How crass

[At home in NZ]

One of my brothers, born in England, came to NZ at the age of 10, moved to Australia in his early 20s, married and had a family and died in Australia in 2018.
He never lived in USA.

I have an email from Ancestry with the subject line of: Is there more to discover about, followed by my brother's name.
The attached file shows what is in the body of the email but not all of it, there is also an advice that my brother was was of 1 children born in abcdef. Maybe there was one other born at that address but there were 4 of us!

Furthermore, there is this:

During XXXXX's lifetime, people in England with the last name private had an average of

1 children

I find the above extremely intrusive, in poor taste and .

Even more annoyingly there is a link to Email Preferences, clicked on that to be taken to the Australia version of Ancestry and presented with the login. Did that then went to my Communications Settings > Trees page to find my email notifications are set at nil.

I also found 'Unsubscribe' at the foot of the email and clicked on that to be taken to the United States version of Ancestry and this:
You've successfully unsubscribed from the following emails: Education and personalized offers*
The asterisk indicates advice about still receiving emails about accounts etc.

I never knew I had or even could sign up for Education and personalised offers!!!
I'm not signed up now so I am, hopefully, unlikely to get any more suggestions to follow the ghosts of my close relatives.

 

[Helen7]

I never receive any emails from Ancestry, apart from those about my subscription and notifications when someone sends me a message. This is despite having everything selected in the Communications preferences (including 'Education and personalised offers'). Having read about your experience, I'm very happy to be 'missing out' on these emails I should apparently be getting, as I get the messages I really want and none of the rubbish. If I want to look at my thousands of Hints and other 'Discovery' nonsense, I can easily see these on the Ancestry site, and any offers show up at the top of the page.

 

[JoyNor]

Ancestry has access to all the personal information we choose to put on the site but I for one put such information there for MY research activity benefit, not to be used as "social media" so I untick as many options as I can find on the site. However I do fear this is a roller coaster of constantly swimming against the tide of "sharing" whether we like it or not.

Every time I add new people to my tree I get a raft of hints, most of which are utter rubbish & it seems to be the most impossible ones that get notified to me via email. If I record a name & death date of a child why does Ancestry think I would even look at a marriage hint for that individual?

AhiNZ - I can understand your frustration. Hope you have managed to stop further such intrusion.

 

[At home in NZ]

AhiNZ - I can understand your frustration. Hope you have managed to stop further such intrusion.

Thanks, hope so too. Time will tell.

 

[At home in NZ]

Every time I add new people to my tree I get a raft of hints, most of which are utter rubbish

Not only when you add new people but when you go to look at somebody for whatever reason.
There is something somewhere that Ancestry says about how they do that and I very much wish they wouldn't. Hints have always been a bane to me, I'd far prefer to do my own research.

 

[Mitch_in_Notts]

At the beginning of May I got 10 consecutive days, identical emails, about a Harriet COLLINS in my tree, and all the Irish records available for her. Her name was Harriet BAKER, born in Somerset and died in Wales, and she married a James COLLINS - who doesn't appear in my tree, and then she subsequently married Job POLDEN, who does appear in my tree. The links were completely irrelevant.
What got me was why I got an identical email every 23 hours for 10 days until I blocked all communication whatsoever from Ancestry in frustration. The cancelling of emails from Ancestry obviously works as my subscription expired on the 5th June and I've not received a single offer to renew!

 

[At home in NZ]

my subscription expired on the 5th June and I've not received a single offer to renew!

That's all wrong!
this is what it says about unsubscribing from notifications:
You will still receive account-related communications including payment, security, and legal information. Furthermore, this will not affect DNA kit status notifications, communications you’ve chosen to receive as part of your subscription to Fold3® or Newspapers.com™, or if you’ve agreed to the informed consent for scientific research.

From that I assumed it meant we would still get renewal notices.

 

[peter]

From that I assumed it meant we would still get renewal notices.

I think Mitch is talking about the attractive renewal offers that Ancestry sometimes makes to people who cancel their renewal.

Aside from the email settings, Ancestry may take into account the reason given for cancellation. I would imagine that they are more likely to send a discounted renewal invitation to someone who cancels because the subscription is 'too expensive' than someone who cancels because they are 'no longer interested'.

 

[The Rhymer]

I am just browsing the Lost Cousins site and, having a number of bones to pick with Ancestry, am very interested in theses threads. I didn't know it was possible to un-subscribe from emails from Ancestry!! At the moment, they think it necessary to send me a notification each time I add someone new to my tree Why on earth? Do they think I have a split personality and need reminding what my other self is getting up to?

Tomorrow I will be all over their site to find that "untick" box.

 

[peter]

I didn't know it was possible to un-subscribe from emails from Ancestry!! At the moment, they think it necessary to send me a notification each time I add someone new to my tree Why on earth? Do they think I have a split personality and need reminding what my other self is getting up to?

This feature exists because some people collaborate on trees. The communications settings for trees in Account settings suggest that you would only be notified when someone else edits your tree, and that has certainly been my experience (though for me it was the other way round, the tree owner editing a tree for which I was a collaborator).

Is it possible that you have opened a second Ancestry account for a relative, but using one of your own email addresses? This might explain what you are seeing.

 

[The Rhymer]

This feature exists because some people collaborate on trees. The communications settings for trees in Account settings suggest that you would only be notified when someone else edits your tree, and that has certainly been my experience (though for me it was the other way round, the tree owner editing a tree for which I was a collaborator).

Is it possible that you have opened a second Ancestry account for a relative, but using one of your own email addresses? This might explain what you are seeing.

At their prices?! You have to be joking! Not all of us are millionaires - and even have trouble scraping together a sub for more than one site, let alone endowing relatives with them.

I have built trees for friends on my account, because they evinced an interest, and invited them to participate, only to be ignored - several times! But that is the extent of it, and I ended up by deleting said trees.

 

[peter]

At their prices?! You have to be joking!

You don't have to buy a subscription to have an Ancestry account - as I mentioned in my latest newsletter. You do need to register in order to create an Ancestry tree, or take an Ancestry DNA test.

This page explains what you can do with a free Guest account.