Contacting Ancestry users via Rootschat

[Nick_Ips]

I've just been looking at a census record on Ancestry and noticed someone has posted a correction, my guess is he is related to me.

I clicked on his name and discovered the free weekend doesn't allow contact with other users. 

Am I allowed to make a post on Rootschat saying if you are Ancestry user "xyz123" could you please send me a PM?

I did a quick search for any topics on here covering the issue, but cannot see anything.

I thought I'd check before doing it so I don't get into trouble 

[Birkbeck]

Nick

It's just possible that the person who made the correction is related to you, but don't be disappointed if he/she turns out not to be. I look at a lot of entries for people to whom I am not related on Ancestry as part of my research and have made lots of corrections, but largely because I am hoping that my doing that will help the relatives of that person if they are looking for him/her in the future. It's possible that this applies to the corrector in your instance.

[Nick_Ips]

Many thanks Birkbeck. I wasn't 100% sure that he is related, and even if he is he may not want to get in touch. But I'm curious enough to ask 

[Maiden Stone]

I do the same as Birkbeck , for the same reason.

[Ruskie]

Nick, perhaps you could ask if a rootschatter who is an Ancestry member would be willing to contact the person on your behalf.

[CaroleW]

Hi

I have lost count of the number of corrections I have made to census entries etc on Ancestry over the years.     I have also lost count of the number of times I have been contacted because somebody thinks I have a connection to them so don't get your hopes up

[Nick_Ips]

Hmm, Ok, it looks like I might be being a bit too confident here. I'll revise my expectations down even further

Ruskie, thanks for the suggestion, it was the other option I thought of, but felt it was more likely to be an issue - akin to asking for lookups.

[Rosinish]

No harm in that at all Nick_lps,

I have had a certain RC'r do that for me in the past & I ask for look-ups just as I help others who request look-ups as we all have access to different data/sites etc.

Annie

[Ruskie]

I'm sure that someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the issue with asking for lookups is that you are not allowed to request lookups from specific pay sites whose terms and conditions say you are not allowed to provide this information to another party. Presumably this is to ensure that the pay sites have subscribers who are unable to find the information from anywhere else apart from their pay site and must subscribe in order to obtain it. 

Regarding Nick's question, I think that asking to make contact with a specific Ancestry member is not a lookup and I would expect it would be OK. Someone will correct me if I am off the mark.