General Chat

You in my contacts list are Janey Canuck "me i"

I am not focus person in my tree. So I should be Joseph Dopey Drawers in your list.

That be what the dot dot dots were standing in for. ;)

"I may have to email the management .............."


Just don't hold your breath hoping for a sensible answer lol

Hey, here's a fun thing.

I just looked at my contacts list. For anybody I just have frivolous correspondence with, the "relation" in that column shows up as the nonsense name I have given myself in my tree.

Did we all know that? If you have yourself in your tree, even if you're "hidden" because you're living, and even if you've changed all your account details so your real name isn't your username and doesn't show if someone clicks your username, then your name will still show in your contacts' contacts list. Oh, and if you don't put yourself in your tree as something, then the system will just use your parent's name. That's why my parents have nonsense names in my tree too. But as long as I have myself in my tree as something, that's what shows up in the contacts list.

So I've just sent a message to that Oz person I mentioned (whose birth and married surnames are now visible to me in my contacts list and sent box, btw). And our "relation" is James Hill. That's my gr-grfather's older brother. Or maybe my gr-grfather's grandfather. I dunno which it means.

Now, how has GR settled on James Hill being our common relation??

Maaaybe they're doing something about the privacy violation of putting your real name, from your tree, in other people's contacts list ...


AuntyS, you just knew it had to be about Hills somehow, didn't you? ;)

I should try that some day when I'm bored. Do a tree search for, oh, Smith, then randomly PM people asking whether they have an Ernest Augustus Hill, or Monck, in their tree. Or Prince Albert in a can!

He seems quite nice and genuine and has replied to all my PMs -- his first PM did give details of a particular family and individual he's trying to trace after the last census he's seen in. And he mentioned one other person who apparently showed up wherever it was I did. She sounds confused too.

He's called her by the same (given) name as one of our regulars at TTF from Oz, so I have PMed her to ask whether it's her ... on the off chance. ;) May as well make it like a chain letter and pass it on!

Me, I only get nice PMs from nice people. ;)

That's strange, Janey. Around a year ago someone sent me a PM from this site asking me if I would open my tree. I asked him what his link with my family is and he couldn't tell me. He also said that he often contacted people on the off chance that we had common ancestors. When I questioned the point of him doing that he got rather unpleasant and said that if I was going to be unfriendly then he wouldn't bother. I had him blocked. Wonder if your message was the much the same thing.

Sue

Did you hear the gmail bell ring???

I'll teach you to chuck stuff at my tea bubbling in the slow cooker.

The problem with this question is anybody does not know the answer either.

Why don't you PM the enquirer this thread to read. Perhaps he will understand your dilemma.

Or it might be like somebody making tea in the slow cooker. ;)

I love it when I have a good question -- i.e. one that *nobody* knows the answer to!


And no, it was not one of Ernest's monikers .... as far as I know ...

I was just about to ask whether you had checked the surname summary under Search Trees.

Obviously from your second post there is no connection between your tree and the name.

There is nothing in GR FAQ which covers the phrase used.

I won't ask if you have both spelt the name the same. That would be like asking someone if they have switched the kettle on if it is not boiling!!!!

But here, you see -- I don't have that name in my tree, I don't know of anybody by that name, and the name is one I'd never even heard of before!

Unless he just saw my name in a thread somewhere and randomly clicked on me, there's no explanation for how he'd even get in contact with me through here.

(Oh, I also did a search, and I've never posted in a thread about either of the two surnames in question.)

That's why I can't figure it out. ;)

If the query were about a name in my tree, that would make sense. This just doesn't.

I may have to email the management ..............

I got a PM from somebody today enquiring about a particular family. He said:

"Genes Reunited tell me you have information on the family name, _________ which may help me discover ..." what happened to so-and-so.

As it happens, I've never *heard* of the surname in question. So I wrote back, asked him what this information was, said I have only one conceivable connection I can think of and that's a gr-grmother from the town in question, but not by that name and with nobody in that tree with that name. (I checked cousin Brian's tree, 'cause he's got everybody and mine's just a shrub, and nothing there.)

A couple of PMs back and forth, and I said I still couldn't figure out what this info was, was it a hot match, or one of those "we've found matches for" emails ... ?

His reply:

"I found your name against the interest name of _________" (the surname in question).

My question:

What does that mean??

I don't think I can get any better explanation out of him and I don't want to hammer at him about it, but I'd really like to know wtf this is all about. ;)


PS - the name is *not* in my "Surname summary", or anywhere in my tree, of course.