Genealogy Chat

They may aswell say you have to pay to use the site then?

There must be thousands who have never paid, I started my tree on here 4 or 5 years ago but never paid until I got interested last year.

jax

Hence my question what is a current member?

There are four categories of membership available for the Genes Reunited Service:

(A) Free Membership;
(B) Standard Membership; or
(C) Gold Membership (only available as a renewal option for existing Gold members); or
(D) Platinum Membership

All members, including Free Members, are entitled to

1) Add their tree to the site
2) Upload photos and videos
3) Search for possible matches
4) Receive match notifications from GR
5) Answer personal messages
6) Allow members (i.e. who have subscribed) to view their tree

Not that I send messages to people regarding my tree, but in the past when helping others I tend to look at the membership number.

If it is an old number the less chance there is of getting a reply in my opinion

jax

jax, Don't entirely agree with that one. Granted new members might possibly be a tad more interested, but this doesn't mean all 'old' members aren't.

How 'old' would you class my membership No?

I get the best return messages from members who have added names in the past fortnight.

Not in all cases obviously IGP as everyone on this thread is an oldish member

But I think people should not be suprised if they do not get a reply

jax

I have been a member for a year and have and have sent messages to HM and they are rarely opened so i wonder if these people are still members, I never ask to share their tree but I would like a reply of sorry no connection as this isonly good manners .


Regards
Marie

As I mentioned on another thread, my dad added a few names on his tree 5 or 6 years ago and every time he changes supplier his email changes...so if anyone sent him a message he would never see it.

jax

this is a long standing problem, one that is likely never to be solved.


GR began as a free service, the subscriptions were added later



currently, if a fee paying member stops paying, GR just drops them back in to Free membership ......... they never cut anyone off for not paying a subscription.


If you think about it, this is why they can claim to have over 11 million members, and search over 750 million names


....... everyone of those names has been added at some point by at least one of those 11 million members.




I've often said that I reckon the actual active membership of GR is less than 1 million, possibly as low as 100,000



as for Hot Matches!



98% of the Hot Matches I get, are with the same 8 - 10 people

.................... I myself have given the information to 6 of those people!




sylvia

We have to remember that Free doesn't necessarily mean Inactive, in the same way that not all subscribed members are Active either.

I found this site by accident earlier this evening


it gives GR a glowing review, based on the fact that the tree building program, they reckon, is one of the best and easiest to use ......... don't know that I agree with them!

BUT if someone is looking around for help to decide on which genealogy site to use .....................


genealogy-websites.no1reviews.com/genesreunited.html




IGP ...... it could well be that there are more active Free members than there are active subscribed members!





sylvia

Yes, this was the point. There seems to be a perception that only paid members are active on the site when in all probability there are thousands of Free Members who are equally if not more active than subscribed members.

As far as I can tell, the only things that a Free Member is unable to do, as opposed to a Standard Member are:-

Initiate personal messages
View other members trees
Post on the message boards

Unfortunately, however well intended, any suggestions which marginalise Free Members, are probably non-starters.

Perhaps the easiest thing GR could do is to keep a record of the last login date and display this against the members name when you open the screen to compose a message to them. At least it will allow you to make a judgement if it it is worthwhile sending them a message. i.e. 6 month ago, perhaps? 6 years ago clutching straws? 12 year no chance.....!

IGP

the other thing that free members cannot do is access the records that GR now carries (censuses, bmds, etc etc)


just as Standard members cannot access them



but then, one can buy credits to view those records ........ so there is still little incentive for free members to upgrade



just as I have no intention of upgrading from my Standard membership

.............. I keep at this level so that I can use the Community Boards.

I haven't actually done anything to my tree in about 5 years.

AND the tree on here only has about 1/10th of the names that are on a tree elsewhere .......... and that tree has fewer names on it than I have on the tree on my computer.

Why?

well, I'm not confident enough of all the names on my "home" tree, so I won't put those out there

and, I got fed up of only the same few names ever being Hot Matched on this site. I think 85-90% of any HM's that I get are for just 5 names, time and time again


I do occasionally do a Tree Search to see if any others come up.


Oh, regarding keeping a record of last log-in date?

I never log out .................... that is, unless I am thrown off the site for some reason. Which, for some reason, usually happens overnight when my computer is shut down.

My last log-in for that reason would be about 2 months ago, the one before that about 5 months ago ....................... but I am actually on here most every day




sylvia

Good point Sylvia

I never log out but this site has been logging me off for some reason recently...back to normal now.

I had noticed that on ancestry that someone had added to their tree and when I looked at their profile they had'nt logged in for 6 months which I thought rather strange...I expect it says the same for me.

As for hot matches I normally just get the same one an Elizabeth Smith aghhh.... But I dont use my tree here either with the whole 50 people on it so it is not a problem

jax

The one I get most is Mary Smith




now if they could only always match up Mary Smith born in the same year and same county as mine .............................. lol!!


the other 4 all have a relatively uncommon surname, and do match mine, BUT I haven't had a new match with any of them for something like 3 years!




sylvia