After I upgraded to RM11, all my accepted Webhints for Ancestry have reverted to “Pending”. Did I lose all my accepted flags? Anyone have this issue? How can I get them back as accepted? There are many thousands of carefully-checked acceptances!
Don’t have an answer but I would open the v10 database again in v11 and have it do the conversion.
All WebHints and their status are generated on the Ancestry tree online. Then the status of the WebHints is pushed from Ancestry to RM, so I can’t see upgrading to RM11 effecting it. We do have the ability in the Ancestry API to change the status of a hint using WebHints but it would have to be done one at a time. What is it showing in RM10?
It looks like the lost WebHint status issue happened back in June when I uploaded a new version of my RootsMagic tree to Ancestry. I’m guessing that action resets all the WebHints. It’s not warned against within RootsMagic, which is a shame. And there appears to be no way to reconnect RootsMagic to a previously-used tree in ancestry, only to create a new one. Is that all correct? I’m in no way going to go through all the thousands of WebHints again to re-accept them. This is a real weakness of the cooperative connection to Ancestry.
You can reconnect to an existing Ancestry tree by restoring a backup made before it was disconnected.
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OK, well I was just on a long support phone call with Ancestry.com, and they insisted that the status of WebHints is NOT stored in Ancestry, but in my RootsMagic data somewhere. Can you help me figure out if that data can be re-applied to my current Ancestry connection?
Ancestry support was not correct. The webhints are generated on their website and connected to the Ancestry tree. When the RM database is connected to the Ancestry tree using TreeShare the hints are pushed to RM when you are logged in. We don’t store their status or anything like that. Once the database is disconnected from an Ancestry tree you cannot reconnect it again and receive those hints.
That’s a pity. RootsMagic needs to make it VERY clear in the UI (“Are you sure” warning, etc.) that disconnecting from, or uploading a new tree to Ancestry loses all your thousands of WebHint decisions. I’ve always assumed that my Acceptances got recorded in Ancestry so that other genealogists would have the benefit of my work. I guess not!
And actually, this problem makes WebHints for ancestry a useless time-waster, after one has accidentally disconnected. If I have carefully gone through 25 WebHints for a certain family member, and later see that they have been reset to “Undecided”, I won’t know if they are new ones I never went through, or if I am wasting time repeating what I already did. So I won’t want to waste that time again!
So one of the most useful features in RootsMagic has been rendered useless after an accidental disconnection. If there is any way to work out downloading the WebHints decisions database to RootsMagic for preservation, that would be wonderful. You mentioned that restoration could be done through the API for individual records. Is there any documentation for that? Maybe it can be automated.
Not sure where I said this?
I am sorry you didn’t understand where the webhints were saved and coming from. We tried to give enough information in Help.
Here is the RM11 Help page on Ancestry TreeShare.
There is a a printable guide “FAQ: WebHints & TreeShare for Ancestry” available for download here - http://files.rootsmagic.com/guides/Magic_Guide_TreeShare_Ancestry_FAQ.pdf
If you turn to section D in the PDF it covers WebHints. In section D-3 it covers uploading.
“For trees uploaded from RootsMagic, Ancestry hints may not automatically appear. This is to prevent excessive strain on Ancestry’s servers. To trigger Ancestry hints, you must first view the tree on Ancestry or make an edit to someone on Ancestry through RootsMagic’s TreeShare. Once there are WebHints on the newly uploaded tree they will be available in RootsMagic.”
Which means uploading a new Ancestry tree new hints will be generated. There isn’t anyway for Ancestry to indentify hints or sources that were generated on a different tree or transfer them from one to another.
Above you stated, “We do have the ability in the Ancestry API to change the status of a hint using WebHints but it would have to be done one at a time.”
After receiving the WebHint highlight it and click Accept. This will change the status on Ancestry to Accepted, same with Reject or Undecided. They must be done one at a time.
Well, of course. Before I waste any more time, let me just understand this: If I “disconnected” Rootsmagic 10 from an Ancestry tree that once held thousands of my WebHint “accept/reject” decisions, they are lost forever, right? Even if I restore a backup of my RootsMagic data from before I disconnected? In other words, the act of disconnecting happens on the Ancestry side, and is immediate and permanent, correct? I understand I could re-upload that tree to Ancestry, but it wouldn’t get my WebHint status back, right?
Yes, if you disconnect a RM database from an Ancestry tree hints only remain on the Ancestry tree. If you restore a backup made before the disconnect they will return. If the Ancestry tree was deleted then there is no recovery. If you disconnect and upload a new Ancestry tree it has to generate new hints. It won’t recognize that your sources came from an earlier Ancestry hint.
No, the connection record exists inside of the RM database. As Renee stated, restoring from a prior backup will restore the connection. That’s the only way to establish a connection to an ancestry tree from an existing RM db. Disconnecting your RM db from ancestry is a last-ditch effort kind of step and it’s always a good practice to backup before taking it.
When I upload a new version of my RM db to ancestry to share publicly, I make a copy of my RM db, disconnect the copy from ancestry, and then treeshare a new ancestry tree from the RM db copy. That way my main research db remains connected to my private, research ancestry tree and webhint status is unaffected.
Picture it as if there are imaginary lines drawn connecting Ancestry hints that travel down and point at those individuals in each specific database only. Suddenly, the database is deleted. Those lines no longer connect the Ancestry hints to anything. But, restoring a copy of the RM database, from before the deletion, will allow all (or most or some) of those imaginary lines to re-find the individuals they were connected to.
Thanks, kevinm and kbens0n. Yes, I see that restoring an old file does restore the WebHints’ status, even after updating to RM11. The situation I’m in is that after I disconnected (a couple months ago) and uploaded a new version to Ancestry, I added a good number of people and facts - before I realized that the WebHints had lost their connection. So , if I revert to an early backup, I lose those additions. If there were a way to easily identify those added people and facts, then re-add them to the older database, I could retain the earlier WebHint statuses AND the newly-added people and facts. Alas, I don’t see a path to that.
You can pretty easily see the changes by Customizing the People view, adding the “Date Edited” field, and then sorting on that field. Make sure that you are displaying RINs (Settings, Number to display).
Adding those facts to the older db is a little harder. Could try drag and drop all affected people to a blank db and compare the 2 dbs (file, tools, Compare). Then either drag n drop people to the older db and merge duplicates or and manually re-enter facts. You may want to practice drag n drop of the target people into blank dbs to make sure that you get family facts as well as individual facts. And, of course, do frequent backups along the way.
Others may have better suggestions.