What's New

A plain-language look at recent improvements to the new LostCousins site. Last updated 15 Nov 2026.

15 November 2026

Thank you to our volunteers for their first suggestions. After sending feedback, Send more feedback now gives you a fresh form straight away.
The Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy have a Print button and a link to email yourself the page.
Talks & Recordings gives the year of each upcoming premiere.
On My Details, the forum question now says that forum accounts are set up in batches, so it can take a few days.

14 November 2026

Emails to the volunteers testing the new website end with a Stop volunteering link. It only takes you off the volunteers: your account and your newsletter setting stay as they are.
Our emails with news about the website end with a Don't email me about site news link. It stops only those emails: you still get the newsletter if you have asked for it, and we'll still write about your account when we need to.
My Cousins can now be sorted by match, closest first, and you can show one kind of match at a time: cousins, probably blood relatives, related by marriage and so on.

13 November 2026

Our new Terms and Conditions and Data Retention Policy are now final: our solicitors have confirmed them, and they are no longer marked as drafts. The Terms have their final wording about who the site is for, and the Retention Policy says that the email we send after 3 years without signing in goes only to members who still receive our newsletter.
Changes you make on My Details are now kept, so the warning that they wouldn't be has gone. We copy them to the existing LostCousins site too.

12 November 2026

When the website is about to restart for an update, pages where you type something in (your feedback, My Details or renewing, for example) now show a one-minute countdown at the bottom of the window, so you can save what you're doing first.

10 November 2026

The renewal page has a short "PayPal didn't open?" note under the payment button. If choosing PayPal on the payment page just makes the screen flicker, your browser is probably stopping PayPal's window from opening, and the note says what to try.

9 November 2026

If you open the renewal page again within a day of renewing (from the email's link, say), it now tells you at the top that you've already renewed, how much you paid and when your subscription now runs to, so there's no risk of paying twice by mistake. You can still add more time if you want to.
On My Details, if our checks show that your secondary email address or your research beneficiary's address can't receive email, a note beside it says so, so you can correct it or clear it.

8 November 2026

The pages for renewing your subscription or making a donation now say at the top that they're live: payments made there are real, and renewals and donations go through straight away. The rest of the new site still carries the "Testing in progress" note while it's being tested.
If you renew with our welcome-back offer, the offer covers the first year, and choosing 2, 3 or 5 years now adds the extra years after it: with the offer running to 30 April 2028, that's 30 April 2029, 2030 or 2032. Anyone who has already renewed for longer with the offer has had their end date moved on to match.

7 November 2026

You can now send up to five screenshots with your feedback: each picture you paste, drag in or choose is added to the list, instead of replacing the one before.
When you first sign in, a short "Before you start" list at the top of My Details shows what to do before accepting our Terms and Conditions: your name, the newsletter, news and offers, the forum and the Terms. Each item ticks itself as you answer it, and takes you to its question.

6 November 2026

The forum has a fresh look in the website's colours, with slightly larger text, and it now has a dark mode. It follows the light or dark setting of your phone or computer; to choose for yourself, use the "Light / Dark" button at the bottom left of any forum page.
If you tell us you won't be renewing (from the link in a renewal reminder), you can now add a few words of your own as well as choosing a reason. Siân reads every one.
The forum is also easier to read and to use with a screen reader or the keyboard: links in posts are underlined, the small print is darker, and there's a "Skip to content" link at the top of every page.

5 November 2026

When you first sign in, My Details now opens My interests as well, so you can see whether you get our free email newsletter and choose to, alongside your choices of offers and the forum.

1 November 2026

My Ancestors now opens with the chart of your people by census. Choose Figures to see the same numbers as a table.
On My Ancestors you can click a census reference to see just that household. Anyone you've entered from the next page is shown with them, as a household often carries on over the page.
When you choose a census in the My Ancestors filter, you can also search by the parts of its reference, such as the piece, folio or page.

31 October 2026

My Details has a new, optional About you section: your age range, gender and how much family-history research you've done. Answer as many as you like, or choose "Prefer not to say". Nobody else ever sees your own answers, and you can change or clear them at any time. Once enough members have answered, Our members shows how everyone answered, as percentages only.

