Hi, I'm an administrator on a bunch of Ancestry/Rootsweb Boards & Lists and I can tell you that sometimes there are reasons for not getting a response, other than the person just ignoring a message. First, make sure that any message you post a reply to is to a person with an active account; too many times I notice people posting replies to messages that have been there for 10 years or more with no activity. You can tell if an account is active in a couple of ways, one is to click onto the Name to see the last time the person logged in, and the other is to click onto the "view posts" link beside the name, and check if the person has any recent postings. If there has been no postings for many years, I wouldn't bother sending a message to the person. Then there are the people who just post messages on a Board, yet have no idea of what they are doing or where they posted. I can't tell you how many times I get messages posted onto the wrong Surname or Location Board with someone asking some question that has absolutely nothing to do with the Board they posted on. Most of the time I move the Message to the correct Board and contact the person advising them that their message has been moved, but either way, if a reply is ever posted for the message, the person gets notification no matter what Board the message is on. Other times, I post a response to the poster asking them if there was any particular reason they posted their SMITH inquiry on the JONES Board (examples), and if I get a reply they most often say they thought they could just post anywhere. I've also seen other situations where people would post the same message on other Boards not having to do with the Subject, and from what they say in those, it is obvious they have no clue that those notifications from Ancestry are telling them they have a response to their messages. We get all kinds of strange postings, to say the least.
And then there are the messages posted by people who are just gathering info and not interested in communicating with anyone. They will post a message on a Board asking for some particular record or records and after someone posts the info they were looking for and they aren't even acknowledged, that's the last one will see of that person, at least for a while. Usually, a few weeks later, that same person will again post another request for another record which is an obvious followup to the original record someone posted a response to, so you know that they saw that first reply, too.
The other situation you refer to re Ancestry Connect where you see the little "envelope" icon at the top of the page, is a problem because most of the time, it doesn't work. It's supposed to notify you via email that you have a message, but for the better part of a year, mine hasn't worked and the only way I know I have messages is to click onto the envelope every now and then. And now, what's worse, Ancestry has just recently again changed their homepage so that previously seen features for their Boards, are no longer there. If you ever visit the various Ancestry Comments Boards, you'll find all kinds of issues that people are having with Ancestry's Boards and their website in general.
So, just be aware of some of the issues associated with why you may not be getting responses, since it's not always so cut and dry.

Deloris