Genealogy Chat

hello everyone, I have read this thread tonight with interest. I have only been a member for about 9 months, but my family tree is very well advanced, so I am not really a newbie. I have rarely asked for help as I enjoy searching the net for things myself. I feel that it's not 'my' tree if I haven't tried hard to work it out myself. I got my own ancestry membership to help with those uk census records and I have loved that. I understand the feelings that people have expressed on this thread, but I must say that I will miss knowing the expertise and help that you provide will no longer be there (would love to know where you're going). But the thing I must admit to loving the most about this thread, was that you all took the time and effort to type properly! I find it really difficult reading some of the posts on these boards. If it takes me 2 or 3 times to read it to understand it, I'm not that inclined to go further with it. Thanks to all those people who have have taken the time to help others with their research. It's an addictive, but enjoyable and rewarding hobby. I send my best wishes to those 'oldies' and hope that those elusive ancestors turn up one day. Sharon

I would echo Olde Crone's sentiments I think genes is a good site for beginners and newbies with computers. It is also useful if you want to make contact with lost family members reuniting genes rather than family history. As an experiment the other day I arranged my tree matches in chronological order and was suprised how recent most of the entries were. I don't think it is indispensible. Tribal pages offers a good free tree building site. If any of your shared tree contacts are willing they could load their gedcom to tribal pages and give you a visitors password. I think rootschat also free has a lot to offer the more experienced family historian. It has a very good section on photo restoration as well as county boards and general discussion boards. Ancestry has now got a good personal tree builder which finds matches with one world tree and other ancestry members and looks for census and other records automatically. I particularly like the timeline for each individual. Finally I would like to put in a plug for family treeforum it has message boards much like here and also a gedcom data base which can be searched by name and place. If you want to keep up with many former and current genes members send a personal message for an invitation to take a look. Anne

I know it isn't a gripe thread but i just have to add this, I would be the first to admit that i did get a lot of help on the boards but i posted questions to help me learn how to search for techniques, a couple of census requests before i got the ancestry sub but never went to the extremes that some people do with the bmd searches. Whilst not everyone can devote lots of time to this hobby what i do find really annoying are some of the bmd lookup requests. And anyway is there a prize for the fastest tree builder? If someone can spend a few minutes typing the post for a pre 1910 lookup, get a reply then post another request (and another one) then they would be better typing the names into freebmd.It is just as easy there as it is here and the results are in full colour along with district descriptions and scans of most of the images. It is almost like a 'can't look, won't look' attitude, Glen

OC A very hearty hear hear!! I have never considered myself indispensible! Far from it. Well, I have now made my decision after this exchange of views and I am actually looking forward in a very few days now, to just reading the boards and letting someone else answer all those queries, wondering how I ever got myself into this mode of trying to solve other people's family history problems on GR. But no, I will not be leaving the Family History arena, as I do already run a Family History Group to which I will continue to give more of my time, so I won't be escaping entirely, and I would not want to escape entirely, it is too addictive! But GR is certainly not stretching my Family History interest. I just wish it would cater for those more experienced Family Historians, but maybe one day......who knows? Janet

Louise I believe GR is an excellent site for beginners - but of very little use to those who are further on with their research. What Janet is saying - and I agree with her - that the likes of us, the ones who have been researching before the internet was even dreamed of, and have lots of expertise, spend most of our time helping other people to search out information, which many times they could find for themselves with little effort. No Newbie EVER seems to look at the Getting Started Section, which explains how to do many things - how and where to get a certificate, which censuses are available and where, and so on.And many other queries could be answered by reference to a dictionary or an atlas - both on line if you don't possess one at home. We were all beginners once, even me, lol. But I really cannot see any point in me paying to belong to this site, when all I get from it is the ability to answer other people's queries. I have had lots of help in the past, with specific lookups etc. Most of those helpers have now gone elsewhere - and I have gone with them. I am quite sure GR will survive without the likes of me and Janet, and the many other people who have decided not to renew when the time comes. OC

I have browsed through a lot on the tips section as well as the records sectiion. I have been a 'member' for some years and a full member since the end of November and have been astounded at the amount of information I have gleaned. Occasionally I have had some 'pompous twit saying 'look it up yourself it is much more fun'. Yes it is if you have the time but I see researchers 'pleading' to let them look things up for you, and if they have a subscription to a particular site and they enjoy it, why not? I always make a point of thanking them even if they could not help. Some people dont I know, but hey, thats human nature isn't it? If you read the 'success stories'....you will see how valuable GR is.....its not expensive compared to other sites. Good luck to everyone and thank you all for a valuable service! Gan Canny

Peter If what you are saying is that only full members can communicate with other full members, and non paying members cannot reply - then it makes a nonsense out of letting non paying members build a tree! No one will ever be able to get in touch with them. Mind you, sounds like par for the course... OC

Ann in Glos Over the years I have contributed many items to the Tips Board in particular, with a lot of input on Ireland, as I am a bit of a specialist in this area and one in particular 'First Steps in Researching Irish Family History' will disappear with me going from this site, unless people resurrect it from time to time, but this is extremely doubtful. I have paid my annual membership almost from the beginning and I have asked for information about 5 times at the most in all those years, and this has usually been in the technology areas of the computer like information on GEDCOM or Firewalls rather than actual Family History questions. The rest of the time, I have given my time freely to the boards, answering queries. I think that Genes have had more than their pound of flesh out of me! The Boards do give good information at times, though if more of the expert advice disappears, then these boards will be of little use, and there has been creeping in lately some very bad advice from some members, so I certainly do not think it would be in GR's interest to bar people from looking at and reading the boards. Who knows I might be so annoyed at the bad advice that I might rejoin! Stopping me from replying will do me a favour, as if I can't reply then the temptation to try to help others will be taken from me. However, I am not sure that that is in the best interest of Family History or Genes to actually stop me from giving help to others. It might be better if I could still offer help. I am not very interested in the Tree side as I have sorted most of mine anyway and I only have a few names on this site, which are judiciously spaced to give me maximum coverage, as I am just looking for specific links, none of which are forthcoming on this site at the moment. All my links have been made through other sites. I have made one only on here. I do not think that Genes would want to close people off entirely as so many links would then get lost. Janet

Are you sure? It used to be the case but has been removed from the T's and C's sometime over the past year. UPDATE Having looked again and checked the FAQ's it appears that Standard Members CAN reply to messages, so I stand corrected.