30 October 2026

Links in the newsletters, old and new, now open in a new tab, so you keep your place in the newsletter (thank you to the member who suggested it). The links in the "In this edition" list still take you down the page.
The home page now shows one of the current offers from our partners, such as Findmypast or Ancestry, picked for the country you're in.

29 October 2026

Our new Privacy Policy and Cookies Note are now final: our solicitors have confirmed them, and they are no longer marked as drafts.
The draft Data Retention Policy now says that when a member dies, we keep their account and ancestors for a year (it said two), so the person they named or another relative can take over the research.
Our solicitors have checked the draft Privacy Policy. It now explains how your information is protected when it goes to the companies in the United States that help us run the site, and says that the forum, like the rest of the site, is for adults aged 18 or over.
They have also checked the draft Cookies Note, which now says that it covers the forum too.
And the draft Terms and Conditions: a new Audience section explains that the site is aimed at people researching UK census records, wherever they live, and the forum's own rules now sit with the rest of the section about the forum.
Talks & Recordings now lists Peter's six DNA talks, with the date each one premieres on YouTube (Thursdays at 7pm, from 5 November), and Suffolk Family History Society's new presentation by Andy Kerridge about its transcriptions, new indexes and membership.

27 October 2026

Peter's six DNA talks are coming to our YouTube channel, @LostCousinsOfficial (opens in a new tab), as weekly premieres: Thursdays at 7pm from 5 November, free for everyone. So DNA for those who have already tested has left the Friends' list on Talks & Recordings; it premieres on 12 November as Part 2.

26 October 2026

The forum has new resources guides, one for each English county (and each Riding of Yorkshire), listing the best places to look for its parish registers, births, marriages and deaths, early censuses and more. When you're signed in, the Forum map leads you to them: when I have a question gets to a county, its guide is the first link, and the map lists every guide by region. New guides appear on the map by themselves as they're posted.
You can sign in with your Facebook account again, alongside Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple and a code we email to you.
The "Testing in progress" note at the top of the page no longer appears on pages that are only for reading, such as the Forum map, the newsletters, the home page and the pages under About Us: there's nothing on them a test could wipe. It still shows wherever you can change something.
My Ancestors has a Check column again, as the old site had: a small link on each person that opens their census in a new tab so you can check what you entered. For England & Wales it opens Findmypast at the census reference you gave, and for Ireland 1911 the household's own form at the National Archives of Ireland. For the other censuses it searches for the person by name and age, on Ancestry, Findmypast or FamilySearch. Links to Findmypast and Ancestry are affiliate links: if you subscribe after following one, LostCousins may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you.

25 October 2026

The Forum map now has its own place in the menu at the top, next to Newsletters, as the way into the forum. Pages you open from it now open in the same window, so your browser's Back button brings you back to the map, and the "I have a question" helper remembers where you'd got to.
Past newsletters are easier to follow with a screen reader. In the older issues, Peter's article titles are now real headings, so you can jump from one article to the next, and they look just as they always did. Pictures nobody has described yet are no longer read out as file names such as "image001", and a picture that is a link is announced as a link to its website. New issues will describe their pictures.
Forms are easier to put right with a screen reader or the keyboard. If something is missing when you save (on My Details, renewing, closing your account and elsewhere), you're taken straight to a list of what still needs doing, each item a link to the question it's about, and each question says what's wrong with it. "Leave without accepting?" now takes the keyboard to its question, and Escape closes it.
On My Ancestors, the age on the census is shown under the year of birth, and a note under the list explains the certificates column (B birth, M marriage, D death) and how to sort, instead of these appearing only when you hover the mouse over them.
The draft Privacy Policy now says that the forum may ask for your date of birth, only if you choose to give it, so other members can see when it's your birthday. It's never used to check your age.

