Genealogy Chat

I am not sure where to put this, but here seems as good a place as any.
I have started to plough through my latest batch of hot matches (normally, as I suspect with most people, there is nothing even remotely warm) - this time I clicked on the first one; five matches, identical to my tree, so sent message. Clicked on second; another five matches; WOW. Clicked on third; four identical matches...... and so and and so forth. I have sent messages to the people involved up to this point, but frankly am feeling a little uneasy!!!
Maybe this is just my lucky week, and I should enjoy it whilst it lasts!! However, has anybody else suddenly had a massive surge in "hot" and real matches? Or is my tree floating around in cyber space somewhere for all to see

What may have happened is that someone found/had the details and passed them around.
Hot matches do tend to come in batches I have found.

Thank you for the reply - yes, I am rather concerned because I did let someone view my tree a couple of weeks ago, and have heard nothing from them since. Now there seem to be oodles of people who have my tree details. I am not a happy person!
By the way - one of the hot matches even has my father's details and he is still alive.
Why would anybody just add names to their tree without verifying that they were correct?

I find if I've added or changed parts of my tree, I will hear from people from those parts of my tree next time I get hot matches, whether I am in contact with them or not.
I don't get as many non matches as I did when I started my tree 2yrs ago. I've noticed these non matches seem to come from the 19th centuary when we are using the census, as I've gradually moved past this point in the 17th & 18th centuaries it happens less often.

I agree Amanda - but the worrying bit was my father appearing in people's trees that I have never heard of. This sometimes may not be so unusual, but as my maiden name is so unusual, and any direct relations have always been known because of circumstances which I won't divulge here, then I am upset and angry

I used to get so many hot matches it would take me about 30 minutes to go through them one by one. About 90% would turn out to be irrelevant and the others would belong to existing contacts.

I got round this by having on my GR tree only the names I was researching at that time and who I would welcome new information on.

I now get no more that 10 - 12 names.

Amanda

Hi Sally, I had a hot match once with all my family names on it when I asked was he related he said "no I just like collecting names" !!! makes you mad but WHY Chris.

I think the GR system sends out Hot Matches in batches.

I often find that the set contain matches to the same few names while if I do a search myself I sometimes find a match which has never turned up in a Hot Match.

So it is all a bit random.

As for the problem of finding living relations in another tree, that is best avoided by not having them on your own GR tree or on any other online tree.

Sue

This happened to me Sally. I emailed the person concerned and told them of my concern re privacy etc etc and of course genes reunited has a privacy policy stating which says - "You must have permission to include any living individual's details and photos in your family tree." I pointed this out saying I would report them to GU, and the live people were removed quick smart.

Hope this helps
Angie

How strange. I wonder where they could have obtained your father's name?