Genealogy Chat

Hi There,
I'm getting in knots here! I have a long list of 'hot matches' AND 'contacts' and 'messages', resulting from my enquiries into the 'hot matches'.

At present I'm trying to get on top of it all... and struggling.

I spend ages clicking through all three of these comparing the contents of each section, figuring out who the members were, who their ancestors were and whether or not they're of use as leads. Then, I have to delete the 'hot Matches', their 'messages' and them as a 'contact'.

The trouble - apart from whether my method is correct - is that I wonder sometimes if I'm deleting the right stuff and if, because I've deleted all of it: will I get lots more useless bad 'hot matches' because the system doesn't know i've already dealt with those matches and/or those members?

Can anyone give me advice, or point me to good tutorials please. If you've read this far - thanks!

(To me, it seems that the sections don't really tie together intelligently enough. I'd like an option such as: "Delete everything relating to this member AND block/ignore them in Hot Matches from now on.)

Thanks again,
John

If you delete 'contacts', you should delete all related 'stuff'......but it doesn't necessarily always happen.

Can't advise about 'hot matches', because I elected not to be notified..............I find them virtually useless; BUT.that's only for me; others seem to think they are worthwhile.

Reg

I dont really know much more than you, for the first time I started at the last match
and worked forward, all the deleted ones go into ignored matches which you can still use. If you really dont want a match put a > at the end of the surname on your tree that confuses the matchmaker.
Ive still got one with 40 matches who has never been in touch, probably left years ago but the details are stilll available.

Not so long ago I decided to prune my contact lists. Rather than going to inbox to prune and likewise to outbox I went to contacts. I was able to read the odd message there that had been sent or received to make sure I didnt want that contact any more, and I could then delete. Or if I wanted some of the messages I just deleted any unnecessary ones such as 'I have opened my tree'.
Huia.

Hot matches are good and bad.......... I found many distant cousins on this BUT you do get sent a load of illervant stuff to sift through

Thanks Reggie. It's amazing how useless and off the mark many 'Hot Matches' are. Not all but most. It's a way of keeping us using the site.

I'll try deleting the contact again and see if their messages a re deleted too.
Ta,
John

Hi Huia,
Do you notice how you can't delete individual messages from the list of messages for each contact? I click 'delete' and it does nothing but redirect me to another section.

Similarly, 'ignore' in the Hot Match list doesn't seem to work either. Unless this is a Firefox browser prob.

Hi Lindsey,
40 matches? That must be tantalising and frustrating!

Ah, just looking at the help:
"If you tick this and then select ‘discard selection’ the incorrect matches will not be shown again."

Weird user-interface and taxonomy design. "Discard selection"? Not at all intuitive.

Hot Matches and Contacts are two separate things, and need to be dealt with as such.

You can delete individual messages, but I suggest you only do this isf you wish to retain visibility of the contact in your Contacts List, otherwise just delete the contact.

Make sure that if you have allowed access to your tree then you have removed it first. The reason for this is if contact is subsequently re-established, as it will be if either of you gets in touch again, you ensure that your tree is not visible.

Hot Matches can't be removed, but they can be hidden. Even though they are hidden they are still updated, but they are out of sight.

Hiding a Hot March does not affect your Contact list and deleting a contact does not remove a Hot Match

John,

I use Firefox and don't experience any problems with deleting messages or hiding Hot Marches. You need to click the button in each case. Just selecting ticking isn't sufficient.

With over 8 million members there are probable as many ways of organizing.
Mine
Inbox empty
Sent messages one(awaiting reply)
Contacts Two pages of shared trees which include all messages(scroll down)
Hotmatches 12 multiple. All no contact(as yet)
Ignored 41 pages.

Thanks Peter,
So if I remove a contact - new Hot Matches in their trees will show as not previously contacted?

If so, i suppose I could leave them in my contacts list (at the risk of info overload). What would help would be if their whole name would show beside the Hot Match so i can quickly look them up to see if they are worth re-contacting.

There's a guy called 'Jim' but I don't know if that's a unique username - there may be lots of other Jims too.

Hi John, yes 40 is frustrating but the person concerned is a distant rellie who was given her/my/our tree by a one name study, it looks as if she copied it all out faithfully then gave up waiting! She probably packed up long before I joined, which begs the question whether to delete tree when leaving or leave details for posterity?

What I don't understand about Hot Matches..........
I have 'unknowns' in various bits, now Hot Matches seems to give me a 'Match' every time anyone has an 'unknown' This can result in many people appearing that have absolutely nothing to do with me, or me with them. Do others have this problem.
Also they seem to send a match of itself to one you already have. So for example, my daughter's name comes up again as a match to herself.
Maybe I just don't work it properly - but as it is I find it very tedious and don't really use it at all.
Got to go and watch the skating now, but grateful for any suggestions which I will check tomorrow
Eileen

I'm not 100% sure but I think that once you have a contact with a Hot Match member it will always show as such. Deleting the contact doesn't change the fact that you have been in touch before.

Deleting Contacts will remove messages from the In & Out boxes, I think, but not delete them from the system. They will re-appear should contact be made again. Deleting Messages will remove them from the lists altogether.

It does seem rather pointles to match names such as "Unknow" but the computer doesn't know any better and treats it as any other name. It shouldn't be too hard for GR to add a line of code in the program to ignore names such as this, but then you could always remove them from your tree.