Find Ancestors

I do love the smell of passive aggression in the morning.

Ha ha!! I unearthed this three year old thread...for a variety of reasons I have had a long break from family history...only to find I have missed all the action!!
Jill- I will have a look at my Dickens file and get back to you, if you are still around?
Sorry you got a load of hassle over replying to an old post; if I had been
around that wouldn't have happened, as I would have got straight back to you.
Hope the rest of you enjoyed your lively debate!!!
Good to be back.

Hi, just to let you all know I won't be checking in for a while, not usually on here much this time of year anyway.
I needed to use up some findmypast credits before the date ran out, now I'm going back to the gardening!
Will do more digging (on the family tree that is) later in the year.

roflol


you weren't paying attention were you Janey!


sylvia

btw, Susan --

"I still think everyone should check their threads however long they have been on here; that I see as being polite!"

-- on that you will get absolutely no disagreement from anyone!

The extension is that before one starts asking people to do things for one, one really should make the effort of figuring out how the system works, i.e. that people who help will do it *in threads*, not by PMs, and one therefore must check one's threads regularly, starting with sticking around for an hour or so to see what might happen. I think it is hugely rude not to do that. But it is so common -- the rule is truly honoured more in the breach than in the observance -- that one just grits one's teeth and keeps going.

Do join us here if you're feeling voluble on that subject:

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.asp?wci=thread&tk=1137116

Janey comes lately ...

I'm probably one of the most computer literate people on the board -- and almost certainly the one with the longest history of using internet discussion boards, having been doing it for about 15 years now.

And here's something I didn't know for some time after I first started posting, that Susan probably doesn't know and may want to take note of.

When you open your account, you are told that you can "conceal" your real name and choose a friendly nickname to use on the boards.

What it doesn't say is that if I then click on your friendly username, I see your real name.

What I see, if you are a married woman and have put your birth surname in your account details, is your birth surname.

But if I then send you a message, when I look at my Contacts list (in the Messages section), you appear under your current (married) surname.

And some of us find that appalling, and urge people to change their account details so that their real given name and surname(s) do *not* appear there anywhere. Because no one should ever, ever give out personal info like that willy-nilly on the internet.

So indeed, when you send a private message to someone and this system sends notification by email to the recipient, you don't get their email address. But you do get their real name. Well, if they haven't been averted to the problem and fixed it, anyhow.

Meanwhile, I of course agree with the numerous comments from "so say all of us" on down. The purpose of pointing out post dates to posters is to HELP them, that being what this board is intended for -- for members to help other members. In whatever way seems appropriate/needed. And once again, those of us who actually DO that get mighty tired of constantly being picked and poked at for the way we do it.


Just for giggles, here's where I just got caught in the old-post trap myself tonight:

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards.asp?wci=thread&tk=484464

Now the picture has been painted.

how many new that?

problem solved,

back to happy questions and answers.

Wayne

Actually, one thing that we all now forget (or don't know) is the following:-

......... until August 2007, TTF replies did NOT appear on the site, you HAD to send a pm to the originator of the thread. GR then sent an email to the person's home email address to let them know there were messages waiting.

Thus anyone who posted on TTF before that date, and who has not returned to the site since, will be waiting to be notified that there are messages .......... no-one ever returned to TTF to check messages.


I used to spend hours finding information for people asking for help on TTF ........ and it would sometimes involve sending 3 or 4 pms to them (because of the lack of space in a pm vs the amount of information found) ............... but I normally didn't help anyone who had posted more than 24 hours previously because there was no way of telling whether the information had already been found and thus that you were duplicating already provided information.


sylvia

Go away Ann you know what your singing is like!!

I have got my earplugs in just in case it manages to travel down the M4.

I'm 73 next month but that's between you and me!!!!!

all join hands now and..........................."I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony....................................."

Susan
I certainly wasnt computer literate ,still not brilliant at it ,but without the help I have had on here I would still be in the wilderness with computers.
I have learned to cut and paste ,courtesy of a kind member.
Search other sites etc.
And even how to use the drop down bar!!
If I had had to pay for that as well as this site plus certs etc I would be more bankrupt than I am now.

And it just goes to show that first impressions can be wrong, as you are undoubtedley not ignorant due to your apology to Ann,and I apologise for calling you so.
That puts you back on the A list for help on here from folks I would say.

Susan, at the moment I have over 48 pages of threads - that's 500+ messages - and that's just for the last 12 months.

Each time a reply is posted on a thread, it moves to the top of my thread list and the others move down one.

I check my threads by date every day as do most regulars on here, and reply when necessary.

Someone who posted a message 5 years ago and left it on the boards with no response is unlikely to be logging on to the site very often if, indeed, they are a still a member.

But the thing is a lot of people dont know how to "check their threads"without being helped to find out how.
As happened with me 2 years ago because I didnt even know what a "thread" meant nor how to reply on it.
And that was my own post/thread.

And only last week I was asked by Pm what a thread was by someone.

thank you Susan, much appreciated - the first boo boo I made when coming on the boards was to criticise someone's spelling - such a no no!!! I was villified as the poor girl was dyslexic - learned my lesson well and truly on that one

Ann

Ann, apologies for mistaking your intent. I suppose I assumed that everyone using the site would be fairly computer literate and able to use the tools provided.

your email address is secret - by clicking on a member's name you can send an email but only through the GR site - nothing like your private email which we are told by GR to keep off the boards for our own safety, and various other reasons too

It was a while before I realised I could contact people via the site

By the way, I certainly was not being facetious in any way at all - never am

OK; I just find the comment "check the date of the posting" a little facetious, maybe it wasn't meant to be!

I still think everyone should check their threads however long they have been on here; that I see as being polite!

And as for assuming that everyone knows how to reply on thread or check their threads
Well they dont,as a lot are elderly and learning to use a computer for the first time,let alone navigate round a site such as this.
"Evelyn "who has come to Anns defence only found out how it was done through the helpers{unpaid volunteers} such as Ann, on the boards.
And ,as Ann has pointed out,if you wait for an answer to a request for help from a "connection"to that name you will most definatley have a long wait.
I have never seen Ann be rude to anyone on these boards in the 2 years I have been on here and for her to be spoken too like that for no good reason is somewhat ignorant in my book.

Cynthia; I bow to your superior knowledge regarding sending an email; I didn't think it was possible unless a contact had already given you their address. In fact I thought the site was supposed to keep email addresses secret.

I don't have a problem with someone not related helping someone else out with info; but Ann's comments don't seem to fit into that category!