Find Ancestors

I received this pm today and thought it should be shared with everyone - after all, you do the work, I only send out advice about finding it!


Claudia Re: Re: Re: New message from Cynthia 24/10/2009 11:16:18
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Hello Cynthia

Just to let you know how overwhelmed I am with the support I have been given by the community members regarding my research.
I felt dizzy with the advice and information, it was like I was standing still and everyone was buzzing around me with searching here and there on my behalf. One of the researchers, Melanie, spent her credits to purchase a 1911 census as the census copy I emailed to her was not clear.
How on earth can I ever repay these wonderful people back. I may never find any more data on James Foster, but I have certainly met some wonderful, and helpful people . I'm lost for words.

Gwladys

There really are some gracious people here -- helpees as well as helpers!

I've had scads of similar PMs, as I'm sure you have and anyone who has spent much time helping out here has. It feels odd sometimes to have touched the life of a complete stranger so intimately and directly -- that's especially the case when we manage to find living relations that a member here had never known, and then hear back about the emotional family reunions that have taken place. (Sadly, not all successful searches end in happy tears, and those can be painful to hear about.) Just another day, another search, for us, but it means the world to someone.

It used to be that the Success Stories board was filled with messages thanking the members of this site the way the PM you received does. Since the revamp, it just seems to be praise for the site owners, despite the fact that it is members giving and getting help on the boards who are the site's heart and soul.

Hi Cynthia

I'm sure you told her she doesn't need to repay anyone, cos most of us do it because we enjoy doing it and are glad to solve what are little problems to us, but big issues to them. But it is nice to hear of someone so delighted, so thanks for sharing it with us.

Cynthia

Let me just add that without you Pming a lot of the folk to tell them they have replies when you see no response from them many peolpe wouldnt know they had the replies to thank people for.

So thank you Cynthia for what you do.
viv

Please,may I add my grateful thanks for help given also.

Thank you xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Glad you posted that Cynthia, and thank you to Gwladys for taking the trouble to send that message...

It's nice to help and its fun too a 'win win' situation. Karma

Ginny
x

Te, He, He,
Naughty Cynthia sent me a PM instead of adding here....

So I am putting it on here as I do most pms sent to me instead of added on the thread unless of course it is of a sensitive nature.
**********************************************************************
Aw shucks! thanks for that nice comment on the thread Viv.

Have come over all 'unncessary'!!


Take care.

Cynthia

You deserve it Cynthia cos I know you sometimes get rather negative results from your PMs to people about their threads.

Right you old so and so,thats enough sticky gooey rubbish,Im off to try and make someones muddle even more of a muddle!

Hey

Steady on Viv..our Cyn will not get her head out the door!

Well done Aunty Cyn

xx

I think Cynthia you are an encourager both to new researchers and those who help out. Thankyou for sharing this.

Viv!!! You rotter!!

As Janey says, there are many gracious people around and most of the replies I receive reflect just that. I am fortunate that I have had only a couple of abusive and a very few ungrateful responses to date. There are still several who can't seem to find their threads no matter how many times I try and help.

The ones who really touch me are the very elderly who are finding everything so new and yet so exciting , once they've worked out how to use the site!

Hello there
I am one of the elderly and have thanked so many of you but I would like to reinterate again. You are all wonderful and if you ever make it up here I will personally say " Failte du Alba."
Love to you all

Janet x

It really is a service to users to send them directions. It's a big gap here, since those what takes the money don't bother explaining much of anything, and it's terrific that you make that effort, Cynthia.

You just never know, when you do, whether the person is one of the innocently muddled, or one of those who just don't think they need to bother. No surprise that if they're among the latter, they have so little shame they'd be nasty when offered genuine help in case they need it, when they could even have just pretended not to know!

Now, if you were me, you'd go back to their thread and post "so-and-so replies to PM to say they know how to read their messages in this thread". Period. ;)

Pam and I and someone else have been trying to get one of our senior* members posting back in her thread this week, with no luck so far, but at least we've managed to learn the surname of the person she's asking about, and we'll keep plugging.

* I was talking to my mum today and kidding her about being "elderly". She is, after all, almost 80, and after her chemo her wavy ash-blonde hair has grown in as pure white curls. She says it's quite an eye-opener how differently people treat her now. She was laughing about a woman in a news report this week being described as "elderly", when she's 73. Punk kids in the media; wait til they're that age and see how "elderly" they feel!

to all you helpers,
Many thanks, your expertise is greatfully received,

May just try that!

Thanks for posting pm Cynthia. Keep up the good work!

Having said all this, I do give up when, on the odd occasion, someone thanks me and still does not post a response on the boards.


At the moment, I am really struggling with one lady who simply cannot find her replies .........ah well.

Hi Cynthia

I am one of those people who can't find my threads. Yep, I know where the button is, but that produces a great long list. Is there some way I can delete those I am no longer interested in? Or organise them in any way? e.g archive some?

Margaret

The ones you want to keep apart for future reference - use the "bookmark this thread" function - then look in "My bookmarks" for them rather than "My threads". For instance, for your own threads, the ones you start for your own research.

The only way to eliminate a thread from your "My threads" list is to delete all of your posts from the threads in question. That results in the motheaten threads that litter the board, now meaningless because of the information that has been removed. I will never understand that practice (at least where the thread has been actively participated in by the person who started it, as compared to just ignored), and I have always found it unfortunate. How is one to know whether the poster copied everything down, or just expected to be able to refer back to the thread, only to find the info all gone within days?

I bookmark any thread I have started, and others I want to find quickly, like Whirley's 192.com lookup thread.

Cynthia

thank you for posting that


and thank you for all the help you do in telling people how to get back to their threads.


I saw a comment today somewhere (forgotten where now!!) ...... basically it said I am so glad that Cynthia emailed me to tell me how to get back to my thread.



sylvia

'Tis a pleasure Sylvia. Meg, I used to delete threads to have a 'tidy up' so to speak, but once I cottoned on to the fact that they are not taking up any room on my computer but on Genes', I tend to leave them alone now.

Sometimes it can be quite useful to pull up an old thread of your own (as I did last night about Drouin records) or, if you see something on the boards which rings a bell, just to check if you had input on it in the past.

Not quite as succinct as Janey's reply, but hope it helps.