Genealogy Chat

I joined GR in April 2003 - cost £5:00 I renewed my continuous membership in May this year - cost £7:50, up 50% from 2003 If GR are now going to increase my subs to £9:95 pa, this represents a further 33% price hike. If this further price hike takes effect, guess who won't be renewing next May. Terry

Hi Heather, In answer to your question about pinpointing when the rot started. I may have a small clue. I downloaded my GedCom from the GR site back in March 2006. I remember at the time I was worried that site changes indicated that troubles were afoot. I had begun to feel that my tree was no longer safe online and so it seemed prudent to keep a copy of my tree somewhere safe off site. Before that point my confidence in the site had been absolutely unshakeable - I honestly believed the GR site was the safest place to lodge the tree to ensure its survival for posterity and enable the data to be shared with interested parties. This had been the case for 3 years. From the start I had been satisfied with the original tree program (joined in March 2003, became full member from October 2003). The printed view feature of that original program was near perfect but of course that was sacrified, along with the one-page view, to make way for a newer tree version. The newer version was much easier to navigate but a retrograde step in most of its other features which never really worked properly. This was followed by the more recent tree upgrades and resultant chaos. All of this served to strengthen my feelings that the site as a genealogical tool was becoming seriously compromised and that it had become a completely different animal to the gold-standard site I had originally joined. I am SO glad that I saved my tree onto FTM when I did as the recent changes have corrupted a fair bit of my online material - so much for posterity! Thinking back, it was impossible to download the GedCom before March 2003 as that feature was not working. That set off my early warning system too! When in October my continuous membership fee jumped from £7.50 to £9.95 my confidence went completely. Whereas I always used to recommend this site, since October's experience I have stopped doing so. GR have lost 10 potential new members this way. Some of those folk are waiting to see if the site is going to settle down before joining but none of them will join if the membership fee goes over £10. For some reason, that is the psychological cut-off point for many people.

Probably the same number as Ann Unknowns. Meanwhile I am practicing monitoring the lulls between jerks to get the lowest price possible. LOL ego

Well, I await with baited breath to see if my renewal price increases tomorrow. Course they might ban me instead. I really couldn't give two hoots if they do, it's you lot that make the site, not the freezing cold matches. (Do you know how many William Smith's are entered onto this site every month?)

JA ..... ask for a refund, please.

It has gone down hill so much hasnt it - when did the rot set in - can anyone pinpoint it? They dont listen to their members, they rely on a free service by the members for other members and poor newbies end up paying through the nose for info they can find for free elsewhere. Oh dear, what a difference to when we first joined.

Aww, not the only Jerk eh? (I now feel qualified to use gutter language, PMSL)

Doesn't say anything in the T&C about not copying and pasting the e-mail but I would never do something that may cause a problem. I typed it out. I will now remove any identifying features just to make sure I'm not in breach of any copyrighted contents : -)

dear member, you may have noticed that we have increased subscription charges and the increases vary during the day-this is due to the demands brought about by acute server hiccups - so if your screen jerks as you apply the price goes up with it........the trick is to monitor the rhythms of the site hiccups overa few hours and click the send button during the intermittent lull period between jerks.....we hope this helps. yours faithfully gr support

Is the poster of this thread NOT aware that it is against GR policy for people to copy and paste PRIVATE e.mails from them ?? Thats what they told ME when I did the same thing last year !! They deleted my post !!!! Hope it stays long enough to get noticed x

Against my better judgement I renewed in October. What a waste of money this site is now. Haven't had a hot match worth pursuing for ages now. As someone has said, there are plenty of free sites which do much the same as here, and most of the lovely helpful people here are also 'elsewhere' (not mentioning any site in particular you understand!) This matter seems to come up every couple of months. The bubble of GR has burst and unless they get their act together it's just not worth the money any more!

Perhaps we should get BBC's 'Watchdog' to challenge em! That could prove interesting!!!!

JA Challenge them now! It's not too late.

Interestingly the NZ price is the same as the Aussie at $NZ19.95, so we are probably paying the least. Please don't tell GR that of they will put our price up!! There are a number of free sites that offer as much help as is available on here, and by many of the same people. So why pay?? Christine in NZ

ABSOLUTE UTTER NONSENSE-THEY WERE SEEING HOW MANY BITES THEY WOULD GET !! same as all these prepaid credit things they do-they are relying on a proportion to not know any better-its the worst kind of cynical commercialism-they are panicking over falling numbers and targets set by the big cheeses.......wouldnt mind but they could actually save a lot of money winding down the throttle-they wont have to pay the remainder of the 120 million that way-£55 million still left to pay depending on future performance !!

Like Susan I paid $19.95, renewing only two days ago I didask them the proce before I did so as when I ticked automatic renewal years ago it said it would be renewed for $7.50 - maybe I should havc challenged them when they said $9.50! JA

In my opinion they should place a message on the boards and e-mail all members a month in advance of any price increase.

I renewed on the 6th Dec. I'm in Australia and I paid $19.95 which is what I paid last year. That doesn't work out at more than 8 pound. It would seem that we are all paying different prices. Susan

What a load of baloney!! I also e-mailed, and haven't yet had the courtesy of a reply. However, since I'm a cynic I've just tried to join and they would like me to part with £17.50 I look forward to their comments.........

They said that in February when i renewed and they caused all that confusion then! The trouble is that a lot of people who dont use these boards wont challenge the price hike.