Find Ancestors

Due to GR's new system, I cant find the previous thread so Ill start another.

People on here are more than willing to help you find ancestors/rellies but so many posters fail to give full details of what they actually know already - this leads helpers to wasting time researching wrong lines or covering information already known.

PLEASE help us to help you by giving ALL the salient details that you know already.

Read and bookmark! --

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.asp?wci=thread&tk=717892

"TIPS FOR NEWBIES, PLEASE READ"


Giving all the salient details to start with will ensure that people who answer don't treat you like you're a dunce who wouldn't have actually investigated the obvious before asking for help. ;)

Oh and please acknowledge/thank those who have spent time and sometimes money looking for the info for you.

x

Please check your thread within a very short time after posting it -- if someone is going to be able to help you, help will usually come within the hour.

And very often, no matter how complete the information you give, further information or confirmation will be needed so that the person(s) helping don't go off on pointless tangents, or search for things you do already know.

You may also find, if you don't come back and check within the hour, that any posters will lose interest and not bother helping further. That is a shame but it will happen!

Please also make sure that you have searched free sites - like FreeBMD - for the info already. And say that you've looked there. It does not go down too well if you "couldn't be bothered" to look for yourself. I don't keep a very long blacklist but I do keep a blacklist ...

LOL Jill, I think we all have black lists.

Freebmd is very easy to use and its so much more exciting to find things for yourself. Do remember you need to buy certificates to ensure you are following the correct line. Otherwise you could end up hundreds of years back on a completely wrong one. It happens all the time. Apart from that, who would want just a long list of names without using other facilities to put flesh on the bones.

If you are new, do nip over to the Tips Board and read up on the Thread Tips for Newbies (and other tips threads)- it will give you tips on all the other sources available to find more info on your ancestors.

...also a small pet hate of mine...

If you DON'T get any reply within say 2 hours, please don't start a fresh post, please nudge the original post... you may have been unlucky and we all either went for a cuppa at the same time or there was a rush of queries and you slipped off the first page fast!

If you must start a fresh post, say for instance you have changed your query, please reference the original thread and let us know whats been proved or disregarded

Thanks x

Well said Heather!!

I've only just seen your thread but even this afternoon, I was thinking to myself "I really can't be bothered to reply to yet another person who hasn't even given an approximate date or place of birth!!"

Most of my replies start with either 'Have you checked Freebmd' or 'Approximately where/when was this person born?'

In fact the best one was this afternoon. Someone asked for help finding family, someything like "Help Finding Family Required*. Need to find the family of John, Fred and Joe". When asked for more info, they said,''Well they come from Milton Keynes if that is any help'.

I replied 'Well a surname would be a start...' and we still are waiting fo that surname!

*names and places have been changed to protect the innocent!!

Sam x

For Lynn

Sam,. what I cant understand are those who seem desperate to find people, you give them the census information from 1901-1841 plus all bmds and never hear a word or see them back on the thread!

Or they say they know "nothing" - you produce a page of info and suddenly they remember they knew all of that!

Good thread Heather!

It NEEDS to be said/told.

I also get PMs saying something like.....
"His name was Smith"

Who?? what??? where???

I, like all of you check ALL the boards and i dont just pick one question and follow that even if it spans a 6 week period!

PM me yes....but please remind me of your original queston?

Phew! that feels better getting that off me chest! lol

Gerri x

The missing surname story -- yet another one most of us here have just seen. (Missing a few other things too, but a surname is the biggie.)

The poster gets to a trying-to-find-surname "board" by clicking on the surname in his/her personal list. When the post is composed, the surname is sitting there in a subject line. When the post is submitted, it appears on that surname "board", and the poster thinks all is well.

Meanwhile, outside the surname-board cave in the light of day, we all see it on the general trying-to-find board, with no surname attached. The poster has no idea why we are in a snit about the missing surname: s/he is still using the surname filter and thinks we're all hanging around on the Smith or Jones or Rasputin surname board being fools. What else would the surname be?

What we should do is encourage every poster this happens to, to submit a complaint to GenesReunited. Standard form that could be used:

I posted a request for information about a family with surname [put surname here]. When my post appeared on the Trying to Find board, there was no surname in the post or the subject. As a result, people who could have helped me find information probably didn't bother, because they had no idea what surname my request related to. Please fix this problem.

Sam -- I'm going to put your comment from that other thread here:

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Sorry Kath, even though I'm obviously not, I didn't know you were psychic....(just joking!)

I wasn't aware that Genes worked like that, all I see are the requests looking for "John who married Jane" etc etc etc

This site is rubbish if it doesn't make it clear that even though you are posting on a particular surname board, that surname doesn't appear to most people!

All I can see is "I believe Alfred married someone called Victoria anyone no for sure?"

I have been a member on here now for about 4 years and I've only just learned that it works in that way...

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Explains a lot, doesn't it? A lot of people aren't actually as stupid as GR is making them look!

OMG yes Gerri !!!

How many PM's have i had that simply say he was from Lancashire.....

Who?? who was from Lancashire.... is the reply.

Then comes back the reply my grandad....

...well that clears that one up. So i normally reply with something sarcastic like well congrats you now know where your grandad came from, is there anything else i can help you with...

I like the silence....

hahahaha

Btw, Heather, what happened to your other thread is that it got deleted. Countdown ...

"PM me yes....but please remind me of your original queston?"

Actually -- DON'T pm ME! I hate it!!!!!

My standard answer now is not even to bother trying to figure it out -- sometimes it relates to threads weeks old that someone has just thought to check (and lucky me, I was the one who said JANE WHO?? FROM WHERE??).

Now I just say: Please copy this info and put it in a post in your thread -- click My Threads and you will see it -- type in the Add Reply box -- submit -- everybody, not just me, will have the info then.

LOL Wayne

Your a better man than me matey! cos if i started being sarcastic...i wouldnt know when to stop! so i just ignor lol

BTW I'm not a man lol

Gerri AKA Geraldine

May I just add ...

DO NOT TYPE YOUR POSTS, OR YOUR SUBJECT LINES, IN ALL CAPITALS.

Not you, Heather.

Of course, I can't stop there.

If you really really can't punctuate your posts, please please make friends with the "Enter" key and at least break your thoughts up into separate lines ... preferably with some white space in between ...

Kath

If anyone goes to a PM with me...I copy n past the replies back onto the thread. I tell them what i have done.

Gerri x