24 October 2026

If our emails can't reach you, the renewal page now asks you to put that right before you renew: show us that your address still works with a code we send to it, or change it to the one you use now. You can do this straight from the link in a renewal email, without signing in, so that your receipt, your newsletters and news of your cousins reach you.
The near-final drafts of our new Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policy and Cookies Note, and of a new Data Retention Policy that explains how long we keep your information, are now on the site while our solicitors give them a final check. Each one is marked as a draft until it takes effect, once our solicitors have confirmed it.
On the map of your ancestors, Yorkshire's North, East and West Ridings are now drawn as three areas, each shaded for its own people, instead of one county shaded for them all. Anyone whose census reference doesn't say which riding is listed under the map as "Yorkshire (riding not known)".
When you accept our terms, the question about a forum account no longer has Yes chosen for you: please choose Yes or No yourself. If you've answered it before, your earlier answer is shown, and you can change it at any time on My Details.
If we discover an error in one of your entries while checking for matches, such as a census reference, name or age that doesn't agree with the census, it's now marked "Error found" on My Ancestors, with a note at the top of the page and a way to show just those entries, so you can check and correct them.
The site is easier to use with a keyboard, a screen reader or voice control. Every page now starts with a "Skip to main content" link, which appears when you press Tab; wherever you are with the keyboard is shown by a clear outline; and the menus say which page you're on. Yes/No questions are read out with their question, links that open a new tab say so, and your email address on My Details can be read by a screen reader. If you have a reduce-motion setting on your device, the site no longer moves things about.

23 October 2026

The site's colours are now easier to read for anyone whose eyesight isn't what it was. The blues, the red buttons and the small grey print are a touch darker, and the edges of the boxes you type into are clearer. In the dark theme the box edges are a little brighter. The headline at the foot of the home page, which was hard to see, is now white.
If more than one membership shared your email address and the one you've been using was your late husband's or wife's, you can now say so when we ask about the other accounts: "That's me, and the account I'm using was my late husband's or wife's". The account is then put in your own name, keeping both sets of ancestors and your email address.
On My accounts you can now merge two of the accounts under your sign-in into one, for example when two accounts are really the same branch of your family. Everything moves into the account you choose: the ancestors, the payments, and the subscription if it runs for longer. An account with no ancestors and no subscription can now be deleted there too. Both ask you twice, because neither can be undone. And you can start a new, empty account there, for example for another branch of your family; for now ancestors are still added on the current LostCousins site, so it stays empty until you can add them here.
When My Ancestors runs to several pages, there's now a page bar above and below the list: jump straight to the first or last page, or to one of the page numbers, instead of turning them one at a time.
The map of your ancestors now says what it's a map of, for example "Map of people named Calver, all censuses", above the map and in your browser's tab. So if you've chosen only some of your people on My Ancestors, it's clear at a glance, and you can tell one map from another.
On the map of your ancestors, Yorkshire is drawn as one county, so it's shaded for all its ridings together. The list under the map now shows it the same way, "Yorkshire" with its ridings beneath, so the shading and the numbers agree. The same goes for a county and its part of London.
If you have two LostCousins accounts, joining them is easier. Change the email address on one of them to the other's address (on My Details), and the code we send that address joins the two accounts, so one sign-in and one email reach both. On My accounts, "Add an account you already have" now also accepts the other account's secondary email address, which helps when its main address no longer works.

21 October 2026

We now ask before using Google Analytics, which counts visitors and shows us which pages are used. A small banner at the bottom of the page asks once; Accept and Reject are equally easy, and you can change your mind at any time with Cookie settings at the foot of every page. The cookies we need for signing in and remembering your colour choice are always used.
Our User Agreement is now called the Terms and Conditions, the name most sites use. Its page has moved to Terms and conditions, and the old address still takes you there.
My Ancestors now points out any direct ancestor you haven't given an Ancestor Number (the number that says where they sit in your tree), with a ! beside them and a quick way to list them all. For now, add the numbers on the current LostCousins site, where you edit your ancestors.
A new Ancestor Numbers page (under About Us) explains them, offers our printable Ancestor Chart with every box numbered, and works numbers out for you: step back through fathers and mothers to find a number, or type a number to see who it is.

