General Chat

Key functionality missing with the tree builder:
If a person appears twice in your tree, it's not possible to link to an existing person on your tree. So for example, if I find two people that married were actually 2nd cousins with the same great grandparents, I have to add the great grandparents twice, once for each of their great grandchildren.

This means that I can't use the GR tree as my master tree; I have to use software on my PC to maintain a master family tree.

Other genealogy sites do allow "existing people" to be linked to new entries.

This is a serious weakness of the GR site.

Regards

How about a decent page for photos? The one that we have keeps beheading people (or it did when it first started so I gave up using it). It would be nice if we could put some of our photos on for others to see, and I dont just mean ancestral photos - photos of meets or scenery etc. Perhaps have a limit on the number of photos anybody could post, with the ability for us to delete if we want to add more. On some threads peeps are talking of emailing photos to each other but if there are lots of peeps wanting to see them it would be so much easier on the boards. I know I would like to see some of the photos they have mentioned but dont want to add to their long list.

With another website I am on I can add photos to the threads, eg, I could put a photo on this thread.

Huia.

I am fairly happy with the site, I joined in 2005, green as grass took me forever to come to grips with things that now are second nature. Think it took me a while to realise what the community was (I know!!!) but some of us are not as computer litterate as others, and I am an activist and cannot stand reading through 'how to use' information!!

I have found so many relations through hot matches and am indebted to them, however I think some tidying up of that part could be helpful. One gripe I have is, as already mentioned, when you seem to have a name and date match but the location is totally way out, to me it is not a match! The other is that when a person leaves Gene's the tree should be set to maybe an absent person so that you do not keep on sending messages to a non existent member, very frustrating!

i may think of some other things later, but thanks for the chance to air my views - oh and moderators would be a good idea!

I should like it to stop telling me to sign in, at the time I tried to post just now, when I was already signed in; this same thing happened a few weeks ago.

I would like to see the name of the ancestor clearly visible in Hot Matches without having to open it up (View) to find out who it refers to.

Bernie - I tick them all and delete them in the hope that THEY will contact ME. If I don't get many, I might check to see if there is a particular one which looks interesting - but I would be happier if I could see who they are first - hence my suggestion as above.

Quinsgran that is so true! Isn't it a pain to find you've made a genuine error and have to start messing about with where to start with the deletions? Surely the GR whizz kids can come up with someting easier?

I would like to see a better way of deleting names added by mistake without having to start by deleting the children.

Impossible if you are the child

Point taken Berona, but I still waste an awful lot of time deleting no-chancers from my Hot Matches.

No improvement suggestion here but a reply to Bernie. It would be almost impossible to write a program to include every town/county, etc. in the country. Not only that, but do you have any idea of how many people think they were born somewhere other than where they actually were born?
Thousands of people even to-day, believe that where they grew up is where they were born, and they can be wrong....Many of our ancestors were born in places which don't even exist any more - not under the original name, anyway.

I do wonder why I find that both Genes and Friends Reunited tend to jump around when I use Internet Explorer 8. No other website bounces. I downloaded Google Chrome and they keep still in that. If all other websites keep still, why not Reunited?

Re the alerts and guidelines. I am well aware that GR send out pm alerts but I am talking about replying to threads about which there is no advice anywhere on the GR help boards.

Many of the problems of helpers getting frustrated with people not replying to information found for them, are caused because those people, mostly new folk, do not know how to find their message again once they have posted it.


I have been a member of Genes almost from the beginning, but didn't use these boards for a long time. However, when I did first begin to post, I hadn't a clue either. I used to scroll up and down the pages in desperation looking for the message I had put on. My Threads on the left, meant nothing to me, I didn't even know what a thread was. It took a long time for the penny to drop and I got told off in the meantime.


After seeing so many unpleasant threads about helpers being annoyed that their work was not being acknowledged, I decided to try and help out.


When I have time, I send a pm to those who haven't replied,......'hoping that they do not mind me contacting them, but there are replies to the message they posted. If unsure about how to access the replies, then simply click on Community/My Threads/Message heading and all will be revealed'...........words to that effect.

I do this not only to try and stop the frustration of the helpers, but also so that the new folk do not miss out on info which could be important to them.

The pm's I receive back show how many other folk were are as stuck now as I was when I first began.

If I post on other genealogy sites I get an alert every time someone posts. If I wish to unsubscribe to one of the threads, then there is the facility to do so so that it does not become a nuisance to me.

