Nicka;

The past few days, I've been on a tear with Ancestry.com trying to get them to realize what a mistake they've made by doing this. I spoke to someone named Suzanne who told me she shared my frustrations since she's one of their researchers and also hates the fact that this feature was pulled, but she told me to submit a customer feedback online, which I did. I got a response from that feedback telling me to call the Ancestry "Site Expert Team," which I did (877-285-5825, option no. 1), and guess who answered the phone? Suzanne.

Suzanne said they'd been given practically NO warning that this feature was going away, but she reinforced that she's been told that the advanced search feature will return ... but nobody is saying when that will be.

No other genealogy database had the keywords search feature, and with Ancestry standing alone here, it was a real competitive advantage. Even if they were planning to "improve" it, I still cannot understand why they didn't leave the current one in place in the meantime.

Oh, well. This has crystalized for me just how much I've come to rely upon the internet for much of my preliminary searching. In the end, when all else fails, there are always microfilms and readers that I can use, but for long-distance searches ...

... sigh.
- Lisa