Ancestry's new Messaging and loss of old folders

[PrawnCocktail]

Mine also says I have two new messages, I don't appear to, although I have sent two messages!  Another glitch.

Thanks, was beginning to think it was just me! Ancestry have said it's odd, and are investigating!

Not holding my breath!   

[River Tyne Lass]

I appear to have seven new messages.  However, from what I can see these are old ones.   

[Kernow13]

Another totally bizarre decision from Ancestry. The standard memo says 'they appreciate the need to store and organise messages' and then tell us the one aspect of their sites functionality which does just that is being deleted. They tell you your folders won't be deleted 'anytime soon.' however the new message experience is a radical transformation that appears not to have been on the beta test page (or at least the beta test page I looked at).

The new messages are more like 'instagram', or 'snap chat' - if you are a teenager you'll be impressed by the chat room look and feel, but if your are a serious researcher of family history, believing yourself to be on a serious research family history site you will find the new chatroom experience unusable !

The reality is the folders for time frames, places, cousins, branches whatever your system was, have now GONE. They don't show up - you have to down load them and 'won't be deleted anytime soon' promise mean by end of August, so about 5-weeks. If you are an irregular user and busy elsewhere in five weeks time you're in for one hell of a shock!

What Ancestry thought they were doing here is a total mystery - a message system without the ability of the user to store and organise message by their personal needs is quite frankly, not a message system at all. Check it out and make sure you like Ancestry support have your feedback !

[PrawnCocktail]

I appear to have seven new messages.  However, from what I can see these are old ones.

Apparently all these "new" messages are old ones. Ancestry say it is a known issue, and they are looking at it. It appears the system can't tell whether you've read the message or not, so has marked them all unread!

[Flemming]

The new messages are more like 'instagram', or 'snap chat' - if you are a teenager you'll be impressed by the chat room look and feel, but if your are a serious researcher of family history, believing yourself to be on a serious research family history site you will find the new chatroom experience unusable !

That's your answer - they're trying to appeal to the youth market - it's far more lucrative than the relatively low number of serious researchers. The next step will be total integration with social media platforms.

My system also got 'upgraded' without fair warning and so I didn't have time to get messages from the inbox or sent box into a folder and then download it. I've now lost all of these and have no record of who I've contacted, nor what I said, nor the information they provided to me - unless I've kept the email notification sent to me by Ancestry which used to have the message in it, but now appears to have no content in it other than 'you have a message from...'

Welcome to RootsChat, by the way.

[Kernow13]

Thank you - There comes a time - one in a while - that a website company who you have believed for years were switched on and focused, that you have relied on and trusted, suddenly does something that shocks you into thinking they didn't really understand it at all? That today is Ancestry.co.uk

Deleting the ability to store and organise messages is removing a core component of its usefulness that makes you wonder what bizarre conversations went on in the boardroom when they discussed how to improve Ancestry and ended up, through lack of consultation with their customers, presumably by people who don't actually do family history research destroying a core aspect of their offer. Well done Ancestry !!

[Romilly]

I've got a notification of new messages on the little envelope - but there's a catch somewhere.
The envelope tells me I have 15 (yes, fifteen!) new messages. But when I go to look, there aren't any new messages at all! Not on my browser, nor in the app. And yes, I've tried clearing cache and cookies!

Anyone else seen this?   

Just seen this thread!

I have an ‘11’ stuck on my Message Box; however, I don’t seem to have any new messages? In fact I haven’t had any replies for ages...

I have emailed Ancestry, who say they’ve reported it to their technical team.

I’ve had no message about downloading previous messages :-(

Romilly.

[Genie24]

I'm furious with the changes Ancestry are making and can't understand their reasons. I am very confused about  what is actually happening with old messages. I was under the impression that it was just messages in folders that would be lost as the new messaging system does not support them but I never organised mine into folders so didn't think it would affect me. I still appear to have my old messages back to about 2013 so I think I have lost some. What I need to know is are they going to be deleted at the end of the month? I have started copying and pasting them into Word documents but I have pages and pages so it would take me ages! Also from which date would they be deteted?
 I have been on weeks mindlessly adding dots to my 6-7 centimorgan matches in a desperate attempt to preserve them by assigning them to custom groups. Even so, I will still lose a lot as I can't possible save them all. I manage 4 accounts so this is a lot of work and in my opinion time wasted which should be spent on researching. Like so many others, my most significant matches and those of my husband and parents are in that low centimorgan value category. How can that be an improvement? Ancestry obviously do not fully understand the needs of its subscribers.
Ancestry have never fully informed me of these changes and some people, who have been inactive on Ancestry for various reasons won't know  a thing about it as no emails have been sent to tell us about it.

[Romilly]

Genie24, - I agree with a lot of what you’re saying...

I too was going through trying to work out which of the 6 - 7cMs Matches to save; however, frankly I’ve had enough...

Many of them won’t be important anyway, - and so I’m just going to let them go!

Romilly.