Pro Tools & New format DNA Match Lists

And no orange or yellow!

 

Yes - but why?

I can just about understand why web designers often use only a limited range of colours in their "theme", as a styling choice. But for some of us at least these group colours are functional: being readily distinguished is what they are for. I chose a set of eight colours for my tree's main divisions, paired pale and dark blue, red, green and yellow. Now Ancestry seem intent on penalising me for making serious use of the feature.

The change has not yet happened for me, but I have started drafted an indignant complaint. (It may also be quite rude - I haven't decided that yet.) I hope others for whom this feature has also been wrecked will complain too.

 

I noticed this morning (and maybe it was the case earlier), that although my main match lists show the new format with the square blobs and new colours, when I click to view a match it shows the old format with a round blob and the previous colours. Also, if I click to view shared matches then those are all showing in the old format too.

 

OK, I vaguely remembered that the number of colours was going to change and now see that there are 32 instead of 24. Counting is something that, I feely admit, I am not the best at!

More colours ought to be better, but not having yellow is a bit of a problem for me, since that is my main paternal line colour. Moreover many of the new colours are very similar, which reduces their usefulness as a means of distinguishing different groups of matches.

I can also see the original colours and format when looking at a specific match and shared matches.

As this is all in beta just now, I will hold off from making any changes to my groups until Ancestry's changes have been confirmed and we can see the final result.

Meanwhile, I will send my feedback to Ancestry. I will draft something first and rework it as necessary, to ensure that it is not dismissed as the angry ravings of someone whose needs are unusual and excessively demanding.

 

Yes, I noticed that too. I wonder if they will eventually be updating the group colours on the individual match pages too. Otherwise it will be rather inconsistent.

I imagine they have removed the paler colours as the white text shows up better on the darker colours.

 

Good point, I'll need to bear that in mind when I edit my groups, as several have the same initial letters at present.

 

This does make some sense now that my attention has been drawn to the text. I would still be much happier with a dark yellow than with no yellow at all, though.

 

I was about to draft my feedback to Ancestry, but now I find that they have changed the colours again. My groups now all have their original colours, but as squarish blobs rather than dots and with the initial characters from the group names. The colours I am being offered now if I want to edit a group, or create a new one, are:-



Those are the original colours plus a new 8 that are black, white, and various shades of grey. Also, the characters shown in the coloured boxes are either black or white, so they show up on whichever colour is used. Shared matches are currently still unchanged from the original format.

This looks good to me, or at any rate a lot better than how it was a few days ago.

I will still provide some feedback to Ancestry, to explain why the colours matter to me and what would be better or worse from my point of view. Although synaesthesia is not very common I will be far from being the only Ancestry user who has a similar relationship with colours. Again, I will draft and then re-read (on another day) before sending.

 

OK, I've sent my feedback. We'll see what happens in future.

 

I was just having a look some DNA results (my mother's) and I have a new "shared matches" setup (should be noted that I have a subscription and this is the new Pro view) but unlike previously, it now shows the number of cM shared by your results and by the other person as well as a relationship.

I am presuming that where it says "... or ...." that there hasn't been a relationship input for that individual and Ancestry is guessing. Well, I know that the first image I have no idea how this person is related to me, but I can see how this change may make it easier for me to figure it out, given that I now know how the shared matches are related to my other match.

Apologies if people have seen this one before, I only spotted it today.

First image is an unknown 2nd cousin?? who shared 197cM with my mum (PB); the second is a match with my grandmother where I know the family group they're from (I have it as "most likely..." in the notes) but I don't really know where they link in.

The symbols are: tree symbol (public), lock (private tree), no tree (crossed out), unlinked tree (dotted lines, see B.B in the second image) and common ancestors (group of people - CS at bottom of second image)

 

Same with me. No different and -classic at end of url.

It would be really useful to see the cM shared by the other person in a shared match, as all I know at the moment is that it's >20 cM.

 

Yes, I have ".... or /..." for all matches where I haven't entered a relationship, as I mentioned in my first post in this thread.

 

I can't see a "-classic" on the URL for these new pages and I am on the ".com.au" base page.

The lowest shared cM I've seen on one side (not necessarily the other) is 8cM on one side of the match, but more than 20cM (in one case 21cM) for the other individual.

I can now see the new groups and colours - but only on the new shared matches pages - everywhere else it's the old version.

 

If I take match A who shares < 20 cM with me and click on 'Shared Matches', I get a list of people who all share >20 cM with me, and as I understand it, all share >20 cM with A. So I think your 8 cM on one side would be your 'A' and the other side would show how many cM they share with A (which is >20 cM). Apologies if this sounds confusing.

 

So the match I was looking at shared 117cM with my father (the test I was looking at) they had 2 pages of results. I know this person (DC) is a half 2C and I know exactly where they fit (they're actually in my tree).

The results are arranged by the amount of cM the shared matches share with my father (the main DNA result - left column) and given what else I've seen, the non-pro version also arranges it this way. So for example, the first result that isn't immediate family of my father (which includes myself and my aunt) is a 1C1R of my father, who shares 498cM with him, but only 59cM with DC. The very next result shares 294cM with my father but 481cM with DC.

The lowest match for my father is 8cM (these two results share 45cM and 21cM with DC). There are no results in the list that share less than 20cM with DC; the lowest match for DC is a match that shares 20cM with them (they share 18cM with my father).

So what I'm thinking it's actually doing is showing all the results that have 20 or more cM with the comparison match. Obviously there are matches with less than 20cM with my father on the list that show because they share 20cM or more with DC.

Happy to provide screenshots tomorrow (timezone issues!). I'm hoping that makes some sense. I'm happy to keep looking at the results to compare this hypothesis if you like.

 

I'm now seeing this at the top of my match list:



The upgrade to Pro Tools costs £4.99 a month. I'm considering whether to sign up for this.

 

Since it shows you the relationship or approximate relationship with the shared matches, I can only see benefits - as it would help using tool such as WATO since you can input shared matches with a lot less understanding of how they fit into your tree based on their relationship with a shared match (i.e. if it can say one match is a nephew, then it's easy to associate that match within a tool like WATO).