If you’ve logged into Ancestry recently, you might have noticed things look a little different. Buttons have moved, new banners are popping up, and new tools are quietly appearing on your person pages.

Change isn't always easy (especially when you're used to a specific research routine!), but according to Director of Corporate Genealogy at Ancestry, Crista Cowan, at this year's RootsTech, every tweak and update has a singular mission: helping you tell your family stories better.

Whether it’s a five-times great-grandfather who fought in the Revolutionary War or a grandmother who worked in a WWII factory, our ancestors were more than just names and dates on a census record. Here is a breakdown of the newest features Ancestry has rolled out to help you bring those stories to life, along with a look inside our best-in-class booth experience!

Welcoming You To Our Ancestry House

Our house RootsTech booth presence is always a highlight of the year, but 2026 took it to a whole new level. We designed the space to be as product-informative, emotionally connected, and inviting as ever. Here are a few highlights from our “house” on the Expo Hall floor:

The Stories of US: Storytelling was the core theme of our main wall this year. We featured a dedicated \"The Stories of US\" section where we collected photos and stories from attendees to kick off our new campaign, capturing how individual family stories are woven into the broader history of the United States.
Mini Conference Classes: Our cozy, outward-facing in-booth demo spaces drew massive crowds. These sessions acted as mini Ancestry conference classes, giving attendees a front-row seat to the latest innovations. And, of course, Crista Cowan’s \"Ask Me Anything\" sessions remained a massive crowd favorite!
Surprise and Delight: We love giving back to our community, and this year our free merch flew off the shelves, sparking over 5,000 smiles! We rewarded our loyal 10+ year members with special tenure ribbons and Ancestry totes. The booth was also buzzing with hands-on activities, from our wildly popular Region Sticker station and custom on-site T-shirt pressing station to family bracelet beading on Saturday.
Better Workspaces: To give attendees the best hands-on help, we expanded our footprint to include more workspaces with laptops, allowing our Member Services team to serve 600+ customers faster and more efficiently.

So what did new and current Ancestry members talk about the most? These four topics created the biggest buzz.

Bonus: Watch our presentations from RootsTech!

1. AncestryPreserve: Emptying the Shoeboxes

Making its grand debut in the Ancestry booth this year was AncestryPreserve.

We all have that shoebox filled with unlabeled photos, old slides, VHS tapes, or audio cassettes. AncestryPreserve is a brand-new mail-in digitization service designed to save these fragile memories.

Why Digitize with Ancestry: Ancestry digitizes millions of historical records every day, so you can trust your keepsakes will be handled with expert care. Fully digitized in the U.S., your items will be barcoded, securely tracked, and closely monitored onsite, keeping your mementos safe every step of the way. And with our professional scanners, you’ll receive high-resolution images with optional AI enhancements to bring even greater clarity to your photos and videos.
How it works: We inventory your box, give you a price to digitize the contents, and send the physical items back to you. The digitized versions will then magically appear directly in your Ancestry Tree Gallery, ready to be tagged and shared!

Ready to start digitizing your treasured family keepsakes? Order your AncestryPreserve kit today.

2. AI-Powered Insights and Transcriptions

If you have ever stared at a blurry, handwritten document and wondered what it said or stared at an old photo and wondered when it was taken, the new Ancestry AI tools are here to help*.

Record Transcription: A new Transcribe button allows Ancestry AI to instantly read and transcribe handwritten or typed records such as old military discharge papers.
Photo Insights: Have a photo with missing details? Ancestry AI can scan contextual clues (like clothing styles, cars, or military insignias) to suggest a rough timeline, location, and a summary of the document.
AI Stories: Turn select records into immersive, narrated audio stories shaped by the times and places your family lived. You can even download and send these bite-sized audio clips to your \"eye-rolling\" relatives to easily spark their interest.
Get Ideas Button: Stuck on what to do next? A new button with sparkles on a person's profile page acts as a research assistant, analyzing what you already know about an ancestor and suggesting specific next steps.
Full-Text Search: You can now search every word inside records that have historically been less accessible so you can find exactly what matters, faster.

Learn and discover new Ancestry features here.

*Some of the features above may require an additional membership.

3. Simplifying Your Workflow

Ancestry is working behind the scenes to make our rich, deep site less overwhelming so you can spend more time making discoveries*.

Streamlined Source Citations: The old, intimidating 18-field citation form has been replaced with a simple, clean pop-up.
Cleaner Profile & Record Pages (Coming soon): A redesign is coming soon to the person profile page and record page to make it easier to use, to consolidate duplicate buttons and clean up the interface.
Tree Compare (Coming soon): A highly anticipated feature is in the works that will allow you to quickly compare the information in your tree with someone else's public tree across multiple generations.

Pro Tip: Use MyTreeTags! Tags are one of the most powerful, yet underutilized tools on the site. You can use our pre-made tags or create up to 80 custom ones (like \"Start Here,\" \"Revolutionary War,\" or even \"Scoundrel\") to easily filter and organize the people in your tree.

*Some of the features above may require an additional membership.

4. The Big Content Drop: Fold3 Revolutionary War Pensions

Ancestry dropped a massive update via its military records site, Fold3. Utilizing advanced handwriting recognition technology, 2.4 million pages of U.S. Revolutionary War pension files are now fully text-searchable. Previously, these were only indexed by the pensioner's name. Now, you can search for witnesses, secondary family members, or specific towns mentioned deep within the handwritten pages.

Making the Most of These New Tools, Record Collections, and Products to Tell Better Family Stories

Genealogy isn't just about building a chart; it's about shifting our perspective to see our ancestors as fully realized people. Don’t forget, each DNA match is a real person—it’s not just about shared centimorgans!

If you want to pick up some storytelling tips, understand topic-specific resources, or learn more research strategies, you can join Crista Cowan and her colleagues for free weekly virtual deep-dives every Wednesday at 11:00 AM. Register or watch past recordings.

What’s New at Ancestry: Turning Names into Stories at RootsTech 2026