Genealogy Chat

GypsyJoe

Re your suggestion about monitoring activity on a tree to see is someone is still active on the site



I have made no changes to my tree on GR for at least a year, and probably longer.


yet I am on the site almost every day, helping on the Community Boards.


Monitoring tree activity would not tell you that.





sylvia

pittsy


The matchings of names and birth years but not birth place is one of the worst aspects of Hot Matches


I have a Mary Smith in my tree, born in Preston Bissett, Buckinghamshire ........ she's matched with every flippin' Mary Smith there could be!


But, as has been pointed out several times ............ the problem with birth places is that not everyone inputs birth place, and, most certainly, not everyone does it in the same way.

To write a computer programme that would make allowance for every possible variant of Preston Bissett, Buckinghamshire, England, for example, would be almost impossible.



The fact that the computer matches Hot Matches for your tree only for the first 100 names means that you receive the same HM's time and time again. Made more complicated for me in that most of the trees on this site that have the best matches with me have been compiled using the information that I provided in the first place!



sylvia

Thanks everyone for their valuable comments. I do get a lot from hot matches but unfortunately a direct match to one of my relatives (huge brick wall for over 20 years) came up several months ago and I was so excited. I have responded a couple of times but the person has not. Probably no longer at Genes. I can only hope that they return one day. I seem to get a lot more than most for some reason and I have had a good look at my current list and I seem to get matched with the name and correct birthdate but the hot match often has a blank for place of birth whereas mine has a place of birth. Often there seems to be a pattern for instance if I have a John Smith B1856 Devon - I get every John Smith B1856 with no place of birth. I have also learnt over the years that once I have a good honest contact that we exchange personal email addresses and home addresses after a time so that if something happens we can still keep in contact. This happened once when a elderly distant cousin in Essex and who had corresponded for years with must have either passed away or !!! and my emails were not answered. It was very sad as we had both helped each other with so much family tree information.
Pittsy

Every now and again, I find that I have been logged out of GR or out of one of my other sites


I swear (usually silently) when that happens


if means I have to find my little notebook in which I keep the record of user name AND password for a particular site.



I hate it when that happens!

and that is one of the reasons why I never log out of sites!



sylvia

Scotlandspeople logs everyone out if you have been idle on their site for a certain length of time, something which I find very annoying because it is usually when I have been checking through my research against the recent records found and on my return to the computer screen find I have to log in again.

It is possible to collate the information but if using log in then everyone would have to be logged out when navigating away from the page.

Still surely there must be a way even if your logged in to monitor if there is any activity on a particular tree - I'm not a techie but I'm pretty sure there are ways of doing this. I know with our work programs if it's idel for a certain amount of time then it automaically loggs us out while this is not what we want there's still something monitoring the fact that the page or site has been idle.

I understand where you are coming from but what if the member never logged out when they last visited the site. I never log out and just as a test visited a site I haven't visited for over 6 months and was still log in. The only way to enable your idea to work Gypsyjoe is to automatically log everyone out when they navigate away from the site so that the autoresponder would recognise that a member has not visited for awhile.

I wouldn't like to be logged out because I am hopeless with passwords.

Sorry maybe I didn't explain it properly.

Think of it like an out of office message when you're not in the office to read your e-mails.

If I was to send an e-mail to someone that hasn't logged on for some time then if there was an automated message from GR that bounced back allerting me to the fact then I would know not to expect anything but if I did it would be a bonus.

Does that make sense?

Gypsyjoe

Is'nt recieving an email an alert then GypsyJoe?

jax

Maybe gene's needs to have some sort of alert that notifies one if they are trying to contact someone who has not logged in for some time.

There must be a way to flag when a member has been idle.

Also give people time to reply after they have read your message. I open post as soon as I can, but if it's a bit complicated I may not do a proper investigation and reply for a few days.

Sylvia

Great idea. At least now I know about the purple letterbox meaning they are not opened. If I click on a hot match and realise it is not a match I delete it so I don't get it back again.

Pittsy
;-)

Pittsy


as long as their tree remains, then you will keep getting Hot Matches.


I would guess that many of them have new email addresses that they have not given to GR .................... they may still be on the site!


Hot Matches are not reciprocal .................. you get a Hot Match but the other person does not get a Hot Match with you at the same time (maybe never!).



Maybe you should keep a list of names of people you have contacted but not heard back from so that you can refer to it when you get more HMs






sylvia

Just went through my sent boxes and I have heaps which have a purple unopened envelope next to them so I guess this means they have never got them. Perhaps if they rejoin at some stage they will come back as hot matches once again.

Pittsy ;-)

No ..............

GR never removes any member, nor any of their trees, and those trees are included in the Hot Match search




sylvia

Thanks Jax and Sylvia - helps explain why. I had assumed that only current members were included. Appreciate your help.

Pittsy :-)

Pittsy


there have umpteen threads on this very same topic over the years. At least 2 in the last week


There are allegedly over 11 million members on site. Most of those are Free members because that is how GR started back in 2002 (when it was known as Genes Connected).

A Standard subscription was introduced in 2003 when the name was changed to Genes Reunited, but the Free memebrship is still available.

The free membership allows one to load a tree, get Hot Matches, receive pms from other members, and read the Community Boards but not post on them.

If a subscribing member does not renew, GR drops them down to Free, and their tree remains on site. GR never deletes a member nor deletes their tree, except in some rare instances of members being banned for some reason.


This has been listed on the internet as the best site for setting up a tree .......... but only for that!


The 11 million is the accumulative number of members


I reckon that the actual number of active members is probably less than 100,000, may be as low as 10,000


If you check your Sent messages, andf the envelope is still purple, that means it has not been opened

reasons for that include:-

1. Member lost interest but has not removed tree

2. Member very sick, or dead. Family does not know about tree on GR, or is not interested enough to remove it

3. Member may check back at irregular intervals .......... I've heard of one who checks back once a year, and someone posted a couple of days ago on another thread like this, that they had received an answer after 2 years.

4. Mmeber has changed home email address but has not notified GR of the change ..... so messages from GR are going into the ether.



If the envelope in your Sent mesages is green, it means that the other person has opened the pm, but who knows why they have decided not to answer you.

If that is the case, you may wish to send another pm, making sure that you explain clearly why you think you may be connected.



sylvia

There are many reasons why you may not get a reply if the envelope is still purple that is
Change of email address or sadly died the site has been going since 2002 people also lose interest.
I sent a message to my dad a few months ago on here, he has'nt replied either doubt whether he knows how to get into his emails and I think he has changed it since adding his name anyway.

Dont worry I am not trying to find him, he is only down the road I was just practising to see if I got a reply

jax

I find it very frustrating when you contact someone who shares the same person and they do not respond. Cannot understand why they have joined Genesreunited if they don't want to exchange information. Very frustrating.
A simple response is all that is needed.

Is anyone else experiencing the same problems.

Pittsy