In Beta at Ancestry: Top Hints Feature

 In beta at Ancestry is a feature called Top Hints, which I'm exploring this week.

The leaf symbol captioned "beta" in the image above is where to click for "top hints for 10 people in your tree." Not every Ancestry member may have this new feature, but it is interesting because it calls attention to people from across the tree, people I may have not worked on recently. I know, I know, hints can be misleading or outright ridiculous. But ya just never know, so I do look now and then. This feature is like a variety-pack of hints from across the tree.

Clicking on the beta leaf brought up the list at right in the image. One name is blank here because it's a living relative. To look at the hints in more detail, click on the down arrow at right of each name. In my first list of hints, all were actual records or indexes, like Census documents, marriage/death indexes, or draft registrations, which I can evaluate individually. No ship illustrations or DNA strands, so far. 

Above, how Ancestry explains and introduces "Top Hints."

For me, Top Hints is something to check first thing in the morning before I dive into an ongoing project, or when I have a spare 10-15 minutes at any point. Take a look and see whether you have this beta feature and how well it works for you.

As you can see from the image at top, I'm also having fun with the new fan feature in Ancestry, which I learned about from a blog post by Diane Henriks. I haven't been able to change the number of generations displayed, so as she says, this feature must still be in beta. I like the suggested ancestors shown in green on the fan, hints that I can review and, mostly, reject unless there's solid evidence to investigate. 

IMHO, I'm the quality assurance person on my family trees, deciding whether to accept or reject any hint after looking at the source's credibility and relevance. Most "possible parent" hints get rejected, but occasionally those with real sources lead me in promising new directions.