This will really help- no more re-keying search parameters!

http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/

Changing for the better remains to be seen. In my opinion, we have been led down the garden path too many times to believe in what we are told.

And for those of us who use old search exclusively, will the "refine search" funtion keep the data fields populated with anything more than the name, if even that?

Of course not. They want us to give in and use new search so why would they make any improvements, or even fixes, to old search.

I have no idea how, if at all, it will work with old search, but I'm willing to wait and see. I do know that this will help with the few times that I use new search.

As you say- eventually new search will be the only search; that time, however, doesn't seem to be in the immediate future.

In the mean time ,as they try and improve new search, I'll try it and try to get used to it so that when the day does come I'll be somewhat comfortable with it.

That, to me, seems the only logical thing to do as I'm not fond of banging my head against a stone wall while knowing the chances of holding onto the present are not in my favor.

This old dog, can, and eventually will, learn some new tricks. *grin*

That is my feeling also. A subtle way to lead us down the garden path of least resistance. I'm sure this does not apply to "old search" either. Too many promises left undone-too many glitches all the time. So we are supposed to believe this time???

Have read the blog post, and cannot see any real way in which this will be an improvement. The search results, both in content (specificity and sensitivity) and layout along one line (so easily eyeballed), were much better 4-5 years ago.

And any database worth its' salt should be able to let one order the results by, say, YOB or county, or whatever the displayed headings are.

For serious research, Ancestry seems to be going downhill. And seems to have no one with a research background on their programming team.

Let's just say that this change give me a bit more hope that they are finally moving in the right direction.

I'd still like to see a bit more openness when it comes to acknowledging ongoing problems and solid explanations of how those problems came about and what steps were taken to prevent them in the future.

Who knows? Now that they have to answer to stockholders, of which I am one, we may finally see that! *grin*

But did you notice when you use the CTLR N, it opens a new window instead of a new tab? I think it would be better to just open a new tab in Windows and not a new window.

This specific change wasn't meant, as far as I can tell, to address any issue other that making it easier to enter search parameters and then, if needed, to modify those parameters.

I'm sure that specificity, sensitivity, layout, and sort ability will eventually be addressed also.

You also have to remember that Ancestry isn't "a" database, but rather a collection of databases and that that somewhat complicates matters.

I'm one of Ancestry's harshest critics but, imho, they did ok on this particular change.

"But did you notice when you use the CTLR N, it opens a new window instead of a new tab? I think it would be better to just open a new tab in Windows and not a new window."

keywester114,
You don't use CTLR N, just N or R by itself. There is a Hot Key list down on the lower left side:

Hot Keys

* n - New search
* r - Refine search
* p - Preview current record
* > - Highlight next record
* < - Highlight previous record