RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: ms_canuck on Friday 16 September 22 16:09 BST (UK)
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For those who use Ancestry for their trees - a new 'feature' has been added to the top right of your screen - Notifications! If you haven't looked at it, it lights up red (why not green?) when something is added. The additions are, for the most part, completely useless IMHO.
For instance: "we may have found a mother/father for XX"; "You shared a picture from 'user', what else might 'user' be able to share? Message 'user'"; etc., etc.,
They asked for Feedback LOL... I told them to get rid of it pronto and fix the useless messaging system instead!
Cheers
Ms_C
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And if you are foolish enough to use it you have to log in again, at least I did. Why oh why can they not do something useful for a change that makes things easier, rather than worse!
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Yes came across this yesterday a bit of a nuisance >:(
Rosie
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I saw it a few days ago(??) and decided that they were adopting Twitter style options!
I avoided it!
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I saw this new feature too.
Annoying and best avoided in my opinion. >:(
Dorrie
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We are supposed to be able to turn off notifications, I have yet to manage it after numerous attempts.
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Yes I saw it a few days ago. What a waste of time. I think their developers don't actually understand what we do and how we do it.
Martin
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All these things are sent to try us and oh boy, they do
LM
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Is this what you turn off in
Settings - Trees - Hint Notifications
or is this something new that they are starting to roll out?
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The reason it and the hint leaves are now red is simply to match the standard internet convention that notifications etc are red. (This from Christa Cowan's "what's new in Ancestry videos - the July 2022 one I think).
Personally I agree that the said new notifications are essentially useless, but I just ignore them completely.
Having just recently received a message from a DNA match I last messaged in December 2021 saying "Lovely to hear from you again" I also agree they would perhaps be better occupied working on improving the messaging system.
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Hi Roots Chatters
I agree with Martin. They don't seem to have a clue.
My Notification said "We think we have found Grace's father." I haven't mentioned the surname but she is in one of my trees and she is a bit of a brick wall.
What I got was a link to a tree showing a marriage in 1712 of Grace to a John Doe. The tree just lists a marriage. No children are recorded and neither Grace or John are are identified by year/place of birth, death or parents!
The name is the same and the marriage took place in the same county where the person I am interested in lived but over 100 years before the Grace in my tree would have been able to marry.
Whatever made Ancestry "think" they had found her father. What a waste of time!
Venelow
Canada
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Even more silly!
I had a long list earlier this week and just dismissed them!
I went into Ancestry this evening and there was a little red dot with a 1 on the notifications icon
When I clicked on it, this is what I got:
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The problem is one of the triggers for a hint to appear in your tree is if another user adds the same document that you have in your tree to theirs - which is also why you often get links to things that seem ridiculous for your tree.
Ancestry have actually tried to address this issue - and it's one reason why hints now sometimes disappear when you reject something - because you rejected the wrong document that another user has accepted, it removes all the documents that person has from your hints.
It's actually quite a clever and sophisticated system - there's just one catch. To work well, it relies on everyone carefully assessing hints before accepting them, and as we all know, not everyone does.
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Now they've given me the same list that I had a few days ago and just ignored. At the bottom there is a survey form about them. One of the open ended questions is about ways they can improve the facility. I asked for the ability to turn them off.
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For instance: "we may have found a mother/father for XX"; "You shared a picture from 'user', what else might 'user' be able to share? Message 'user'"; etc., etc.,
They asked for Feedback LOL... I told them to get rid of it pronto and fix the useless messaging system instead!
I'm glad I haven't experienced anything like that as I don't add pics. etc.
I often wonder if they employ people who actually do Genealogy as some of the things they introduce are time wasting & of no interest/relevance to my research?
They seem to employ youngsters with big ideas which are of no interest to us 'Genealogists', time wasting ideas/hints etc.
They need to concentrate on matching their hints with info. we have, names/dates/places which correspond, not what someone else has plucked from their records & added to their trees.
I'm sick of hints which have no relevance whatsoever to my tree.
Annie
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ability to turn them off.
Account settings/communications/notifications
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Even more silly!
