Genealogy Chat

More posts on Living Relatives in the past 10 hours or so than would normally be seen in a month or more.
Hope the posters are not looking for miracles. ;-)

Has anyone noticed the new People finder box on the home page?


Gai

As access to the boards was free for only the hours of 3pm to 9am BST, how in the name of sanity are the posters supposed to be able to add feedback if and/or when help is provided?

Another ill-conceived fly-by-night scheme....hoping to cash in on Long Lost Family's transmission................

May be we could ask Cyn's to include FLR in her 'contact patrol' ? That way at least she can post a reply on the thread for the 'helpers' who can take over from there.

If she adds the URL to the outgoing message, then it would be easy for her to find again.

We do like to keep her busy :-D <3

As free members cannot post on the boards outside of the 18 hour 'window'..........how did GR ever imagine this harebrained scheme was going to be of any use?

Did they imagine that these unwitting posters would now rush to pay for membership?

I doubt that most of them will ever return.................

Gai - People Finder is a new thing. Thank's for drawing it to our attention. I wonder if that was the cause of the problem over the weekend?

Would have helped if there had been more notice to helpers, and the freebie running until the following evening, so that posters had a chance to return and reply to queries ( perhaps after work?!)

I realise they probably included overnight for overseas members, but since most queries probably came on the back of LLF it meant the majority were in the UK and all coming at the same time.

Still a few people have got info they otherwise might not hav got...but one question I have, what happens if a 'freebie' member from last night sends a message which also goes to a non paying member? Will they be able to respond?

GR People Finder on the homepage is just a search of GR records split into 3 categories,

Family Trees, UK Electoral Registers (2002 - 2013), All other records,

The Free use is next to useless, If they are using it to promote the site they should do what others do and offer a free access for 14 days

Roy

I just tried the people finder - surname and year of birth have asterisks as required fields BUT year of birth also has a tick box 'Not Sure?' option - if you tick the not sure option it still requires a year of birth!!!

DET? I saw that!!

I'm keeping to helping those who are looking for lost ancestors....too many potential problems with living ones!! ;-)

Is it only me, but even with the free access there were not that many 'new' posts. And yes it was a completely ill thought out idea, obviously by someone in the office who does not understand how the system works!!!!

And FB page is now just person after person looking for mother/father/son/ daughter etc.

And do not get me started on those who just put in a name, cos that is what the ad tells them!!!!


:-D :-D

just about 2 pages on FLR of new queries perhaps? but very few on FA , so like the FB page it's moving away from ancestors.

Very frustrating that some posters didn't stay around to answer replies, not their fault probably, I suspect some of them didn't have a clue how to find the post again, and would have been a good idea if GR had asked them to 'Stay put! answers will come while you wait !'

DazedConfused, those 'name' and no details posts on FB are fun aren't they ;-) especially when you reply 'what do you want to know?' and the answer is 'anything'

There was a lot of new posts on the living relatives board....quite a few after Long Lost Families finished....but that happens most weeks anyway

One of the threads I tried to help on didn't post till nearly midnight and was still posting at gone 4 am. She has not been back after 9am, so not sure if she was a freebie for the night or asleep in another country.

At least she hung around

In the last hour, on their FB page, GR have posted about their new People Finder on four threads!


GR definitely seems to be moving away from the family history side of things. Finding living rellies must be more lucrative for them.... :-S

Awaiting influx!!

I,m here to reply !!!

But they will all be the same as it isnt really enough time for people to check the info and come back for more help!!!

Would be better to give them free access to what we write !!!!!! :-( :-D :-) :-P :-| :-0 :-\
OH THEY DO!

Lots of RRs tonite them!

What influx are you waiting for Kemp?

It finished at 9 am this morning :-D

Sorry Jax

I was taking the total ...............P)&& as I didnt notice anything different and the fact that they can see what we post anyway!!!

And every night gets loads of RRs

I,m quite sick of this site its full of great people then you get one or two who sit and rr all over the place

BUT for a small fee I can chat will some lovely people and watch the rubbish

The piece I read did state specifically that Living Relatives was the freebie Board, so yes, GR was cashing on finding living relatives.


I would love to know if they kept any record of how many new free members posted during that period ................ and thus, whether it was a worthwhile exercise.

Somehow, I doubt it was!

50 new posters on the FLR board?
Most did not hang around for any replies.
But if they knew that they could only post for less than 24 hours, then surely they should have waited.
Several asked to be 'messaged', but that is quite normal expectations.
Unfortunately, because they were so many new posts, and only a few people help on that board, even if posters got back with more information they could easily be overlooked in the 'deluge'.
I tend to wait for someone to get back before I do any more work - just to see if they are serious about what they want (unless it is an interesting name).
As someone has already said, more new posts than in a month - not quite, but considerable.