General Chat

I have'nt had any hot matches since before christmas

About that time GR announced that they were changing the program so as to include POB in the match criteria.

This will have two effects, firstly, the matching program will take considerably longer to run, so it is possible that there are some performance issues there, we don't know about.

Secondly and perhaps more significantly, it will considerably reduce the number of matches you will receive in future, probably down to a tiny trickle. As the program only checks 100 of your names each time it runs, the probability of getting nothing at all for a particular run has dramatically increased.

Some members might prefer the previous method which left you to check the POB, but this generated so much criticism because of "non-matches" GR felt obliged to change it.

I've not had any hot matches for ages either. Trouble with the old system was that I got loads of 'Sarah Wilson b 1800 POB England' which I was happy to discard, but if it were one of my more unusual names I would want to investigate further, and if the 'matchee' wasn't sure of DOB or POB it would be missed.

I think it is a mixed blessing. What isn't clear is how GR are dealing with spelling variations in the POB, which was always one of the issues when trying to match place names automatically.

Personally I would have preferred it left as it was but is seems that was not the majority view.

I took out paid membership of Genes after these changes were made but I'd been building my tree for some time before that.

I'm very grateful for the Hot Matches I received as I'm now in contact with a handful of cousins I might not have otherwise found.

Maybe I'm just too easy going but it didn't bother me to have so many and it's no hardship to delete them.

I'd thought only recently that I've had very few hot matches but figured it's because I hadn't added anyone for a few weeks. So if I had to choose between the old and the new I'd have the old.

Sadly, with whatever forums/groups we join, whether paid membership or not, there will always be those who want better or more or just different.

I wonder if it's a generation thing. I have sat for hours in records offices scraping along in the pre-Internet age. I just don't see some of the same 'inconveniences' online that others do.

Jill