Does Ancestry’s New Networks Tool Actually Help? Here’s My Honest Review

Devon Noel Lee
May 1
4 min read

If you’ve ever tried to research a group—like a Civil War regiment, a church congregation, or a group of immigrant families—you know just how chaotic that work can get. I recently spent seven months deep in the records of the 133rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, trying to connect nearly a thousand men, most of whom weren’t related by blood but were deeply linked by experience.

Dashboard displaying Ancestry networks: Ohio 133rd Company C, Regimental Staff, and VI Co K. Includes edit dates and member counts.

So when Ancestry released a new feature called Networks, promising to help visualize and organize people based on shared places and events—not just family lines—I had to ask:

Could this tool have saved me weeks of work… or is it more hype than help?

I’ve just wrapped up a full tutorial and review, walking through what Networks can and can’t do. If you want the detailed view, you can watch the complete walkthrough here. Heads up: it’s 45 minutes long, but I think it’s worth it if you're considering this tool for group or cluster research.

🎥 [Watch the full 45-minute review and tutorial here → Ancestry Networks Complete Review]

But if you're short on time, here’s the quick version of what I found.

Soldiers march in camouflage uniforms and boots. Text reads, "Will Ancestry Networks Revolutionize Genealogy Research?" against a red background.

What Ancestry Networks Does Well

✅ It creates a flexible, private workspace.

You can tag individuals to a group, organize media, add sources (sort of), and use “Stickies” to track notes, research questions, and timelines. These private sticky notes support rich text formatting and even let you assign a research status (like "To-Do" or "Hypothesis"). It’s not a flashy feature, but it’s surprisingly useful.

✅ There’s potential in the Network Mapper.

This is the one feature that made me a little giddy. The mapper lets you visualize where your network members were born or lived. It can help raise questions you wouldn’t have thought to ask—and it’s especially helpful for historical movements, like a regiment’s path through the Civil War or an immigration trail.

Where It Falls Short (Right Now)

❌ You can’t share Networks.

Not even if your tree is public. That’s a big letdown if your goal is to collaborate, teach, or publish findings. It’s currently a private-only workspace.

❌ There’s no way to attach sources to the network itself.

If you have a unit history or a map relevant to the whole group, you can’t link it to the Network. It must first be attached to an individual—and that can clutter your tree with context that doesn’t belong to just one person.

❌ Media tools feel clunky.

You can upload files directly to the Network, but there’s no gallery filtered to network members. You’ll need to remember who has what media or click through people one by one.

❌ No new discoveries yet.

Networks doesn’t automatically connect people or surface new record hints based on shared traits. It’s a workspace, not a discovery engine—at least not yet.

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What I Wish Ancestry Networks Could Do

💡 Create a group timeline.

Automatically pull birth, marriage, death, and service data into a scrollable, sortable timeline. Let me filter by event type and spot group trends at a glance.

💡 Show biographical comparisons.

How many people married before the war? Who lived past 80? Which surname group had the most intermarriages? These kinds of stats would make group stories richer and easier to tell.

💡 Offer network-powered search hints.

Use shared group data to boost search results. If I can’t find Edward Harris in a census, maybe I’ll find him in a land record with a fellow soldier. That kind of associative search could crack open brick walls.

💡 Link sources to the group—not just individuals.

So many records apply to the group as a whole: ship passenger lists, church rosters, military orders. The inability to cite those at the network level is a major gap.

Final Thoughts: Is It Worth Trying?

So… does Ancestry Networks save time on complex group research?

👉 Not yet. But it could.

Right now, it feels more like a workspace for organizing thoughts than a research accelerator. I love that Ancestry is thinking beyond pedigree charts, but this tool still needs sharing options, better source handling, and smarter analytics to really shine.

If you’re on a tight budget, I’d say hold off for now and invest in a lookup at the National Archives. But if you’re a curious researcher with a little room in your Pro Tools budget, go ahead and explore it—just be ready to do a bit of heavy lifting on your own.

And if you do try it out, let me know: