Genealogy Chat

I am finding it more and more difficult to communicate with members who appear to have my relatives in their family trees :-( Very few members actually respond to messages - it can't always be my fault, can it? Out of the last half-dozen messages only one has responded.

Am I right in thinking that everyone who is able to create their family tree has paid a subscription? If so then they must have at least some interest in genealogy, or again am I being naive :-S

If anyone contacts me, then I do have, at least, the courtesy and manners to respond, even if it's negative.

Sue

Lots of family trees on GR belong to Free (Lapsed) members who perhaps have changed their email address since ceasing to pay GR subscriptions.

GR will forward your message to the email address that they have for whoever you are trying to contact but if the email address GR has for them is no longer current then the notification will not get through.

Susan


It is possible to have a free membership on GR, and use that merely to build your family tree, search trees but not send messages to other members, receive pms from other members and reply to those.

In addition, any paid member who does not re-subscribe is dropped down to the Free level .......... GR does not remove any trees. That has to be done by the member concerned


I believe that there may well be more Free members on GR than paid.


People may not respond for varied reasons ...................

............. some have said they only check GR once a year or every 2 years

.............. lost interest

.............. changed email address but not notified GR, so do not receive any communications

............... have become seriously ill or incapacitated

............... have died


In the last 2 cases, no-one else may know about the GR tree, the email address may have been given up, and no-one can remove the tree unless the person has given all access details to a family member or friend.


Have you checked to see if your messages have been opened????


Go into Messages

Click on Sent Items


If there is a green envelope by the side of a message ............... the message has not been opened

If there is no green envelope ............... the message has been opened




sylvia

No mention of bad manners !

It is not just GR where this happens.I have written to 2 people on Ancestry and got no response,and they are both checking in daily according to the site

awwwww,
Sometimes people just get too many messages,,,esp if they don't check them daily....and it just seems quicker to ignore or delete them...

It does happen on all sites...
ALOT of people only seem to reply if they think YOU have something THEY need and not the other way round....

Also (not saying you) but I get messages on Ancestry that have no Hello or anything,,,,just...""""I have John in my tree """"
I have about 4 trees so no idea which John or where...
I ignore them....

Some people just do not with to make contact etc....
IF there was a way to turn the "contact" option off it might make it easier for everyone..

Kellie

When trying to contact someone who you think has got a rellie in common with you,

If you don't give enough info when you make contact then don't be surprised if you are ignored,

You may think this is bad manners but i also say it's bad manners to be too idle to ask for something without the necessary info,

We see it on the boards all the time where people are reluctant to give members the info they require to be able to help,
When asking for info or a look up and other members respond to their calls for help and then after spending possibly hours trying to gain more info, we get the response sorry i am new, when their profile says they have been a member for years
New or old members cannot be helped without the relevant info,
This can be very frustrating for people trying to help

If the person you are contacting cannot identify where the connection is they may reply with a message asking for more info to clarify the link,

I over the years got fed up of having to beg people who CONTACTED ME for info to clarify the link only to be met with a negative and sometimes abusive response
They tend to either not no but rather assume a link on a name basis only with no other info as to place, dob, death, or marriage details

I now ignore any requests that are not specific enough for me to find the link immediately,

Even with all the correct info i will only ever give minimal info to help them with their research,

My tree is my tree, it is all my own work and backed up with all the relevant documents and i have no desire to copy anyone Else's work,

I only share my tree with very close family and i only have a basic tree on hear and a couple of other sites,

My full tree is on my pc plus backup cd's

Roy

Just because someone has a tree on here or on Ancestry it does not mean that they have to reply.

There are a few folk who just use these sites to store their tree, and do not necessarily want or need contact with others.

I gave up some time ago expecting any contact on either site.

And I would also like to add to Porkie Pie''s(whose thread I thoroughly agree with) thread, you can also put too much.

When contacting think KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid (much used in computer speak)
1: Name person you think you are connect through including dates if known
2: Spouse - do not go into too much detail of family or children
3: Parents of person
4: Area where your family came from

Area is something not to be discounted. One branch of my family came from Battersea - now this can be listed as London, Surrey, Lambeth and Wandsworth. So can be very confusing. :-)

Hi everyone. Sorry I haven't responded earlier, I wasn't aware that notification is not a part of the GR service and this is the first time I've used this part of GR. Have now been advised, so I apologise to everyone for the delay in responding.

I've always tried to make things simple in asking people for information, or offering to extend their information, and yes I have checked that the messages are unopened. I do agree with Porkie Pie, - minimal tree on here and nothing at all on Ancestry. Too many people just name-collect.

Ah well, they'll just have to do without the information I can supply - found by me, and verified.

Thanks again for your replies, and apologies for the delay.

Whilst i agree with everything above..including the name collectors and the Takers who give nothing back......and it is very annoying to do a lot of work and get no acknowledgement.there is another factor i have met personally.

O lot of people who ask for help are Newbies.....who find the Boards..ask for help and CAN'T FIND THEIR WAY BACK, because the two main Boards..this one and "Find Ancestors" are so fast moving that the original plea for help can be three pages down within 24 hours...It is ludicrous to suggest that people stay at their desk until they get a reply for a whole host of reasons....So 24 hours later our Newbies can't find their Thread........

Strictly for Newbies...........if you've posted a thread.always use "My Threads" to get back to it, and no matter how long you've been away.it will be there.......and will save you scrolling down several pages.
EDIT and some peope are fazed that when they come on the page..an old message appears at the top.......so click on "Post Date" will bring the latest message to the top.
..of course, if you're one of those name grabbing arrogant selfish and ungenerous peeps...........just move on..

Derek

Derek

I would have to disagree with your comment about the boards being 'fast-moving'

Compared with a few years ago - the pace now is funereal

'fast-moving'

hardly - when you consider just how many members this site is supposed to have I would say that on average there are only about 100-200 regular members who use these boards (with the exception of Find Ancestors/Living).

Very rare to get new or unique queries or new people contributing to the general chat boards.

:-)

One of my Ancestors is being researched on Ancestry. Problem is that all of those who have trees on there have the wrong person as there are 2 people of that name born in a different area of the county.

I wrote ot all of them [23 people] proving that the one they have infact never married. A search of the census records proved this and only 2 of them acknowledged my email. Strange thing is that ALL of them have changed the details.

Alan, Another very good reason why it's best to " Do your own research " and not to just copy some one else's fantasy tree

Roy

The other day i went into Search trees and put in a name that i think may be ass. with my family, the person wrote back saying that the person was born in 1857 which i knew, she married joe bloggs and said how many children they had, so i wrote back with information from their Marraige cert asking if that was the same person she was looking for (the same day) but got no reply not even a no or thanks. Getting tired of trying to help now.
Betty.

With respect to waiting at the desk for a response, or acknowledging a response received, I would point out that some members are based overseas. I'm in Australia and here in Western Australia we are 7 hours ahead of UK time

Allan

Betty


have you checked to see that she has actually opened your message?

Hi SylviaInCanada,

Yes she opened the post about 2 hours later.
The two people are the same people because she replied to the first message as i had queried the person that her rellie married, but the females name is mistranscribed on the marraige cert.
Both names are not very common here in Ireland and my rellie has the same surname as hers, my rellie on 1901 census says that she is a widow but she never married living with her daughter and two grandsons, but she had only one daughter and the other persons rellie married a gentleman with the same name as second grandson on census, so my query was if the grandson??? might have been the son of her rellie.
Betty.

What an interesting thread. Although I have been with GR for some years I have only really got the hang of it in the last year or so. Thanks everyone for your very helpful additions - I have certainly learnt some practical tips to help me.
Do people find it annoying when someone has their living relatives hidden as I have? I have received the odd message expressing frustration. So what I do now is tell them my late mother's name so they at least know where I am in my tree. I hope newbies to GR are not using their real names in posts and that you know that you are not supposed to have living relatives in your tree without their permission? All this must help, I am sure, with preventing identity fraud etc. ;-)

Sue

I've never heard anyone frustrated because of Living relatives being hidden.


In fact, they are not really hidden .........

...................... if someone puts the name of a living person in the Search Trees and that name is on your tree but hidden by GR, then it will come up in the Search, and the person will be directed to your tree.


To be really hidden, the real name should not be used at all ................ and the person called Living Person (or some such).


I believe the same thing happens on ancestry.



sylvia

My GR tree has living people hidden, but I also don't put some names on there... I have lots of (living) people called "Private" with "X" as a first name. I don't have my siblings on my GR tree.

I found my OH's famiily (his parents, siblings & some children) on a website. I sent a message to the owner of the tree, asked him to remove living people from a public website. He has not responded. OH has no idea who this person is :-P