New improved messaging system
 

My aunt's death has prompted me to look at old photos and I want to send one to a DNA match.

I have managed to search my old emails to find their address, but Ancestry appears to have deleted old messages.

Am I right, or are they merely temporarily unavailable?

I don't like the new look at all.

Interesting that all of your messages have dissapeared because I deleted all my messages in January, sent and received, and they have now all come back!

All my old messages back as far as 2009 are still there as far as I can see, but it's one of those systems where you have to scroll through and wait for more to load. I don't seem to have any left from before 2009 though. :(

It gives me the option to download my "1 folder and messages from our previous system ... until 31 August 2020." but that just downloads my "dealt with" folder containing 1 message. I didn't even know I had such a folder! Edit - or is it just because that was the oldest message left and so was displayed on the screen when I clicked to download?

As for whether the missing messages will come back or not, who knows?

But anyway, don't your old emails show the message text in them?

By the way, my old laptop is having trouble coping with the new messaging system.

A couple of things I have noticed:

1. You may not get a notification of a message arriving, and you will only see that there is a new one when you actually go into messaging.

2. If you view the profile of an Ancestry member and click "Message" it will show you previous messages exchanged with that person. I haven't managed to find someone whom I messaged before 2009 yet, to see whether older messages would show up that way.

...and you can only delete your sent messages not the ones received.

I tried installing the Ancestry app on my Android smartphone to see whether the messaging system works better on that, but I have no idea what system it is using to sort the messages on there. The first one it showed me was from 2017 and from someone who died a couple of years ago. And it seems to have messages I have sent and received all jumbled in together. The search facility does seem to work quite well, though.

Oh, I should add that when I installed the Ancestry app it asked me to select a family tree to download. Luckily I have some small ones as well as my main massive one, so I picked one of those. I should think my main tree would use up all the storage on my phone!

Ah, it looks as though Ancestry brought in a new "online messages" feature in 2009 which "replaced the email-based Ancestry Connection Service." So that will be why the messages only go back to 2009. I don't remember what the previous system was like now.

Are you still getting emailed notifications?

I'm sure I used to get notification of incoming messages, but I haven't received any for a year or two. I complained to Ancestry, who said they'd never sent any such notifications.

That's not right, is it?

I have a nasty feeling I've asked that question before - if so, just ignore it :confused: