want my old print option back when the detail and source would be included in one document. 

I can't wait until I get one of those survey prompts so that I can give my opinion on this change.