Another annoying new Ancestry feature - Notifications

[Albufera32]

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.

[venelow]

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

[Gadget]

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:

[Albufera32]

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.

[Gadget]

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.

[Rosinish]

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

[mckha489]

ability to turn them off.

 Account settings/communications/notifications

[Rosinish]

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 

Annie

[AMBLY]

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   

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