Finding someone's USER name on Ancestry?

[LizzieW]

Alternatively, like my son who has done an Ancestry DNA, she doesn't actually have a tree on Ancestry, or she is American (my son lives in USA) and only has a subscription to Ancestry.com as he does..  She would still show up as a match with you.

[melba_schmelba]

Yes this is a right pain in the bum. I half suspect Ancestry don't make it easy, because they don't want people to have private trees.

[LizzieW]

In my son's case he doesn't have a tree anywhere.  He only paid his fee for the Ancestry DNA

[JAKnighton]

It is an amazingly stupid and archaic system, and I have no idea why they do it this way. It should just be a simple button on the person's profile that says "invite to see your tree". No typing or matching of their username required on your part.

[LizzieW]

There must be 1000s of people who've taken an Ancestry DNA who haven't got a tree on there.  Lots of people who've had their DNA done haven't got a tree anywhere.  They just watch WDYTYA and assume if they get their DNA done they will find out that their ancestor was a royal or similar.  (Like Danny Dyer).

[melba_schmelba]

I have invited people to my trees on a number of occasions always with the screen name but you do have to use it exactly as it is down
have to admit sometimes it takes twice its not a site renowned for helpfulness but so useful if you manage to work through it

It is risky to do that as as I found, people can have identical screennames, but very different user names, sometimes they are the same, but often not.

[mckha489]

There is a new feature called “shareable link”. If you copy and paste the link into the message you are sending by your other means of contact, they can be a guest to your tree.   

Eg I did that via rootschat message having no idea at all of my contacts Ancestry user name etc, just that they did have membership,  I believe it could be used for someone with no Ancestry membership at all.

[IgorStrav]

Thanks for all the replies - and sharing my moans about Ancestry 


I'd not seen the 'shareable link' feature, and I suppose that could be posted into a message on Ancestry to the person I'm trying to invite.

i do realise many of the people who have used Ancestry for DNA don't have trees.  And even if they do have trees, and are apparently my cousins, looking at their trees (even large ones) doesn't necessarily show where the link might be.

This is why I have done some research for this particular contact I was mentioning - I have created a small tree for her, using information she's provided, and it is this small tree I'd like to invite her to see/contribute to.

Given the contents of this 'research' tree are her relatives (not mine - can't see where the link is yet) I'm scarcely going to make it public without consulting her.

Anyway - thanks for all the comments, once again! 

[sandiep]

I have invited people to my trees on a number of occasions always with the screen name but you do have to use it exactly as it is down
have to admit sometimes it takes twice its not a site renowned for helpfulness but so useful if you manage to work through it

It is risky to do that as as I found, people can have identical screennames, but very different user names, sometimes they are the same, but often not.

Well I guess I have just been lucky for last 16 years