Ancestry hints - I despair!

[Jomot]

OK I'll rise to the bait...

My tree is on ancestry as I have FTM and the synch facility is useful. 

I know the hints are generally rubbish, but very occasionally something useful crops up so I've kept them switched on.  I now delete any new useless ones ones straight away, but I had several hundred old ones to work through/get rid of, and this particular one was so bad it just amused me. 

Where I live "I despair" is shorthand for 'it's so bad its funny', and that's why the post is on 'The Lighter Side' and ends with     Maybe if we had a 'Proper Miserable Moaning' board it would be easier for people to distinguish between the two 

So to be clear, I wasn't moaning, complaining or bellyaching.  I was having a 'Lighter Side' moment. 

Now, let's move on, shall we.... I've got a 285 year old unborn child to find 

[CarolA3]

Happy to move on Jomot, and please don't think I was trying to bait or criticise anyone

Your initial post was obviously light-hearted, and my reply #3 was a genuine attempt to understand why some people (not you!) get so angry at Ancestry etc about these bits of nonsense

I now see that blaming the website is not unlike suing Ford Motors after a bad driver hits you with a car they made

Carol

[pinefamily]

I for one hope we continue to get these threads because I love to see the outrageous hints and public trees that Rootschatters find from time to time. A never ending source of amusement for us all.
I do agree with Erato and Carol though, some people on other threads have been a bit more serious in their complaints about public trees and people appropriating data and photos. Either make your tree private(it will still show up in searches) or kee your tree elsewhere. I have an online tree with Tribalpages. You can set your privacy level, but people can still contact you if they find a connection. And it's free, unless you want to add tons of photos, then there are paid options.
I understand why some like to have a tree on ancestry, to be able to find others with similar ancestors.

[ms_canuck]

I have my initial tree on Ancestry and am learning how to be more selective in what I keep / discard when it comes to hints!  I have twice been contacted by another researcher to let me know I had something badly wrong.  I was happy for the info, and quickly made the correction and let the person know when it was completed.

In the past couple of weeks I have 'branched out' (pun intended) and uploaded my tree onto some other sites to see if I can find out anything different.  On one, I discovered my first cousin also has a tree - he hasn't responded to my email yet - probably busy as he has 3 kids! My 2nd cousin is on Ancestry and we help each other with info / photos etc.

Ms_C

[pharmaT]

Whine, whine, whine.  I just don't get it.  If you don't want hints, then don't put your tree on Ancestry.  It's just that simple.  It is possible to use Ancestry [or any of the others] as a repository of data and nothing more.  You have nothing to lose but your sense of grievance and righteous indignation.

I'm afraid I disagree.  It is perfectly possibly technology wise for Ancestry or any other company to design algorithms to exclude impossible hints.  By impossible I mean events before birth, census entries, children being born and getting married etc when over 120 years old.  So whilst I agree that no one should blindly accept these hints I do not think the blame for the ridiculousness of some of these hints lies 100% with those who have put it in their trees. 

When I first put a tree on Ancestry, which I did in order to have an online, off site back of my tree.  I do not think this is stupid, ridiculous or anything like that just not the same way of doing it as other researchers.  That in itself does not make what I do wrong. Anyway back to my original point, you always had to check out any hint properly to determine  if it applied to your person or not.  Often it didn't but I can say in the early days all hints were biologically possible.