Ancestry’s New Messaging Center Features!

Ancestry's New Messaging Center Features and Tools!

​Ancestry’s New Messaging Center Features

As mentioned in Ancestry 2023 Updates: New Genealogy and DNA Tools and Features, one of the new Ancestry updates includes a revamped messaging center with new features and tools that brings your messaging through Ancestry to a whole new level, while also making your messaging a whole lot easier!

New Messaging Center Features:

• Group Messaging
• Message Archive
• Message Filtering
• Photo Sharing

Group Messaging on Ancestry:

Group chat with up to 10 people at once! From the “New” message button, you can start a group message to chat with up to 10 people at once! This is very handy if you have multiple DNA matches to a particular line or have multiple people researching the same line, making it so much easier to collaborate (share photos to the group, solve brick walls, collaborate on how everyone is DNA matched to each other, etc.), along with less individual messages in your inbox to keep up with!  

How to Start Group Messaging:

1. Click on the “New” message button
2. Type a name or username into the “To:” field at the top
3. Click the “+” button in the “To:” field to add more people to the chat
4. Message as you usually would

Ancestry's New Group Messaging Feature

Message Archiving on Ancestry:

Clean up your inbox! You can now archive your messages to declutter your messaging inbox, making it so much easier to find current ongoing messages! Don’t worry about not being able to find the archived messages; they make it super easy to get to them, with their new filtering! You can also add them back to your inbox at any time! There are multiple ways to archive your messages; I guess they want to make it as easy as possible for you! 😉

2 Ways to Archive Messages on Ancestry:

1. The 3 dots (…) to the right of the contacts name (by hovering over the name) in your inbox
2. The 3 dots (…) all the way to the right of the contacts name in the top bar of your current message

Ancestry's New Messaging Archive Feature

 Message Filtering on Ancestry:

​You can now easily filter your messages to find your unread and archived messages, along with viewing them all at one time, making this a time saver! I really like being able to view just my unread messages; although, they are usually at the top of your inbox anyway. 😉

Ancestry's New Message Filtering Feature

Photo Sharing in Ancestry Messaging:

You can now attach images from any of your PUBLIC family trees on Ancestry right into the message itself! Although anyone can attach your PUBLIC photos from your PUBLIC tree anyway, this just makes it a little easier for anyone who hasn’t come across your tree yet, or a DNA match. What I am waiting for is a feature where you can share any photo from your family tree, whether from your PRIVATE family tree (as you may not want ALL your photos set to public but may be okay with sharing a few) or a family photo that is not in your tree (I understand why this one would be difficult, as it would be harder for Ancestry to make sure sharing this way follows their policy), so you don’t have to give your personal email out to email photos to share, etc.

How to Photo Share in Ancestry Messaging:

1. Click on image icon in the message
2. Choose which of your PUBLIC trees you want to retrieve photos from
3. Choose photo

Ancestry's New Messaging Center Photo Sharing Feature

​There is a glitch right now that is not letting me choose any other of my public trees, which will hopefully be fixed soon. As this was just 1 of well over 100 trees that I have, and it was just a quick volunteer job tree, there are no photos.

How to Get to Ancestry Message Center:

1. Top bar to the right on ANY Ancestry page/view
2. Ancestry Member Tree Hint/Member PUBLIC Tree
3. Search on Ancestry→ Filter→ Family Trees→ Public and Private
4. Through your DNA matches

Getting to Ancestry's Messaging Center: Places 1 & 2

Getting to Ancestry's Messaging Center: Place 3

Getting to Ancestry's Messaging Center: Place 4

​This is all still in BETA mode, so I’m sure they will be tweaking and updating these features, along with fixing any glitches! And who knows, they may even add more to it! 

​More Ancestry and other Genealogy Resources

Learn about more Ancestry features and other family history and genealogy resources under the Ancestry.com and Genealogy Resources categories and on my dedicated Genealogy Resources page.