Ancestry just rolled out several significant updates, and I sat down with Crista to walk through all of them.
Here’s what we cover:
– Fold3’s 2.4 million Revolutionary War pension images are now full-text searchable thanks to handwriting recognition. That means you can search for any name mentioned in a pension, not just the pensioner.
– Ancestry is now pushing roughly 5 million additional record images, including probate files, through the same full-text search pipeline.
– The new Photo Insights feature uses AI to analyze photos and documents in your gallery, estimating date ranges, locations, and historical context.
– Full document transcription is available for anything you upload to Ancestry.
– Ancestry Preserve lets you ship a box of physical photos, slides, film reels, and documents to be digitized and automatically added to your tree.
– 90 new US DNA Journeys have been added, focused on migration patterns within the United States.
– A redesign of the person profile page and the hints review workflow is coming soon.
Subscriptions: Fold3 records require a Fold3 subscription or Ancestry All Access. Most other features require an Ancestry subscription.
If you have old photos you can’t identify or paper records buried in boxes, several of these updates are worth knowing about.
Academy members, use this link to watch on the dashboard now. Be sure to grab the handout either below the video in the lesson or in the Materials Tab. https://genealogytv.org/courses/2026-youtube-videos/lessons/beyond-the-big-four/
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