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I WROTE TO GENES.......
Hi Genes
What on earth is up with "Hot Matches"
Up until 2 or 3 months ago I had loads of really good matches.
My tree has 23,000+ documented people on it and I have several cousins who are also members of Genes, consequently there were individuals here who had dozens, and in a couple of cases, hundreds of hot matches with me.
But they've all disappeared and I'm left with a few people with whom I have, at best, extremely tenuous links and a couple of potential matches....if you can call someone who was born in a different country a match.
It's so annoying, especially since these days I do all my work on other sites and the only reason I pay to be a member of Genes is because of the (previously) wonderful way it lets you link up with people who are researching the same lines. No other site offers this service. It's what made Gene so unique.
Once again I have just had my Hot Matches.....6 pages....5 of them "New"....every single one of them (with the exception of 3 Abercrombie's) for people with the surname ADAMS....one whole page for FREDERICK ADAMS....not my FREDERICK ADAMS though....he was born in Scotland. The ones Genes sent me were born everywhere from Madras to Sydney to Swindon.
Even if the names sent had had any realistic chance of being a match, the ADAMS family is an tiny leaf on a far, distant branch of my tree. There are hundreds of different family names in my tree. Am I destined only ever to get matches for these starting with the letter "A"?
A total waste of my time/energy/money
Thankfully my subscription is up in November.
Regards
Jan from Jarrow
THEY WROTE BACK.....
Dear Jan
Thank you for your email.
We send a limited number of matches each time, so as not to adversely affect the speed of the site. I will however pass your feedback to our management team.
You will be sent further matches soon.
Best regards,
Laura
Genes Support Team
TRUE TO THEIR WORD..... I've just had some new matches
This time they were all for GEORGE ADAMS 1839 - 1921
Not my closest relative you understand.....
Actually he's the husband of the first cousin once removed of the husband of the sister-in-law of my second cousin 3 times removed......but at least I didn't get and matches for FREDERICK ADAMS (the first cousin once removed of the husband of the niece of the husband of the niece of the wife of my third great grand uncle) for a change
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Now Jan, I appreciate your predicament but,
who was that said something like.......
you can please some of the people some of the the time, and you can please some of the people ALL of the time, but you wont be able to please
ALL of the people ALL of the time.............
Ps,
it appears that some people can't be pleased ANY of the time!!
LOL
Bob
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I haven't bothered with hot matches for ages now Jan.
I prefer to check on my "surname summary" area every 7 days or so... I find this so much easier.
Linda x
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Hi Bob.....I'd be happy with being 'pleased' just occasionally :)
I'm also a member of Scotland's Family Tree and I guarantee that within days of paying my annual membership I'll have my money's worth.....and more, much more.
I also pay the extra to have the Ancestry "Worldwide" membership....believe me that's expensive....but worth every single penny
Even Findmypast is proving value for money.
...and to be totally honest a few months ago if Genes had doubled the membership fees I wouldn't have batted an eyelid as I handed over my debit card details
Hi Linda
The daft thing is I NEVER contact people through Hot Matches, but I always reply to anyone who writes to me. Sometimes these researchers are a bit vague....."How are you connected to Robert"? ....which one of the 1057 Robert's in my tree do they mean? ....if I could see the same matches they see, it would make my life so much easier..... I would still get daft questions sent to me but as least I wouldn't look like a total idiot.
I don't think that I've tried the "surname summary"...how is that different
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Jan, I know how you feel, I NEVER look at hot matches. I agree membership of Genes isn't what it used to be. I do however always reply to all contact messages, no matter how tenuous the links may be.
I'm not sure about renewing, either, and I've been here since the very beginning.
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Hi Jan
Using your "surname summary" allows you to check on any surnames on your tree which have been added recently...from day one up to 14 days. It doesn't mean that there is a match but I find it is an easier way to check this way other than hot matches.
I am only interested in finding any direct descendants from my direct family lines...although I have many "twigs" added to my tree.
If you find any possible descendants from your ancestors Jan I would message them for sure. My OH and I have a joint tree on GR...we have made some wonderful contacts from distant cousins all over not only from here in the UK but also the US, Canada and Australia.
We met up with OH's distant cousins from Canada when they were over here last year...treading in the footsteps of their ancestors in Derbyshire.
I found a very dear distant cousin in the US who had photos of my 2x gt grandparents to add to my collection and amazingly their funeral cards. I am saving up to visit!
We are in contact by phone to OH's distant cousins in Aus and I have just received a copy of a book written by my distant cousin about my 2x gt grandmother's brother who emigrated to Australia and his life over there!
Perhaps I have just been extremely lucky.
On the downside I been in contact with distant cousins who I have given information to...including photos...who have just disappeared sometimes without a word of acknowledgement which I find is rather sad.
Linda x
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Search Trees is and always has been, as far as I am concerned, the main method of searching for connections.
When I am searching for a particular surname and location, I tend to use "Search All Trees" i.e. search for Bettridge and Leics as the location.
If I am interested to see what has recently been added in general, I use "Surname Summary" with a 14 day filter and check the names I a mostly interested in from there. The other thing to remember that if you use the 14 day filter you know that the member has visited the site very recently and more likely to respond if you send them a message.
There is nothing wrong with HotMatches either, as long as you recognise and accept their limitations. I always check mine, without fail, and regularly find a possible connection that I might have otherwise have missed.
Going back to comments in the original post, Hot Matches will disappear if either you or the other member you were matched to uploads a new tree. They will build up back again over time, but as GR has said in their response, only a selection of names is matched each time, (it used to be 100, but not sure if that has changed) and so you have to be patient, or as suggested, do your own searching.
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