20 October 2026

Searching past newsletters is more flexible. Choose whether a newsletter must contain all of your words or any of them, put a phrase in quotes to find those words together (such as "1921 census"), and use * for any letters or ? for a single letter: genealog* finds genealogy and genealogist, Sm?th finds Smith and Smyth.
Before the new site opens, we'll hold the occasional preview, usually for a week, when every member can sign in and have a look around. A strip at the top of every page says when the preview ends. It is only a preview: the site isn't live yet, your ancestors and cousins stay on the existing LostCousins site, and when the preview ends you are signed out again until the new site opens.
If we've had trouble reaching your email address and you sign in with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo or Apple, we now use the address you signed in with and tell you, so you won't miss our emails.

19 October 2026

On My Details you can now send yourself a test email, to check that our emails reach you. If it doesn't arrive, and your address passes your mail on to another one (to Hotmail or Outlook, say), please give us the address you actually read instead: some email providers refuse mail that has been passed on.
While the new site is open only to testers, the sign-in page first asks whether we've asked you to help test it, and offers the way back to the existing LostCousins site if not. If you ask for a sign-in code before the site is open to you, we now email you to say so instead of sending a code that wouldn't let you in. Sign-in codes are typed into the page that asked for them: replying to the email with the code won't sign you in.

18 October 2026

If a member has died and you look after their research, you can now take their account over in your own name. Sign in to it as you do now, give us your name and your own email address (we'll send a code to check it), and once we've checked, the account and all its ancestors are yours. If you already have an account, theirs goes under yours, so you can switch between the two.
If we haven't been able to deliver email to the address on your account, we'll ask you to check it when you sign in: either show us it still works with a code we send to it, or change it to the address you use now. Signing in with a code by email counts, as it shows the address works.

17 October 2026

Your ancestors are here. My Ancestors now lists the relatives you've entered on the current LostCousins site, with the census references, the county, state or province each household was in, and your own notes, spellings and certificates. You can sort them by household, name, relationship or the date you entered them. For now, carry on adding and editing ancestors on the current site: your changes will appear here later. Cousin matches will follow.
On My Ancestors you can also sort by place (county, state or province), and narrow the list to part of a name, one census, one place or one relationship. Every other row is shaded, so a long list is easier to follow; sorted by household or place, each household is shaded as one block instead, with a clear line between households.
To sort My Ancestors, click a column heading (Name, References, Place, Relationship or Entered); click it again to reverse the order. References sorts by census and reference, a household at a time, and Born by year of birth. To see people born in certain years, fill in Born from and to in the filter (or just one of them).
The Name box on My Ancestors looks for each word you type, in any order, so a name copied straight from the list ("Robinson, Uvin Porter") finds that person.
If you have more than one LostCousins account, My Ancestors says whose ancestors it's showing, and you can choose another of your accounts there to see theirs.
Download your ancestors from My Ancestors as an Excel spreadsheet or a CSV file: everyone you've entered, or just the people your filter shows, in the order you've sorted them.
My accounts now shows how many ancestors each of your accounts has on this site.
People you added with FTAnalyzer have its tree icon at the end of their row on My Ancestors.
On a computer or tablet, the menus at the top stay in view as you scroll down a long page, and on My Ancestors so do the column headings, so you can always see what each column is.
At the top of My Ancestors, a small table shows how many people you've entered from each census. Click Chart to see the same figures as a chart, and Figures to go back. The figures follow the filter: narrow the list to your direct ancestors, say, and the table and chart show just theirs.
See your family on a map: click View map on My Ancestors. Every county, state and province you have relatives in is shaded by how many of them were living there at the census, on a map of the British Isles, North America, or both. Point at a place to see how many people you have there, or click it to list them. If you've filtered My Ancestors (to your direct ancestors, say, or people born in certain years), the map shows just those people. The people it can't place are links too, so you can check them; on My Ancestors, choose Not known under Place to see everyone whose census reference doesn't say where.
On a computer, the site now uses the whole width of your screen instead of a narrow strip down the middle, so wide pages like My Ancestors show more at once. Reading pages such as the FAQs are wider too, and the list of past newsletters runs in columns.
Scotland 1881: until 1891 some Scottish parishes lay in two counties, such as Boharm (Banffshire and Elginshire) and Logie, which held most of Bridge of Allan. People in those parishes are now placed in the county where most of the parish's people lived (or the one the household was in, where we know it), rather than the county the census filed the whole parish under. Parts of a parish the census counted separately, such as Ladhope in Galashiels, are placed in their own county.

