Ancestry Hints which have no relation to the person they are giving the hint for

[KGarrad]

1. Don't look at hints! (I never do!)
2. Ensure all addresses are in full; specifying "United Kingdom", or (where appropriate) "England, United Kingdom".

[Wexflyer]

"people in the damn US of A "

I'm not sure why the United States should be repeatedly damned by you for having people with the same name as some of your British relatives.

He's just angry that his lot missed the boat and never made it out....

[coombs]

You never know if ancestors brothers and sisters and cousins ended up in the USA, or even a direct ancestor, as I found a direct ancestor living with a married sister and daughter in the USA in 1900 explaining why he vanished form UK records after his wife died in 1886.

[ColinBignell]

Does anyone else get clues that are not even the name of the person you get them under as John Wadsworth of Stone Staffordshire has no relationship at all to John Emmanuel Griffin of Brede Sussex and no relationship to anyone on my tree.

Jim

The problem is that many of the hints are derived from entries in other members' trees, so they are only as good as those trees. It is not helped by people blindingly accepting hints without doing any basic checking of the facts. I am sure I am not the only person who has found a posthumous marriage hint.

[Comberton]

You can block hints from other trees and potential relatives not yet in your tree.

Settings/hint preferences/site preferences

[Wexflyer]

The problem is that many of the hints are derived from entries in other members' trees, so they are only as good as those trees. It is not helped by people blindingly accepting hints without doing any basic checking of the facts. I am sure I am not the only person who has found a posthumous marriage hint.

Indeed. And there is a snowball/multiplicative effect at work with this.  Once one Anc*stry  member accepts a stupid/crazy hints and puts it in their tree, then Anc*stry pushes the hints to other members all the more - as it is now "confirmed" and validated by being in a tree - so now more members accept the hint. And so on and on...

[ColinBignell]

You can block hints from other trees and potential relatives not yet in your tree.

Indeed, but the problem with that is that they are sometimes helpful. They just need to be treated with caution.

[LizzieL]

I have one branch of my family that upped sticks and emigrated to USA and changed their surname -for no obvious reason - but they didn't all make the change at the same time. I wish Ancestry would give me hints on this family with a different surname living in a different continent. I've managed to unravel some of the mystery but still big holes.

[coombs]

As we know, FH gets harder the further back you go, unless they had some money and left wills, or you get a lead to previous family wealth/status that could give you a gateway ancestor, but usually it does get harder, especially before 1800. Many were never rich enough to leave wills or not poor enough to come under the goldmine settlement examinations, and survival rates of poor law records is patchy. So if I have ancestors James and Sarah Mayhew in rural Suffolk in the 1750s and get an Ancestry hint for a James Mayhew marriage in rural Sussex to Sarah Smith in 1745, I need some compelling evidence before I even consider it.