Ancestry Messenger

[Biggles50]

Personally if we initiate contact ourselves the Message we send is short yet hopefully intriguing to the recipient.

Probably about 50% respond.

Of those who initiate contact we always respond, but usually messages fizzle out.

Occasionally things take time, 12 years is the longest before a reply was sent to us.

My Wife had her third highest DNA match show last week and we are now in contact with them.

I collaborate with two other Ancestry users on our trees, one has been very helpful as they went to the churches concerned and looked through records that have not been transcribed and shared that info with me.

I helped a high cM match of mine determine who his Grandfather is likely to have been.

Yet another cM match of mine had the totally wrong family line in her tree.  We share GGP’s so we are close, did I get a thanks, no.  As it happens she is my highest match on Gedmatch so it is a total waste of effort contacting her.

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

My tree has grown  to nearly 10k though if someone cares to read my profile it's apparent why that is the case. I've reached the point of not sending messages anymore as they were being read (so the account was being actively used), but never responded to. I can find people who will readily ignore me to my face, I don't need the internet for that.

[cockney rebel]

Hi
Whenever I feel inclined to message somebody on Ancestry, I always check their profile to see when they were last online.
I would feel awful if someone had to renew their membership just to chat to me about Centimorgans and disappearing people in my tree.
In general, my communication exchange experiences have been positive.

But I too have never been randomly contacted via Ancestry ie the initial contact was always through me.
Rebel

[LizzieL]

Hi
Whenever I feel inclined to message somebody on Ancestry, I always check their profile to see when they were last online.
I would feel awful if someone had to renew their membership just to chat to me about Centimorgans and disappearing people in my tree.

I contacted someone some time ago with some extra info on a common rellie and they replied quite promptly. But said they couldn't view the image I mentioned because they didn't have a current sub.  So they managed to use the message system without a sub, but this was a few years ago and maybe Ancestry has now withdrawn that facility

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

The message system is free and no sub is required to initiate contact or reply to messages.

[cockney rebel]

Oh
That's good to know. thankyou!

But people still never answer----!
Rebel

[Glen in Tinsel Kni]

I feel it's often the case that they don't know the answer, don't wish to admit it and not responding is the easy way out. If subsequent messages are read and there is still no reply that's different. There's a point at which not replying (by choice), becomes blatant ignorance in my book. 

[pharmaT]

Hi, idiot here, because apparently my tree size alone is enough is 'proof' that I don't know the concept of genealogical proof standards." Interesting that one measurement can be consider proof of not valuing evidence.

I have been researching for 26 years.  It is my sole hobby, I also have no social life.  So when I'm not working, doing housework or parenting I work on my tree.  So I have put a lot of hours into it.  I very much value evidence and trying to do it properly.  I can say that not one error in my tree has been down to lack of trying.  Tiredness perhaps, conflicting sources eg when people make up a father on marriage certs to hide illegitimacy.  When I find a mistake, I work to correct it.

Not one of my sources are another tree from Ancestry.  My sources are from a wide range: BDM certificates, parish records, kirk session minutes, census returns, shipping records, passport applications, university matriculation records, graduation records, poor law records, professional registers, employment records, family records, family Bibles, books that people on my tree have written (as evidence of work they produced not of names etc), newspaper BDM records, newspaper articles, tax records, wills, probate calendar entries, prison records, court records, HEIC records, Commonwealth War graves, medal rolls, honours lists, Hansard, to name a few.

Numbers do add up.  Just one small part of my tree.  There's me obviously, I have been married twice (may as well add another failing) and I have 2 children.  Granted that's only 5 people. 

Then we add in the siblings from my generation which is 6 and 5 of them have married so far.  I record the parents of a spouse when adding them as part of their identification so that is up to 24 people.

Between them they have had 10 children so far, one of whom married and had a child so far which takes us up to 38.

Add in my parents and those of my ex husbands, then add the 35 siblings they had between them which makes 79. 31 of these siblings married and had 84 children between them taking my tree to 260.

Of these children 60 of them have married so far and 175 children have been born so far.  That's 621 people. 

Every single one of these people were born after 1900.  I have met 75% of these people and the remaining 25% of them I know people who met them.  Repeat this process for grandparents, their siblings etc and the numbers mount up fast.  I have spent many days in Scotland's People Centres and before that New register house before it was digitised.  If you plan these visits you can get a lot done in one day.

[warncoort]

Folks,
Apologies to those who are offended by my posts,espescially Bri_Boy.
After more than 30 years of research i have to ask,where do i find "genealogical proof standards"?And who set these standards?
I have two trees on Ancestry,an ancestral tree with 5308 souls,and a one place study of 7324,which makes me a name collector to some,however Ancestry's ratings are 9.8 and 9.5 out of 10 would indicate i have some things correct.
I use public trees for leads and then carry out my own research for verification.I generally use messenger when there is a glaring error in the hope trees will be updated,and 25% response would be baseline.I recently found 163 public trees had a girl pregnant and married at 13,wrong death date etc suggesting a lot of copying,messages sent and less than 10 replies with three accepting the error.People are loath to admit that copying other trees is their only source.
You can't force a response so learn to live with it.
Eric