How Can I Tell Which Ancestors Have Been Added to My Family Tree?
A question we receive from members of OneGreatFamily is how they can distinguish between the ancestors they added themselves, and the ancestors added because of OneGreatFamily's unique matching and merging system.
There are four different ways OneGreatFamily alerts you when new ancestors have been added to your family tree. When new individuals are added to your family tree the following indicators will occur:
1. New individuals in your StarfieldT are in dark gray boxes
In your Starfield, you will notice there are 3 different colored boxes; light gray, dark gray, and red. Any individuals who are added to your family tree by OneGreatFamily will appear in a dark gray box. Here is a diagram that shows you what each color indicates in the Starfield. The description is written in red:
2. Seeing a message while in Genealogy BrowserT, indicating that "new ancestors " have been added to your family tree
When you work on your family tree in OneGreatFamily, you will notice that a box will appear indicating you have new ancestors. You will also see this box appear if you hit the refresh button on the toolbar. Here is what the indicator looks like:
3. Seeing merge indicators 
in your family tree.
When two duplicate (or very similar) records are found, they are merged. A yellow exclamation mark in the Starfield indicates a merged record. You can tell which ancestors have been merged with other OneGreatFamily members by clicking the merge indicator button in the toolbar (as seen above). You will then see in the Starfield your merged ancestors. This will allow you to see other members of OneGreatFamily that have the same ancestors in their family tree. You can then collaborate with them if you wish. Here is an image that shows the merge indicators circled in black as they appear in the Starfield:
4. Genmail
GenMail is a free service provided by OneGreatFamily to let you know the results of our ongoing efforts to grow your personal family tree. Each week, OneGreatFamily members receive an email that tells them how many merges occurred and the number of potential matches.
If you have not seen any new ancestors being added to your family tree, you may need to enter more information to your family tree. You may be able to get that additional information by talking to other family members or going through old family documents or photographs. Adding information to your family tree provides more potential links within the OneGreatFamily database.
Matching and Merging family tree data is a feature only avilable to subscribers. Upgrade your account today to see if we can add ancestors to your family tree and connect with your distant cousins.