Genealogy Chat

put some indication in your message of who you are talking about! I have just received an unheaded message which says 'yes, he is in my tree. What do you know about him?' OC

Hi OC I've had a couple of odd ones recently. I think some folks are seeing their Hot matches and assuming that I've contacted them. I've also had a couple of requests to view my tree with absolutely no explanation as to why. Jeanette x

Actually O.C. Ive had some which I have contacted through hotmatches and they have said Who are you contacting me about. I think point is, once upon a time, GR would include the name of the hotmatch automatically in the message you sent about them but now they dont. But the private messages that drive me up the wall is when you have made a reply on a thread to direct someone and as you know, like me you can have a dozen of them on the go, and you get a pm that says'Heather he was in Yorkshire when he married' Now, that means absolutely nothing to me so I dont answer.

I had one last week 'Who did your John Lee marry?' I replied saying that I have 17 John Lee's in my tree, do you have a date and an area? They replied saying, 'I think it might be in London, but I don't know when, which is why I was hoping you might help' Sandra

If you go into My Contacts and click on 'Date', the message will come at the top of the list. If you then click the little 'plus' sign you will see what previous correspondence you have had. (Sorry if I'm teaching Crone to suck eggs, but for those that don't know...)

Paul The thing is - I don't know what particular thing has sparked these mysterious replies - sometimes its a hot match, sometimes its part of an exchange of pms, sometimes its in response to something on a thread, and I am not particularly inclined to root through loads of stuff so I can work out what they are talking about! I have on average ten pms a day, besides the ones which are ongoing exchanges. My short term memory isnt brilliant and needs prompting. I have had a particularly heart rending pm recently, someone telling me all about her mother's terrible childhood. Problem is, I don't really know what sparked this pm, where I said anything relevant to the matter and what I have already said - if anything! GR is partly to blame of course - other forums won't let you send a message without a title. And I have hundreds of contacts on here, most of which are using different names to their board names AND there is no way of sorting them into useful groups. Moan over! OC

Paul........don't want to tiddle on your bonfire but that doesn't always work! lol I had a request to view my tree with no other info sent to me on the 17th of this month. It was from a female and as you know us ladies often have two surnames......maiden and married. I've just clicked on date and this lady doesn't appear for the date that I got her message. So does that mean that requests to view your tree aren't counted into the equation? Jeanette x

Doesn't half test your memory skills!

I've just had a similar message - 'Did your Annie b. 1864 marry John Garrett?' - and am I correct in thinking that private messages now seem not to have the name of the relation in the heading? This site is going to become such a mess if that happens.

hi all/oc...oc..when you send a message for a hot match,it states 'send a message to jean'...then, it has a seperate box with a heading,...ie.. thomas jones 1818.......i just send a message asking details regarding thomas.....are you all saying that we should start our message ..re-thomas jones b 1818 in your tree.....?? and then ask for details....i just presumed when i send a hot match request,that the name and date of birth has been included in the heading.....puzzled as usual.....allan

According to GR 'support', the changes to the contacts system have been put in place as a result of ''extensive consultation with GR members'' !!!!!!!! Reg

The following observations are based on the use of the system over the past week:- There was a bug in the system which caused your own tree to display when you clicked on the little green tree against a contacts name. From checks made this morning against a selection of trees I have access to , this bug appears to have been fixed. There is a bug which causes previously deleted contacts to re-appear in your list. On observation, this seems to happen only with previously deleted contacts. OC believes has mentioned an example where a member can access her tree, although it is showing as closed on her own contacts list. I don't have any evidence of this personally but if it is happening, then GR need to be advised of the specific details. The system will not let you send a message now without a heading. Try and blank it and see what happens when you press send. If you make a connection via a Hot Match, then the first name on the list, if there is more than one, goes into the heading automatically, but you can override that. If you make a connection from a search then that name automatically goes into the message headed. If you send a social message then you should enter an appropriate heading. Where N/A appears in the Relation column, this means that you have previously made contact with someone, which could be regarding a name, but the name has now been removed, or you have had an ad-hoc social message with someone in the past, without linking to a specific name. The first time you make contact with someone, messages made against a name will show that name in the relation column with the persons dob, messages against a different name, where you have previously had contact will show in the message heading, but the relation name will not be updated and will continue to show Social messages made for the first time since the upgrade apparently show the name of the recipient in the relation column. Some members have objected to this and have asked GR to change it to something more anonymous. I haven't found a way of updating the relation name once it has been set. As Reg states, the Contacts modifications were made as a result of members suggestions. These were canvassed at the begining of January this year. The main recommendation that has not been implemented is the provision of a folder system.

come on give us a break .i'm an oap new to computers .i have someone called scarlet helping me this morning and i must be driving her nuts as i keep posting stuff in the wrong place .i'm not the one who has posted to you but she could well be a learner like me .

Please note everybody - my original message was posted in February(look at the date) and predates the latest round of hiccups on this site. It was, anyway, nothing to do with the site, but everything to do with the person sending the message, whatever it was about - no heading means I often don't know what you are talking about. From what Peter says, this problem has now been resolved. OC