16 October 2026

Sending us feedback is easier. You can paste a screenshot straight into the form (Ctrl+V, or Cmd+V on a Mac) or drag one onto it, instead of saving it as a file first, and you'll see the picture before you send it. The form opens in a new tab, so the page you're telling us about stays open beside it, and what you've typed is kept on your device until you send it, so nothing is lost if you go and check something.

15 October 2026

Have another LostCousins account whose email address doesn't work any more? On My accounts you can now tell us about it, and we'll check it's yours and bring it under your sign-in, like the accounts you can add there with a code. Both accounts are kept, each with its own ancestors, and its emails come to your main address, so you won't get two copies.

14 October 2026

You'll be able to renew your subscription, or take one out, on the new site, and pay in your own currency by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal and other ways that are usual where you live (we're testing this first; until it opens, please renew on www.lostcousins.com as usual). One payment renews every account under your sign-in: £10 for your main account and £2.50 for each additional one, and they all end on the same date from then on. You can add a donation if you'd like to, and leave a message for Siân. Find it in the new Subscription section of My Details, which also shows when your subscription ends, which accounts one renewal covers, and the joint-subscription link that used to have a section of its own.
We'll email you a reminder two weeks before your subscription ends, and a last one three days before if you haven't renewed. The Renew now button in the email works without signing in. Each reminder has links to tell us you won't be renewing, or to stop renewal reminders altogether.

13 October 2026

There's a new Forum map (under About Us), showing every section of the LostCousins Forum on one page. If you have a question but aren't sure where to ask it, click I have a question and answer two or three quick questions, for example a place, then a county, and it tells you which forum to post in and which county label to choose, with links to what other members have already posted. If you're new to the forum, Show me round takes you through the welcome pages in order. The map is read from the forum itself, so it stays up to date as the forum changes.

12 October 2026

If you have more than one LostCousins account, for example one for each side of your family, they can now all sit under one sign-in and one email address. If the old site had more than one account on your email address, the ones with ancestors are already there for you. For an account at a different address, click your name at the top right, choose My accounts, then Add an account you already have: we'll email a code to that account's address to check it's yours. After that, you sign in once and choose which account to work on. Switch account, under your name, shows each of your accounts with its details, including how many ancestors it has on the old site (your ancestors themselves haven't been brought across yet), and the menu always shows the account you're working on. Emails for all your accounts come to your main address.

11 October 2026

You no longer need a Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo or Apple account to sign in. Choose Email me a sign-in code on the sign-in page and enter the address your newsletters come to. We'll email you a 6-digit code to type in, and a button that signs you in from the email itself, even on another device such as your phone. There's still no password to remember.
My Details is easier to follow: the question about receiving the newsletter now sits with the newsletter edition under My interests, and a single Save changes button at the end saves everything on the page, including your choices about offers.
My Details is shorter: each section opens and closes when you click its heading, and a closed section shows a one-line summary of what's in it, so you can check your details at a glance. There's also a new choice about offers and news: Publications (books, magazines, newsletters, podcasts, apps and maps), and an i button beside each choice that explains it. The question about a forum account now says what the forum is.
The sign-in page shows all the ways to sign in side by side, so you can see them all at once, and the FAQs now explain each of them, how to sign in with a different account from before, and how to change your email address.

10 October 2026

You can now ask for a free account on the LostCousins Forum (opens in a new tab), when you accept our Terms and Conditions or on My Details. Once you've added ancestors we'll set it up and email you your username. You won't need a separate forum password: the new Forum link, once you're signed in, takes you straight there, signed in. You can change your mind on My Details at any time: choosing No switches your forum account off without deleting anything. If you're already a member of the forum, your forum account is linked for you, and you keep signing in to the forum as you do now.

