In terms of the length of time it takes, keep in mind also that Ancestry has been very spotty for the last few months in terms of when (or whether) an e-mail goes out to tell a member that someone has left a message for them. If this is someone who is not very active right now, it could take quite awhile before they even notice that they have a message.

That said, however, there seem to be a lot of folks out there who truly think that each name is unique, and there only ever has been one "John Jones" or "William White" or "Frederick Smith" in the history of the world, so whenever or wherever the name appears, it's all referencing the same person . . . .