Member Tree Hints on Ancestry.com

[rp76226]

Ancestry.com - hear me out! Why do you waste hours of my time with Member Tree Hints that contain no new information. This has been going on for years and I've complained many times, but you are blind, deaf, and dumb to the problem. I have over 70,000 people on my tree and over 18,000 member tree hints. 90% of them are worthless no new information hints. Spending lots of time reviewing these hints only to find out that they are worthless takes all the fun out of ancestry research.
You've made the problem even worse recently. When I actually accept a good hint that puts new parents on my Tree, you immediately give me new worthless member tree hints for each of the parents with no new information. If I also added children for these parents from the accepted good hint, you do the same with new Member Tree hints for each of the children with no new information.
Please have mercy and stop wasting so much of my time with worthless member tree hints with no new information.

[MarcuccioV]

I've had to deal with this, too. But what infuriates me even more is that over 95% (or more) of my DNA matches are linked to my paternal (non-Italian except maybe >5%) side. I rarely ever get a maternal (Italian) match, & it is usually someone without a tree so it goes nowhere. And NO hints on my maternal side at all -- of the very few I have had over the years, almost all were red herrings.

I simply can't make any headway. Other matrices (FTDNA, MyHeritage, etc) are no better...

[rp76226]

Can't speak to DNA matches. For Italian family research, the best websites are

1. Antenati (https://antenati.cultura.gov.it/?lang=en) which is best used on a FireFox browser because it has a needed app that Google Chrome does not have

2. Family Search - https://www.familysearch.org/search/col ... %3A1927178

You do need to know what Italian town/city your family came from as all Italian records are organized that way and therefore you must start searching by town or city.

Ron

[MarcuccioV]

Can't speak to DNA matches. For Italian family research, the best websites are

1. Antenati (https://antenati.cultura.gov.it/?lang=en) which is best used on a FireFox browser because it has a needed app that Google Chrome does not have

2. Family Search - https://www.familysearch.org/search/col ... %3A1927178

You do need to know what Italian town/city your family came from as all Italian records are organized that way and therefore you must start searching by town or city.

Ron

I use both extensively and have gone as far as I can go until something new pops up that I can continue researching. My frustration is that I get NO hints at all on my maternal Italian side (including people on my tree that were garnered from Antenati & FS), so I'm basically stuck where I am (for the time being, at least)...

[darkerhorse]

Have you ruled out an illegitimate birth which could be masking family identities?

[MarcuccioV]

Have you ruled out an illegitimate birth which could be masking family identities?

None that I can find. And no clues to prove either way...

[rp76226]

There's always genealogists. I traced my paternal side to the later 1700s and hit a wall as civil records start in the 1800s. Then i found a genealogist who had all the parish records of Racalmuto, Sicily as he was a friend of the pastor which turned out to be my third cousin (deceased) and he traced my paternal side back to the 1500s.

[MarcuccioV]

There's always genealogists. I traced my paternal side to the later 1700s and hit a wall as civil records start in the 1800s. Then i found a genealogist who had all the parish records of Racalmuto, Sicily as he was a friend of the pastor which turned out to be my third cousin (deceased) and he traced my paternal side back to the 1500s.

My DNA ethnicity estimates and DNA matches show deeper ties to Agrigento, Messina (& some Palermo), in Sicily but no connections can be found yet (my grandparents & their recent ancestors hailed from near Rome, and I also have ties to parts of the southern mainland). I'm currently at a standstill with paper trails beginning at 1871.

I will be in Italy in late Oct so I'm planning a visit to the family parish near Rome to see if anything can be found there...