AncestryDNA deleted matches

[familydar]

In the past few days I think I can remember deleting an AncestryDNA match because I couldn't see the link - the user had multiple unlinked trees but nothing to give me their lineage.  Low cm match, it seemed too much effort when I have another couple of thousand matches to plough through.  But one of their tree names stuck in my memory, and today that same tree has popped up with a name I recognise as a tree hint for one of my lines.

Problem is that as I've rather prematurely zapped the DNA match, their user name says this person isn't a DNA match.

I've tried searching my deleted matches for the user name (ctrl f) but it's laborious working though them page by page.  History shows me multiple AncestryDNA match pages visited in the last few days but I'd need to check each one to find what I'm looking for, almost certainly even more laborious.

I can't see any way to download DNA matches, is it there somewhere I'm failing to spot?  Otherwise does anyone know of any shortcuts?  And also does anyone know if my deleting the match "my end" means it will have dropped off the other person's list too?

Jane :-)

[roderickpaulin]

I've never seen an option to delete

[sugarfizzle]

I have never used the delete option, I just use the note section to indicate that there is no connection found.

I was going to say that it could not be deleted from your match's list by you.

However, I experimented with deleting someone I was pretty sure wasn't closely connected.

This message came up -

Confirmation—The DNA match to 'Jack Smith' is removed.
The match has been moved to your list of removed matches (you can find them at the bottom of this page).

So, you don't actually delete at all, you just ignore the match.

Let us know how you get on, I returned Jack easily enough!!

Regards Margaret

[familydar]

I used delete as what I thought was a means to hide matches and get the list down to a manageable number - failed there too!

As Margaret has said, you can restore, and that's what I've decided to do.  Slightly quicker than assessing them and deleting in the first place, because it's purely "mechanical", but still time consuming.  I could have spent those hours much more productively.

As a way of finding out whether my folly has knock-on effects to others, I have a close match I'm in regular contact with, I may delete her temporarily and ask whether I've disappeared from her own matches.  I'll report back.

Jane :-)