When you save a text-based Ancestry record like a birth, marriage, or census transcript to your tree, the Save to Tree panel asks you to type the person’s name into the Name field before it can match them up. Since the record already shows the name at the top of the page, retyping it is pure busywork. Text Records Name Auto-fill fills that field in for you automatically.
When you save an image Ancestry record like a census page, parish register, or passenger list to your tree, the Save to Tree dialog asks you to type the person’s name into the Person in tree field before it can match them up, even though the record title already shows whose record you’re saving. Image Records Name Auto-fill fills that field in for you automatically.
Transcribed records on Ancestry and other genealogy sites often arrive in ALL CAPS, which is fine for the source but ugly when copied into a name, place, or description field in your tree. Fixing the case by hand means retyping the whole field. Change Text Case via Shift + Up/Down lets you flip any text field between UPPERCASE and Title Case with a single keystroke.
When several DNA matches descend from the same ancestor, Ancestry gathers them into a group and hides that group behind a small counter showing how many there are. A ThruLine therefore opens showing only part of the picture, and seeing who is actually in each group means clicking every counter in turn. Automatically Expand All ThruLines opens all of them for you the moment the page loads.
When you find a photo in an Ancestry tree or media gallery, Ancestry only gives you a small set of options for saving it, and saving a clean copy to your own computer is not one of them. Add Download Image Button to Viewer adds a one-click download button right next to the image so you can save the original file straight to your machine.
When you open the Ancestry Card Catalog on your regional site, results are filtered to collections for your country by default. If you want to search the full global catalog you have to untick the country filter every single time you open the page. Always Search Global Records in Catalog turns that filter off for you automatically so every catalog search covers every collection.
Ancestry always opens your DNA match list sorted by “Closest” (the strongest matches first), which is often not the view you want. If you are watching for new matches, you would rather open the list sorted by “Newest”. There is no way to change that default. Ancestry Match List Sorting lets you pick either sort order from the pop-up panel and applies it every time you open the match list.
Ancestry’s shared matches page is always sorted by how much DNA each person shares with the tester, so the shared matches that share the most with the match you opened are mixed in everywhere. There is no built-in way to change that sort. Ancestry Shared Matches Sorting lets you pick the default sort order for every shared matches page from the pop-up panel.
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