I look regularly at 'My threads'. That tells me whether anybody had added anything to my last comment, or at least it would if I could remember what time and date and page my comment was on. I always look at my threads anyway and dont often look at other threads on the boards.

Huia. (who is on genesreunited.co.nz)

GR do send alerts re PM's. I'm not sure, though that I would want one every time someone adds to a thread of mine. I could see that being an annoyance, rather than a help.

I also don't understand the need for guidelines for finding replies. What would those guidelines be?

I'm basically happy on here apart rom one main drawback and that is the fact that GR do not alert members when there has been a reply to their message. Neither do they post guidelines for finding replies.

This has caused some unpleasantness in the past when people have not replied to information found for them. I now spend quite a bit of time (when convenient to me), pm'ing folk to tell them that someone has given them some info. The majority, and I mean the majority, are new and did not know how to respond either because they were waiting for an alert or because there were no guidelines to follow.

Other genealogy sites can send alerts so why can't Genes?

Anne's suggestion way well help in the short term. However, ff you don't clear out your browser files periodically, i.e. cookies, temp files, browsing history etc, then the likelihood is that you will start to see the same problems with the .au site in the fullness of time.

The site does seem to require a fair deal of space within your browser in order for its pages to load correctly. Most of the performance problems members have mentioned can be avoided if you tidy up regularly. If you have an older PC or are using an old browser version, then increasing the size of the browser temp file space can help.

A number of members use CCleaner for housekeeping. It also allows you to preserve those cookies you need for those sites you log into regularly, rather than clearing the lot, so you don't loose your log in details.

Your screen also needs to be sized properly. The page should be set to 1024 x 768 pixels. You also need to size it so the width fits across the screen correctly.

Use the scroll wheel whilst pressing Ctrl to make the page wide enough to fit across the screen, with no dark borders either side and no left-right scrollbar. The dark bar at the top of the page which has the buttons on it should fit across in one line without taking up a second line.

If you have a small screen then give yourself more vertical space by pressing F11. Psess F11 again to get your browser buttons back.


As far as brothers marrying sisters etc, I can't really get worked up about this. Most of us have a small handful or none at all, I see the GR tree as a means of storing the names that I wish to connect with other members, not for producing pretty displays. My main tree is kept on FTM and I use that if I wish to produce reports and trees. Incidentally, uploading a gedcom with multiple sibling marriages doesn't entirely work either.

Bob's idea of having a list of place names is a good idea, but it gets blown away as soon as someone uploads a gedcom.

You don't have to use Hotmatches, Personally I find them useful although I find most of my contacts by searching manually. A good idea might be a facility to turn off a particularly common name.

I found the ageing on hotmatches very useful, so much quicker to just view the new hotmatches. I complained when they removed it but they said that was how it was going to stay.

A "back to top" facility would be handy.

Re complaints-customer help; Since having some repairs to my lappy I have been unable to access any records, so have to use Ancestry for this.

Complained to GR, and despite telling them I need plain English, all I got back was gobbldegook. So that means that my fee is wasted. Did someone mention £10, I'm sure I paid £80.

Can I ask why there isn't a Genesreunited.ca?

well since last March I have been continually signing in - over and over again, sometimes three times just to get in. Complained over and over again and have been given lengthy explanations of things to do regarding cookies etc. All to no avail. Tonight I answered another member's pm on GR/au, and lo and behold, everything is fine - no more signing in!!!! So I am now staying with it - cannot believe it

http://www.genesreunited.com.au

Oooooh be careful!

I wanted fairer pricing of membership subscriptions as there were several different prices being charged without just reason. I got together a list of people who felt the same as me and also contacted Genes to get their opinion, which was never forthcoming, on the matter. After initially replying with a 'bog-standard' response, they could offer no reasonable explanation as to why there were different rates for the same service. It ended up with Genes basically threatening to terminate my membership if I continued to pursue the matter and they took the thread with all the names and comments from members off the boards stating I was breeching T & C of the site.

Hope you have success in your campaign!

Lyn x

I have no problems with words jumping or not being able to type into the box and i consider I do get value for money. However, I do wish that when we send a message to GR Admin they would give us the courtesy of answering our questions and not send out stock replies this can be very irritating as often the reply has no connection to the question.

I do often have difficulty getting into messages by clicking on the word message at the top of the page and usually have to access my messages via the email they send to me. But I don't know if that is a GR problem, or a problem with my own system.