Genealogy Chat

What purpose is served by inputting a false death date?

You can also do what I used to do when adding a 'living' person to my tree.

Put in a false death date and then make a comment in the notes.

Also depending on how closely related you are to that person does it really matter.

Shirley, re. needing permission to add a living person to your tree.

I doubt that there is any legal requirement for this. The fact that a person is related to you or details of their events is deemed to be information 'in the public domain'.
It is this which allows you to purchase an Extract of anyone living, related or otherwise. You are free to purchase BMD Extracts of current members of the Royal Family, for example.

Presently, two of my sent messages are unopened. One was sent 05May2014 to a member with whom I have had previous contact. The other (to a 'new' contact) was sent 11Apr2014. I generally wait for around six weeks before deleting them. As well as the reasons already raised, this allows for illness & holidays. I don't know whether or not the act of deleting an unopened message also deletes it from the other members inbox?

Sadly Ancestry do not have a 'message opened' flag. In March I received a message wherein the comments were at first a puzzle. Until I realised that the member was replying to a message I had sent in August last year......

Just because someone has a tree on any site does not necessaril mean they are looking for any kind of contact.

And no one can be forced to reply.

This is an old problem for which there is no solution.

It happens on most sites.
If I want to contact someone on Ancestry for example I always check to see if their tree has been active recently.
Even if it has, there is rarely more than a 25% response to my message.
Those who do respond are usually very quick to do so, even if it´s only a "thanks for the info".

Maybe asking to see there tree straight away hasn't gone down well .

I know I only open my tree when I am absolutely sure there is a family connection .

If any of those family that the person has added to their tree is still alive then they need their permission to add them .

I would try another contact but giving more details about your dads side and again ask what is their connection .dont ask to see their tree again though .

I take it the original message has been opened ?

Thanks Shirley for clarifying that point.

A non paying member can reply to a message .what they can't do is initiate a contact

Gillian

On the Genes Help pages it says: "If you wish to contact another member you must either have a paid subscription or pay per view credits. It costs 30 credits to send a message.".

I read this to mean that if the person you have contacted is not a paid member, or hasn't got credits, then he/she can't reply.

You do say it's been two weeks - not a long time if the recipient has been on a fortnights holiday.

Hope they reply soon

I discovered recently that the names of my father and his sister and parents had been added to someone's tree.. Within days of these names being added I sent a message to the person who had added them, asking him how we were related and requesting to see his tree. Two weeks later I still have nor received a reply from him.

It really is so annoying. You would think that if someone is interested enough to join a genealogy site, they would want to know more.

Of course there are circumstances when you won't get an answer - for example, my cousin's tree still appears on GR, although he died last year - but my message was sent within a few days of the names appearing..