Ancestry Hints – enhancement or not?

[At home in NZ]

I don't find them very helpful and so tend to ignore them

I don't like the look of them so I delete them and in the blank space for comments I have sometimes asked for them to be switched off, other times I leave it blank and today I got rather annoyed because the Search it did took me to something that was totally wide of the mark so I wrote 'IMPOSSIBLE RECORDS'.
I then decided I would not even attempt to use the Search part again.
When it tells me the possible record is in my Hints, it makes me feel as though Ancestry thinks I am incapable of looking at the Hints. They are not exactly invisible!

I did enquire about switching the Possibles off, the answer was no. However, I was encouraged to put a suggestion in because 'they do get read'.
I don't think they get acknowledged though.
I did put the suggestion in.

 

[TerryM]

I had missed the change that only three trees are given in hints, I have always used this option to quickly find those trees of the better researchers whom I knew or trusted, now their trees don't readily appear.

All the changes made have the unfortunate effect of compounding and promoting mistakes amongst beginners. If the only three trees posted have mistakes, they will be copied by new comers. The option at the top of the page to 'select all trees' has always been a disaster as it blends all the errors together - I made this mistake for 3mths when I first started way back and it took me another 6mths to correct all the errors I have added to my tree.

And the window down the right side does not allow the degree of revision of all the details and instantaneous correction of any mistakes they are pushing at us. Some records you accept just instantly add without any further options!

I did receive an invite to comment upon their changes when they first started coming online - which I criticised in thorough detail (though probably left a few points off as there are so many problems) but no reply back and the roll out continued

They probably got positive responses from the inexperienced and naive and hence concluded the changes were good.

 

[At home in NZ]

I did receive an invite to comment upon their changes when they first started coming online

Wouldn't it be nice if they had asked ALL users??

I hadn't realised there is a change to 3 trees because when I look at the All Hints and choose Member trees I can see people who have more than 3 and the highest I found in the brief examination I just did is 10 trees. I have 16 pages containing 208 trees.
For those of us who are more experienced it may pay to switch the tree hints off and use the Search instead. I have always mistrusted the tree hints since I, like TerryM, used the option to select trees to add to my own, many years ago.

They probably got positive responses from the inexperienced and naive and hence concluded the changes were good.

Couldn't have put it better myself.

 

[jorghes]

I was checking through an older link (a relative I think died in the Workhouse) and I came across a "wonderful" example of Ancestry's hints system...

 

[At home in NZ]

"wonderful" example of Ancestry's hints system...

I have had similar experiences.

Out of curiosity I brought up one of my 5th great grandmothers because all I have is her first name which is Ann. I wanted to see if I had one of those 'Possible Records'. Sure enough there was a Possible Birth Records. I clicked on Search and what did it do??
Collections set to All Collections with birth records for Ann, Anna or Anne Martin (the last name of her husband) in Massachusetts, Liverpool, Ontario, Ireland.
The dates that I can see without opening up records are mostly early 1900's. Her daughter was born in 1771.
I deleted that Possible Birth Record and typed 'Next to useless' in the Comment.
I looked at the Profile again and found 'Possible Marriage Records'. Curiosity gets the better of me and once again I get results for Ann Martin with various places in UK and USA.
At this point I re-iterate, I will NOT be wasting my time using these 'Possibles'.

 

[Kate]

Playing around this morning and looked at hints which I don't often bother about.
Found a tree with my family on it and now I know that my great grandfather died 10 years earlier than I thought he did and never married or had children.
I am wondering if I am really here.

 

[At home in NZ]

I am wondering if I am really here.

 

[Creighton]

I use many of the online family tree sites such as Ancestry, Findmypast, The Genealogist and FamilySearch (which I have just lamented in another post today). For me, I now tend to treat them as resources for data verification and I also download the record images for attaching into my own tree online (Tribalpages) and I have also started to experiment with TNG (offline web page at the moment). It is good to be able to use commercial sites for building your tree but I find that some sites have datasets whilst others do not. Now, I subscribe to just one a year and take advantage of the occasional freebie weekends or trial packages that the others sometimes offer. They all offer hints, but it is up to the individual if they care to use them. Personally, I find them distracting as I tend to focus on one particular person or family group at a time, and find the hints distracting and can draw you off along the yellow brick road.