9 October 2026

The site now has a dark mode. If your phone, tablet or computer is set to dark, the site follows it automatically. Once you're signed in, click your name at the top right and choose Light, Dark or Match my device under Appearance. Your choice is remembered on that device. Newsletters still show as a white page, the way they were written.
Some of our most active members will get an email about the new website, asking whether they'd like to help test it. The button in the email opens a page here where you confirm your answer, and you can change your mind on the same page later. We'll invite a spread of volunteers over the next few months.

7 October 2026

Recordings of the talks Peter arranged for members, which were on the My Events page of the old site, are back. Once you're signed in you'll find them under Talks & Recordings. There's also a link to our new YouTube channel at the foot of every page.

4 October 2026

The home page and the sign-in page now say up front that sign-in isn't open to existing members yet, instead of only telling you after you've tried, and point you to the existing LostCousins site if you're looking for your ancestors or cousin matches.
You can now change the email address we send your newsletters and account emails to, from My Details. We email a code to the new address to check it's yours. Your sign-in doesn't depend on that address, so you keep signing in the same way.

3 October 2026

The country list on My Details now includes every country, with the most common ones at the top, so your country can always be shown and chosen.

2 October 2026

Newsletter publication dates now show as UK dates, so an issue published at midnight no longer appears as the day before.
If we release an update while you're using the site, the page now tells you a new version is being installed and carries on once it's ready, instead of just saying it's rejoining.

29 September 2026

Refreshed the site header and homepage banner: the logo now blends into the banner, the heading is white and easier to read, and the menu is centred.
The Newsletters page now loads and searches faster.

28 September 2026

Added a My Details page where you can look after your own contact details and preferences.
New newsletters use one consistent font and sit on a clean white page against a soft background, with comfortable line lengths on a wide screen. Older issues keep their original look.
Newsletters now print cleanly, leaving out the site header, footer and navigation links.
There's now a fixed link, /newsletter/latest, that always opens the newest published newsletter.
Tidied the unsubscribe page, and it now asks you to pick a reason (including "Prefer not to say") before the button works.

27 September 2026

You can now sign in with Yahoo as well as Google and Microsoft.

26 September 2026

If you're already signed in to Google in your browser, a one-tap sign-in prompt now appears so you can sign in without leaving the page.
If the email address you sign in with isn't the one on your LostCousins account, we'll send a one-time code to your account's email so you can link the two safely.
Links to LostCousins shared in WhatsApp, Facebook and other apps now show a proper preview picture.

25 September 2026

The newsletter editor can now offer a smaller, web-friendly version of a large picture before it's inserted, instead of only the original file.
Fixed the unsubscribe link in older newsletters so it can never act on a broken or all-zeros link.
You can now sign in with a personal Microsoft account (Outlook, Hotmail or Live).
Fixed the contents links inside newsletters, which used to jump back to the home page instead of to the right part of the issue, and upgraded old links to the original site to secure (https) addresses.

24 September 2026

Added a site feedback form, so signed-in members can report a problem or suggest an improvement directly from any page.
New newsletters now start from an editable standard template, and the editor gained a live Preview button plus autosaved edit history.
Signing in no longer creates a new account on its own - accounts are set up separately, and the feedback form is only available once you're signed in.

23 September 2026

Redesigned the public Newsletters page with a prominent search box and a single combined archive - the archive now goes all the way back to 2004.
Imported the full back-catalogue of historical newsletters, preserving their original formatting and publish dates.

10 September 2026

Newsletters now keep a full revision history, with autosave while you're editing.

4 September 2026

Introduced Member, Subscriber, Admin and SuperAdmin roles ahead of the full member import.

3 August 2026

Added the Information pages (About Us, FAQs, How It Works, Census Links, Referrals) ported from the original site, and a refreshed logo and header colours to match.

2 August 2026

Added the branded homepage, a preview of the new member dashboard, and sign-in with Google, Microsoft, or Facebook - only the providers actually available are shown.