General Chat

Good idea Sylvia - my OH knows what sites I subscribe to but doesn't know I have an automatic renewal. Well he does now 'cos I told him:-))

Some people also lose interest. A distant rellie told me she no longer bothers with her tree. She finds it expensive and time consuming and now has other interests.

Although this is a site for sharing common ancestors it's not illegal to not answer messages.

Sue

You know, I often do not even rspond to one of those automatic messages "I have shared my tree" or "Open your tree"


If they cannot be bothered to send a proper message, and give me some sense as to how they think we are connected, then I'm not willing to spend the time ferreting it out.

Plus, of course, I never share my tree with anyone.


I exchange several pms with people trying to work out how we might be related. If it seems that we are, then I send them that information only, nothing about any other branch on the tree. I carefully sort it out, so that I send both ancestors and descendents to them


I have to say though that Hot Matches are generally useless for me .................. I have only a small tree on here (about 130 names), and almost every Hot Match that I have had for the last 4 or 5 years has been with someone to whom I provided the information.




sylvia

The other thing is that a couple of weeks ago ......... the last time I posted on one of this type of thread ................ I found a site on which GR was rated as being the best site to use because if the excellent free family tree program.


so many people might be using this site only to have a place where they can build their tree, for free.



sylvia

Sureley If you die all bank accounts credit cards will be stopped...shows how long I have not worked for a bank...there is a word for it but have forgotten.

I did wonder about my tree on ancestry being private who is going to see it once I've gorn? Must make a note to myself to make it public again just before I go lol

ja...x

Oh yes, deleting all dormant accounts, that would do wonders for business, that would. :eyeroll:

The deal is that you put a tree on here, or take out a membership (paid or not), and the tree is here until you delete it, and the membership is continued until you cancel it (as free if you don't continue paying).

The biggest problem is that people put stuff all over the internet and don't keep track of it.

The way to keep track, for this site and other similar places (like when adding a postem at FreeBMD), is to use an email address that is *not going to change*, e.g. at gmail.com. If everybody did that, and checked the gmail account periodically (or had mail from it forwarded to their ordinary email account), there'd be a lot fewer unread PMs.

Sylvia, I'm thinking of doing a search and finding all the threads where I've commented on this perennial question, and then just offering the links. I see you've kept a copy of your own standard reply. ;)

Here's one:

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.page/board/general_topics/thread/1212741

but I can't find my super complete all in one universal answer, dang.

Hi Janey


actually

I'm very stupid


I don't have a copy of that reply


I do it from memory every single time!




Jiminy......................


TBH .................... I do not see GR deleting any accounts ....................... that means the number of members would drop to probably much less than 1 million!



I have said several times on these boards that I reckon 10% active members would be stretching it ................ that brings 11 million down to 1 million


............ it might even be as low as 100,000


of those, probably less than 1,000 even know that these boards are here.





sylvia

Just been catching up with all the posts since yesterday. Very interesting, you have all made me think differently about being on GR. We are on our own really and it seems to be pure chance if you actually make contact with new relations! I do find it quite frustrating that having found branches of my family that I never knew existed, I cannot make contact and garner knowlege about my family. I think I will take advantage of the earlier advice to give a personal email in my contact message, so at least they can get back to me off the site if they really want to.
Helen

They make it sound like when you join you have access to some rediculious amount of trees.....which we no is not true because the tree owner has to give permission.

You stand more of a chance on ancestry as there are a lot more with trees made public to view by anyone

jax

It's not that we don't feel your pain, Helen!

I've actually been quite lucky .. apart from, once I have a response, having to persuade the skeptical fellow descendants of various grx2 or grx3 grandparents that my family, the lost tribe who went to Canada, really are their cousins. ;)

One I won't forget. In my early puppy-dog enthusiasm days, I sent off a message to someone and merrily opened my tree. No reply, and I forgot about it. A year later, I did some more searching, found those matches again, and also found that the person now had my grandmother (related only by marriage into our mutual family), my mother, and me!! in their tree. I sent another PM, again enquiring about our connection, and asking that those names be deleted from the tree. The person then opened the tree to me, said (in almost so many words) that they couldn't be bothered figuring out our relationship, and agreed to delete the names in question. Turned out the person's spouse and I share grx2 grandparents, not so very distant a relationship, but the spouse was apparently not remotely interested.

A couple of times I've followed up when I got no response. Now, I always carefully lay out the connection when I first write: you have X in your tree, who was the brother of my Y, who is my gr-grandparent, via my grandparent Z who immigrated to Canada, e.g. So when I followed up, I summarized it again, and just wondered whether they might now have a minute to check. Both times, people have thanked me for reminding them and happily confirmed our connection and told me a bit about their family.

So it's always worth trying again!

And remember, when contacting a match, always make it personal and give a brief run-down of the connection you have identified. As Sylvia says, those boilerplate "please show me your tree" messages are off-putting. ;)

Yes, I have been giving detaIls of the connection when writing to contacts, but I am now getting the feeling that their memberships have lapsed as most have not even opened their mail.
What are your feelings about Ancestry? They are more expensive, so are they better?

My own feelings about trees on Ancestry? Snork.

I've laid them out here:

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.page/board/chat/thread/1261838

(Two posts in that thread; I'm still halfway through commenting on the 48 trees with the nonsense in question in them -- I've checked and a couple of people have actually removed my ancestors from their trees.)

At least this place doesn't give you such moronic "hints" and doesn't allow you to just adopt its sillier Hot Matches into your tree holus bolus. ;)


Ancestry is way better for actual research, in terms of databases and search functions. But it's buyer beware for the family trees! And I'd never put my info anywhere that public, myself.

I agree there is a lot of rubbish on the trees on ancestry, but the same goes for this site.
If they have not made thier tree private at least you can get some idea and work out for yourself whether it is correct or not.

jax

So it is worthwhile just using it for research but not putting your tree on?

If you are going to subscribe to ancestry you may as well use it to build a tree.
I do not really have a tree on Genes only a few ancestors....then I found the tree layout difficult on here so I gave up

jax

I have just discovered the person who left GR when I contacted him (as I told on page 1) has returned, I have contacted him again, Hope i have not chased him away this time.

Thank goodness, it's not just you I was begining to get a complex as I've been having the same problem, very frustrating.

Interesting that Jax finds the tree layout difficult, I think it's really good, but that could be just me being a bit odd.

all very irritating especially when you are trying to pass on photos of their and our ancestors.
what is even worse are the few we have had who do respond and request access to your tree which they then copy in detail onto their tree and then block your acccess to their tree when they have the information... who needs relatives.
we have several photos of children of one family who open our messages but do not respond although it is clear that we are offering them the photos although one relatives did answer and kindly told us that he was not interested so why have a tree?
have a photo of a of an ancestor c. 1890 with several of her children which another relative declined as they were only interested in her brother and his family... all very odd.