General Chat

Hi All, I'm interested to know whether or not people actually like the other parts of this site (i.e. ignoring the message boards which are clearly useful). One thing I find cumbersome is that I have to enter something for unknown detail about a person on my tree (such as birth details). Everything should be optional - after all, sometimes we now the minutest detail such as a first name. Regards, Andy

Not much at the minute Sorry ! I am honest ! :0) Joan

agree with u with regards the tree,havent updated mine for so long.mainly use this site for these boards.

I think I can best answer your question by saying that I am not going to renew my subscription! I find the site slow and cumbersome and not very user-friendly. I'd been a member for about a year before I discovered there was a getting started section, buried way, way down on the home page, with useful info like census dates, when electoral rolls started etc. I often get 'page not found' when trying to post. I don't like the way you have to delete contacts one by one and always get thrown back to the front page even when you might want to delete a contact on page 6. I could go on but son wants to get on computer and I've moaned enough. nell

No where near as good as it used to be. Wendy.xxx

I have to say I agree with you Joan. Angela

As far as family tree matters are concerned I know what you mean about things being optional . I haven't yet added my tree as I am still going through stuff - I come from a very large family and I want to get the ancestors that I know of sorted and researched before I am hit by unknown ones via Hot Matches. I use the Family Tree Maker software and find it excellent. When I have collated all my info I will import onto GR.

I love it here - yes there are little bits on the tree side that irritate me esp about place of birth. I often know the county or even just the country but no i still have to put something in place of birth. However when i joined here back in April of this year i only had living rellie and a handful of ancestors to put on my tree. As of today it contains nearly 500 ancestors and living rellies - so i say well done GR and also many thanks to those that have helped me along the way. I have to add that i love all of the message boards and make it a priority in the morning to check them all, here, trying to find, tips, chat and records - you never know where the next lead is coming from. Also regularly use quick search and find that works really well for me. OMG - i just wrote an essay on GR - help think im addicted lmao PS i need to add that everyone having a go about how slow or how sad it is on here isnt helping anyone - i know that people are missing and many are angry or sad about that but some people dont know what happened - there could be hundreds of newbies out there just reading the board and being put of with all of this negativity.

Desperately in need of modernisation, renovation, updating, bringing into the 21st century. We need clearer access to other services the site offers, and scrap the hot matches, unless they are going to add more criteria for the matches, otherwise it is a waste of time. In fact, we need a complete new look for this site, it looks tired.

hi andrew,i love it.most of all my hot matches,i think its amazing that ive got back to the 1500s on on e part of tree.i could never have done it without genes.xxxxxxxxxx

Hello Joy, That's impressive to get back to 1500s. Are you actually verifying all info, recording sources etc to ensure that you not led down fake branches? I did this once, I let my desire to progress get the better of careful judgement and in the end I removed about 100 people from my tree who were completely unrelated. I'm much more strict about it now. Andy

Used to love it on here, but the boards seem 'deflated' at the moment. As for the tree, faff around for a place of birth, then print the tree out, place of birth is missing!

i love it. susie

I'd like to add a person simply as male if I know that someone on my tree had a child and I have evidence that child was male. By forcing me to enter other things such as birth details that I might not know clutters my tree and then it's more difficult to figure out what I don't yet know and still need to research. Andy

Moments it drives me mad, but on the whole, no site quite like it. All sites have faults. Can we really do better? We like to think so im sure, but I think not. So, yes, i like this site.

Always best to use your own family tree programme, then you can keep your GR tree to a minimum for inviting contacts through hot matches. If you have 'unknown born 1875' you can bet your bottom dollar so will 653216745 other members and you will get the lot in hot matches, along with every unknown born between 1800 and 1976! With your own tree program, you can keep things up to date and only add to GR when you have definite names and they can be veirifed with certs and records.

I hate how the credits have an expiry date and you have to pay, not knowing if you're actually viewing something that could be useful.

hi andrew,i have been really lucky ,a lady has been doing that part of tree for 20 years,and has travelled all over the country copying and collecting records.for betty and her hubby this is there holidays.and ive been and took pics this end for her to go with all the info,also i got the church records to look at ,that was my job.she came up at easter and we all went out for the day,she was very impressed with what i had ,she also has every birth marrage and death cert of grt grandparents etc as in [grt grt grt grt]she checks everything,even what i did.xxxxxxxxjoy

Nothing is ever perfect, everything has its faults, the tree could be more user friendly i agree. But I love the site and would not be anywhere enar where I am without it. and hot matches have ben good to me I have had quite a few really helpful and productive links. it is fashionable at the moment to knock the site, but I think the last couple of days have been really good on here. Ann Glos

I agree that it needs dragging into the 21st century. One of the things that really annoys me is that it's so slow sometimes, just getting onto the site or from one page to another. Also I never receive emails from GR anymore - no newsletters, no notification of messages received - apart from when it's time for renewal and they want my money! I complained about this last year when it was time to renew my membership and they never replied to me! I think it could still be a great site, but it needs a big shake up. Kaye x