I went into Ancestry this evening and there was a little red dot with a 1 on the notifications icon
When I clicked on it, this is what I got:
I know your image cant be viewed in my reply but...
I hope you responded with an email showing that image & letting them know it's time wasting, not needed, of no use/relevance or anything else & ask 'what exactly is the point' as someone is being paid a wage for this garbage!
Not only is someone being paid for it but it breaks down into the charges of subscriptions & is of no use to man nor beast.
Maybe if they take away the useless hints (as per your image) etc. they could save on wages & pass down to subscribers as there's a lot of background rubbish we have to subscribe to which is of no benefit to us unless you're a 'click & collect' researcher of which there are probably more than genuine researchers ;D
Annie
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No wonder there are so many trees on Ancestry with rubbish on them! Like, for example someone born and bred and died and lived whole life in England, has a record attached and death listed as died in "Indiana, USA" etc ;D ::)
This all feeds into the Ancestry self-promotion advertisements : sign up, then "just punch in your ancestors name" and phhoof! all your genealogy will be revealed!
I shared a photo recently, and it gave me silly hints - can't remember now what, but was nonsense!
Cheers
AMBLY
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No wonder there are so many trees on Ancestry with rubbish on them! Like, for example someone born and bred and died and lived whole life in England, has a record attached and death listed as died in "Indiana, USA" etc ;D ::)
Cheers
AMBLY
I don't think they even check the certificate properly to see if it is the right person. Many trees with my family are like this, and they have added half siblings/steps etc. I know at the end of the day, my trees are right, and theirs looks like a maze with many twists and turns. ;D
Cheers
KHP
EDITED: I got a hint the other day, that they had found someones parents!! Guess what, I already knew who they were! ;D
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ability to turn them off.
Account settings/communications/notifications
This turns off all notifications via e-mails and push
PS - I have all e-mail notifications turned off already.
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No wonder there are so many trees on Ancestry with rubbish on them! Like, for example someone born and bred and died and lived whole life in England, has a record attached and death listed as died in "Indiana, USA" etc ;D ::)
Cheers
AMBLY
I don't think they even check the certificate properly to see if it is the right person. Many trees with my family are like this, and they have added half siblings/steps etc. I know at the end of the day, my trees are right, and theirs looks like a maze with many twists and turns. ;D
Cheers
KHP
EDITED: I got a hint the other day, that they had found someones parents!! Guess what, I already knew who they were! ;D
My emphasis.
Ancestry do not check hints - they can't possibly. I just checked and my main tree currently has 64 959 active hints. Ancestry has somewhere over 100 million trees. Granted my tree is very substantial, nevertheless at a conservative estimate, I would suggest the comparison checking generates at least a million hints a day (I think it's probably actually several million, but let's go with just one million.) Even if they were simply to perform a 1 minute check on each hint, and assuming a working day of 7 hours, that's 40 people.
What the hint system does is it constantly checks and updates all the documents soucres, names, dates etc on those 100 million plus trees and when it finds what looks like the same information on two different trees it sends a "hint" of a possible connection. It is up to the USER to check if the hint makes sense. Sadly as we all know, not everyone does, and even careful researchers still make mistakes.
Edited to Add: I realise I may have misunderstood the post to which I replied. I thought at the time it meant they thought Ancestry didn't even check, and were criticising that, whereas reading it again I suspect they meant the person adding a birth death marriage etc based upon a hint.
I think the problem there is that many people THINK that Ancestry does check everything for them, and therefore that the "hint" is established fact, not a possible avenue for research.
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Even more silly!
I had a long list earlier this week and just dismissed them!
I went into Ancestry this evening and there was a little red dot with a 1 on the notifications icon
When I clicked on it, this is what I got:
Why click it?
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Even more silly!
I had a long list earlier this week and just dismissed them!
I went into Ancestry this evening and there was a little red dot with a 1 on the notifications icon
When I clicked on it, this is what I got:
Why click it?
To see what was on the other side ;D
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I am on ancestry.ca To view the notification I have to sign into Ancestry.com which irritates me so I just dont bother. Its just another bell with a broken bell clapper to me.