It was suggested earlier the 'Standard Members' could reply to messages from 'Full Members'. I don't believe they can any more.

I stopped coming here for quite a while, popping across from time to time it seems a completey different site to the one i used to enjoy. I don't respond to many of the lookup requests now because of what appears to be a 'hardcore' of people who continually ask for bmd lookups. Most are from pre 1910 and on freebmd, not extremely difficult to find and it makes you wonder why they ask. It has to be better and more rewarding to learn how to find the details yourself than ask for a bmd ref (and most likely not order the cert anyway) I have had one positive match in the last nine months and one 'possible'. The possible was in response to one of my trying to find posts, their tree has over 2000 names and was started over four years ago yet just last week they were asking where to order a cert from and how to find a bmd ref. Needless to say i am rather dubious that i can get much info from them without the need to triple check everything, which means that i may as well start from scratch myself and satisfy myself as to the accuracy of MY research. I have had more success via my own site than this one and find my site has created more contacts and contacts in the parts of the world i need than this place ever did.

Ah well, I don't have the option of 'the other side' as I'm banned FOREVER. I'll get over it.

I can only agree with what has been written - I shall not be renewing in March. I shall probably look in occasionally to see if their are any useful snippets of info...but only rarely. The other side is much more helpful - both in content and layout. William

I just wish GR would listen to members and make it so that the only boards non members can access are the trying to find and sucess. I think it extremely unfair that non members should be able to pick up all the tips etc while members are paying £9.95 for the privilege. As I have said before, I enjoy being a member of this site. i too belong to the other site (although was surprised to hear on the grape vine that a lot of members there had paid donations towards the running of the site - so not completely free then). And I still prefer the way this site is negotiated. Ann Glos

I have to agree with the last few replies -. Those of us who have been researching for a while, have developed 'specialist' skills, as Janet describes above, and may know a lot about one particular area of research. Why then, is this often ignored, and the poster goes on to ask the SAME question again, as if they don't believe the answers they got the first time. I too wonder if they even read the replies to their queries. I have long since accepted that I will always be the giver of information on here, as my research has been going on for 35 years. But lately, not even a thankyou or an acknowledgement and I am left wondering if they even got the stuff. I had already decided not to renew when my sub runs out, and unless things change drastically for the better, I won't be back - there is nothing here for me that I cannot get elsewhere. OC

Yes, it is a waste of money as far as I'm concerned and most unlikely to renew on 7th February. I read the boards and often glean useful pieces of information but any contact is always done by pm and in many cases I have e-mail addresses if I want to re-contact. A good many of the members are also members - if that's the right word - of another site that is free, so this one is rapidly becoming a waste of time as well as money, particularly if replies are not received.

Clive This is also the way I am feeling about GR. I have been on this site since three months after it first started and felt in the beginning that it would be a very good site to belong to, but I have drastically changed my mind on this, particularly over the last year as to me GR has gone downhill. I have been struggling for the last six months as I also give far more than I receive, but crunch time is fast approaching and I will have to decide very shortly which way I will jump. Should the site change very drastically for the better in the future then I might rejoin but I have many doubts that is going to happen. The hot matches are a joke so I certainly will not miss those. I have enjoyed adding to the threads but so few bother to reply to what has been written and I doubt many even understand what is said half the time. Yesterday I added a reply to one about Northamptonshire as having researched that county indepth for so many years I have a lot of information to share on it, but not even a thankyou, never mind whether she understood anything I said so I am really thinking I am just wasting my time on here. Janet

My membership is renewable in a few days, and I'm struggling to find a reason to cough the dosh. In theory, I would seriously miss the shared trees I have access to, but in truth, whenever I consult one of them and find information that MIGHT be helpful, I fire off a friendly message to the owner (usually to confirm a source), but get no reply. Today, I have eleven messages in my 'Sent Items' folder to which I would like a reply to progress areas of my research. Three of those are first messages to strangers, and the rest are to existing contacts, the majority of which are distant cousins. They just don't bother to reply. I usually send a second message after about ten days, and then write off the contact. I do this so regularly that I think I am wasting my time. My own research has taken me to the point where I am, more often than not, the net giver of information, rather than a receiver of it; but if I'm getting virtually nothing out of my membership anymore, why continue with it? In the rare event that someone does initiate contact with me, I will still be able to reply. Not being able to post to this forum is hardly going to change my life, so what am I paying £9.95 for, exactly? Carefully chosen, just one more BMD certificate will probably advance my research more than another year's full membership here, and I can go and have a pint with the change and still be up on the deal. I think I've talked myself into it.

hThat reminds me, must change my membership type to avoid getting duped into another year. Glen

Anne Thanks for your comments. There are only two people on here researching the same family as myself and I can keep tabs on one through the search facility to see where he is up to. The other one I am in E mail contact with, and the main contacts I have built up is through the Message Boards. Janet