General Chat

Why on earth do people become members, then when you find a ancester match they dont have the decency to give you a reply ?

Have they opened your message?

dont know

Look in your sent box. Is the envelope open or closed?

Paul

Go to your messages, click on Sent, if the envelope is closed, they have not looked at it. If the envelope is open, then they have read it.


BUT, there are several reasons why someone does not respond.


They might be an "old" member who has actually left the site, or let their subscription lapse ....................... GR does not delete trees when this happens, nor do they prevent anyone else from contacting that member.


They might have changed their home email address and not informed GR ............... in which case the email that GR sends to say that a message is waiting will not have reached them.


They might have completely lost interest in their history


They might be seriously ill or dead.



BTW ....... you can check whether someone is an older or newer member. Just let the cursor hover over their name, then look down to the bottom of your monitor screen and you will see their membership number.

For example, your membership number is 5 numbers beginning with 3 ............... and you are apparently an "older" member than Claire who has a 7-digit number



sylvia

thanks all will try your idea's

I'm a newbie Sylvia

I think changing email addresses is the most common reason -- people who put a tree here at GR, don't think about it much after that, and the contact email address at this site becomes dead.

I've had three "real" email addresses since I registered here, a result of my ISP being sold, and then me parting company with it.

That's why ... drum roll ... everybody should get at least one account at

www.gmail.com

(like, in their GR username, or some version of it)

and use that as their contact email for their GR account, and also for giving people they meet here. So as not to miss any messages, and not to disclose one's identity to strangers through one's email account name.

That way, it could be 10 years later and you could have forgotten GR ever existed (which it probably won't anyway), but if someone makes a tree match with you, you'll get the message!

Of course, it has to be said that some people are jerks.

I contacted someone twice in a few weeks about two names that matched in our trees -- the second time, I knew there was a definite match. Naively opened my tree when I sent the message. Forgot about it.

A year later, I searched trees for my grandmother -- and there she was in the same person's tree, him showing as me already having contacted him.

My grandmother -- who isn't related to him at all, except by her father's marriage to a relation of the GR member's wife. So he finally answered a PM and opened his tree -- and there were me and my mum in his tree. He hadn't answered my messages, he'd just scooped my family.

Turned out his wife and I shared grx2 grandparents, which I think of as a fairly close family relationship. Never did hear from him or her about that.

So who knows? ;)

You must remember that whilst people come onto GR they may not have access to a computer of their own - I know people whose only access to a PC is 30 minutes free internet access via their local public library and then only when the library is open and there is a PC free