Genealogy Chat

Is there any quick way to short cut the time consuming navigation methods offered by GC, for trees >100s? As a result of identifying common names I have recently been allowed to view some extremely large family trees. But I find if you click on "View tree" it takes forever to scroll and click on further links to find your way round to your ancestor. Alternatively if you click on "View their relations" you are presented with the first 100 in alphabetical order and when there are 1000s of names it takes for ever to get to the end of the alphabet. This evening I find someone has added ~2500 Wilsons from Lincolnshire and who knows what else. I pity anyone who has to trawl through this to find details of a connection. There is another "It annoys me.." post complaing of no birth dates/places. Hear hear. While I am listing complaints, one tree a view weeks ago had two entries for every member which just doubled the time to go through its alphabetical list. In my opinion these very large trees and the inadequate software are preventing us seeing the wood (ie the connections). I have restricted my gedcom loaded on GC to my 62 immediate ancestors which takes my tree back to 1770-1810, quite far enough to have already made contact via GC with some unknown living cousins and exchange information on common ancestors, which makes it all so worthwhile. But I think things could be made even better.

Each to there own Michael. I have a large tree on here and nobody has ever complained when they find a connection amongst it. If you only put main ancestors on you are less likely to find a connection. I have about 20 e-mails a week from connections and about thirty trees open to me. We are here to help each other. George

Try clicking on "Their relations" and get an alphabetical list! Anne

I have tried this but "view their relations" just gives the first 100 names starting at "A...". It takes an age to get to the names at the end of the alphabet when the gedcom is many 1000s in size.

You're lucky to have made a connection George. Sometimes I think I am 'billy no mates'. Everyone seems to be making connections but me.

Claire I am sorry i couldn't help you during the week and find it strange with te amount of Grimsby people posting on here that you have found no connections, what are your surnames??? George Max Norman no mates??? Not with all the help you give people. George

Hi, I agree with Michael in that it is difficult and time consuming negotiating large trees. I lose track of where the lines are every time I click. However, I emailed a contact and he sent me a gedcom direct which I was able to open in my much more user friendly programme on my computer and isolate the areas where we overlap. This could be a solution to viewing the very large trees. I have only put a few generations of direct ancestors on GC. Gwynne

I don't find it annoying, but it is sometimes difficult. If I've definitely made a connection I prefer to send the person either a gedcom or if they don't have a genealogy program, a report generated by mine. These also helps me as some of my names don't have dates or places against them because Genes Connected STILL haven't sorted out the problem with the way they upload gedcom's. They don't read the baptism or burial dates. OK, burial and death are going to be very close, but baptism and birth are not. I refuse to alter my tree to read what is not correct just to suit the way this site works. They have been promising to sort this for months now, still nothing. Margaret

Gwynne I have suggested to GC on several occasions that the horizontal generation lines are in a range of different colours to make it easier to navigate across the page and from one page to the next. No joy so far, but maybe others could back me up.

Hi Brian, I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets "lost" in the lines. I think the problem is that the site wasn't set up by genealogists, hence the difficulties with showing intermarriages and displaying trees. I hope they do manage to sort it out as the site could be excellent. Gwynne