Genealogy Chat

Probably a silly question, but I have at least 25 matches with two people, and that is from me checking each name against who I match with, not due to them appearing in my hot matches.

If they are not appearing in my hot matches, would I not be appearing in theirs? I am just starting to wondering to why sometimes with such bug numbers of Hot Matches that I don't get contacted more often! I know sometimes people aren't interested but I'm just curious!

Hi AG08,

From earlier postings on these boards about Hot Matches I believe (I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong) that the system randomly picks names from your tree and then matches them to other names but not necessarily vice a versa.

So in other words if we both had a John Smith in our trees and the system picks up my John smith and matches him with your tree you won't know about mine until the system picks your John Smith and then matches it to my tree.

I know it sounds confusing but I understand were you are coming from. I have 26 pages of Hot Matches and I have had only 1 contact from another member from a Hot match.

Gai

Yes, that is correct.

The system select 100 names from your tree each time it runs the HotMatch program and checks for matches. The 100 names selected from another member who has matches with you may or may not include some of those 100.

In practice, I do most of my matching manually, so most Hotmatches that pop up I know about already, but every now and again HotMatches comes up with something I haven't yet spotted.

The selection of which names are checked is "random" in the sense that GR don't say how they are selected. My guess is that they are taken in the order that they have been added to the database.

Thanks everyone, it would be nice if it genuinely compared all people and trees to see a match, it's only a tinker of the computer program to do that..

Oh well, I live in hope! Mind you I can't quite understand why people who you obviously match with don't want to contact you...sometimes I wonder if there is a problem with my ancestors that I dont know about...!!

I know where you are coming from with the contact side of things. I had a Hot match with a member so I made contact and gave as many details as I had to help them check if we were a match. Well I got a reply back which said No Match No further contact required. So I thought far enough not a problem we don't match but I still feel it was a bit curt.

Well now I have 6 matches to this persons tree and I know I could give them so much more information but I certainly won't be contacting them. They can contact me or find it themselves.

Also what annoys me about Hot Matches as I'm in Australia and a number of relatives were born here and I have the correct place of birth in my tree but I get matches for people with the same name in the UK.

I think it would be great if there was a country field that you filled in when entering details on your tree and then only received matches were people were born in the same country.

Gai

Gai ...............

The problem with that is that not everyone enters the same geographical information in the same way


........ and GR has said in the past that it is too difficult to set up a program that will search based on all geographical factors

Many of my father's ancestors come from one of 3 small villages in Buckinghamshire

those family members in trees on this site are added as Bucks, Buckingham, Buckinghamshire, PB, Preston Bissett, Preston Bisset, Edgecott, Edgcott, Edgecot, Hillesden, Hillsden ........ and any and all combinations of those! With England added willy nilly



I have noticed over the years, that about 95% of the Hot Matches I get are from members to whom I have supplied the information ..... and the original contact resulted from me getting the Hot Match with one person in their tree.

........... and I often get those same Hot Matches repeated, and repeated and repeated ...... even when neither of us has made any changes

I have been contacted about twice by other members sayng that they have a Hot Match with me




sylvia

One of the problems with matching programs is that they require huge computer resources if all possibilities are to be covered.

I was an analyst & project manager with the financial services dept of a major bank and we had several such applications, some checking and matching names and addresses, others financial information.

We had exactly the same problem with different spellings and whilst 'intelligent matching' can be programmed, it isn't foolproof and still requires the human to have the final say. Having a list of place names to choose from when entering is fine, but gets blown clean out of the water when you allow gedcom files to be uploaded. To make it even worse members are uploading gedcoms with no Dob or Pob at all, and in some cases only part of a name. How on earth are you supposed to handle that in a matching program.....!

Adding more checking criteria also increases the computer resource requirement dramatically and there comes a point where you hit diminishing returns. For GR to check all names in all members databases against each other each time would require a computer the size of NASA's, which is presumably why they restrict it to 100 names at a time.

Hot Matches is not perfect, we know that, but recognise its shortcomings and it still can be a useful aid.

Incidentally no manner of changes to the way it works will alter the fact that some members never bother to reply.

Hi Gai,

Yes I have one person and I have 29 matches with but they insist that we are not looking at the same people even though the names, dates of birth and small county in England all line up...it's a bit odd I don't any of the relatives were dastardly criminals never to be claimed!

Re the country of origin...it would simple enough for them to incorpoare a country into the details and the user select from a given list only. Appreciate that it might mean a bit more work for GR but the site would be more useful, and most people pay for the privelage of using GR, it would be good to have upgrades to the system from time to time! I mean if Ancestry etc can have a drop down list why can't GR?

Oh well guess it's a topic that will keep coming up, it's just a shame that you have to do manual name searches to really locate the matches that you have!

Thanks everyone for your input.

As I said before, selecting the country from a list is ok for manual data entry but doesn't cater for gedcom uploads, so it's back to square one again.

Oh well IGP we can always dream. Even though the system isn't perfect, it's better than nothing.

I'm just wondering does FMP have some kind of Hot Match system with their program or not? I'm thinking of taking out another subscription but can't make up my mind whether it's Ancestry or FMP. Any advice greatly appreciated.

Gai

Sorry IGP did not mean to annoy you, I was just thinking aloud so to speak.

Hi Piglets Pal,

I share your pain.

I believe I'm the only person in the world that is actively searching my line and most only have the surname in their tree because one of their distant relatives married one of mine. If I get one more I'm sorry their name is only in my tree for completeness then I'm going to scream.

Chin up and we can only hope there are brighter days ahead.

Gai