Sometimes when reviewing Ancestry Hints®, a hint might not load, might show a message saying there’s a problem, or might appear grayed out when you try to accept it. This usually happens when there’s an error retrieving a hint, or when a hint comes from a source that's been made private or removed from Ancestry®, so it’s no longer available.
What to do when a hint doesn’t load
When a hint doesn’t load, there are two main causes:
- The source of the hint was deleted or made private.
This often happens when a hint came from another member’s public family tree that has since been deleted or made private, or when the record or photo linked to the hint has been removed. When that happens, the hint may still appear, but its details can no longer be viewed.
- There’s an error retrieving the hint.
In some cases, the hint is still available but runs into an error when it tries to load.
In either situation, you may see a link that says Try requesting this hint again or Please try again. Click the link to reload the hint.
- If it loads, the issue was likely a temporary retrieval error.
- If it doesn’t load, the source is probably no longer available. In that case, the hint will disappear the next time family trees are indexed on Ancestry.
Clicking Ignore this hint will move it to your Ignored tab (if it hasn’t loaded yet) or will make it disappear if the source is unavailable.
