Genealogy Chat

It must take time to check through the Hot Matches when you receive quite a few - I only get on average about 5 per month - but I can't resist checking them just in case. I've had one definate link confirmed, one possible link and another one which looks very promising. For the people who really don't want to receive them - one possibility would be to ask the Genes Reunited Team for the choice to opt out of the Hot Match system. I think its a good idea in principle - maybe just needs a bit of fine tuning, if not just for those with the Smith's, Jones's etc... Annette

Have just been reduced to fizzing fury - a VERY PROMISING Hot Match, for a change, actually got two related names, right age place etc. I excitedly emailed the tree holder and then went back to see if she had any more. I then discovered the FULL names of my two men - nothing to do with me AT AL because the middle names are completely wrong.. So, that was three manoevres to discover a mis-match, instead of the usual two! It gets worse. GRRRRR Olde Crone

Wish GR would adopt some of your suggestions. Today I have dozens of Smiths and Jones, none of them mine. If I tell GR that ALL of my Smiths were born in Sussex and NONE of my Jones come from Wales do you think they could something about that ? LOL Jean

The idea is sound and I have had a few useful contacts from them. However, the exclusion of place of birth in the criteria for selection creates too many false matches. Part of that problem is the uploading of gedcoms when the place of birth comes up on GR as blank. It looks as if the problem may be being addressed by the boxes on new entries to select Country, County and Town. Once these are universal a more precise match will be possible. If you've got more than a hundred or so names in your tree then doing an inividual search on each one on a regular basis is a non-starter.

I did not mean to fire bullets at you personally - it is just that often people are quick to criticise but ,content to sit back and do nothing. You have by virtue of your input at least suggested a real option for GR to consider. Who knows they may even copy your ideas Olde Crone. Maurice

You are absolutely right Marjorie...... sorry, OC. 'a step in the right direction ' and 'thankful' Maurice? It hasn't been thought thro at all. How people are supporting this ridiculous system, to me, beggars belief. Any beginner on a database could set a filter system to stop me getting 'unknowns' or W****** Adams b 1879 Ipswich matching with one born in Australia!! and I don't know THAT til I've opened the darn thing!! And like other people have suggested, ' put the name of the 'hot match' instead of the contact and that would let us delete all the obviously useless ones immediately without the fag of opening each one in hope.' 'incorporate a facility for you to tick if you don't want to be informed of matches on certain surnames'. Kat (can't face opening another hotmatch til sorted)

Maurice Even I have the expertise to do this better and I know nothing about computers. A simple, four column spreadsheet would do it - first name, second name, date of birth, county of birth. You can 'sort' a spreadsheet into alphabetical order by surname or date or whatever at the touch of a button. I dont think any thought whatsoever has gone into the creation of the much-trumpeted Hot Matches - its just My Tree Matches by another name and a far more complicated and awkward format. Olde Crone

I like the idea of Hot Matches, but perhaps later GR could tweak it a bit so you could see the names all straight away, then you could just block delete all the dead wood leaving the likely targets. It is a step in the right direction I imagine some poor soul sweated blood trying to help us with the Matches ,so unless you have the expertise to do better - look and learn but please don't knock Thankful that someone is trying, Maurice

If you don’t want to receive the Hot Matches go into My account and check the box at the bottom of the page. Malcolm.

As a luddite, I like the New Names Alert. When it is working properly, and it only just seems to have reappeared after an absence of several months, you get a list of all the new names. This comes in a single list, so is much easier to negociate than 'my tree matches'. Hot matches can prove useful to beginners, but it is doing little more than quicksearch does. Its huge disadvantage is that it may take months to alert you to a particular hot match, by which time that potential cousin may have got bored.

I too think they are a joke. I had another look last night at my 22 pages of Green and Bell surnames. For the life of me, I cannot see why these matches have to be 'hidden', so you have to Click to see who the supposed match is! And, why do I want George Green, born in 1975, wherever - I dont have a Green born after 1900, and don't want one, either. And deleting them takes you back to page one EVERY TIME - drives me utterly mad. I really don't see that Hot Matches does anything that My Tree Matches doesnt already do - at least that lets you select your possible matches yourself. GR may be very proud of this facility but as far as I am concerned, they could have done something else with their time. Olde Crone

i like the hot matches. but as yet ive only ever had them beginning with the letter A im waiting for the the rest of the alphabet now lol susie

I must admit, I did check my hot matches when it first came out but got very bored very quickly, weeding out all the non matches. I know Hot Matches annoy me now and so I just don't bother with this particular part of the site. Out of curiosity I just checked & I now have 22 pages of hot matches. There just isn't enough hours in the day! If I want to check a particular name, I do it myself.

I thought this would be a good idea but I have SMITH and JONES in my tree HELP!!!!!!!!! It should just be exact connections Good Luck all with your research

I sent a suggestion in to GR a few weeks ago, suggesting that a quick and relatively easy change to the Hot Matches system would be instead of processing each person's rellies in alphabetical order of surname, they are processed in order of rarity of surname, so that you would get matches to the rarest surnames first. GR can calculate the rarity of surnames from how often each surname is found on GR, so should be easy. They said they would consider my idea for future developments... Kate.

The feature needs some creative enhancement, a suggestion to make it much more usful would be to allow each member to customize their hot match criteria...ie. you choose whether your hot matchs should be based on a match of 'name only', or 'name and year', or 'name and place'. That way it would help those with people like 'John Smith' in their tree.

I have managed to get rid of some of my hot matches by deleting date of birth. I put it in my notes instead. I think the other way would be to give poor George an unusual first name. I have had a couple of very distantly related contacts through hot matches but no major breakthrough. They could at least match by country and by town which are pretyped. I have one hot match who has entered about twenty members of my family including my mother and grandparents but has not responded to my attempts to contact him.

As I said on the other thread, I find them a waste of time too. I found some very useful contacts searching for names myself, then *** I *** decide whether the date & place of birth are a good match. I have deliberately NOT put my Smiths on my tree, I have enough troubles with my Greens! And matching with ''Unknown'' is a joke. It appears every time someone uploads a new gedcom, ALL the names are regarded as NEW, so I keep getting matches on names I already know about (and have already contacted). As a start I think it would be quite easy to incorporate a facility for you to tick if you don't want to be informed of matches on certain surnames. Then you might be able to get past the Browns once in a while... Another could be to ignore names with no date or place or birth.

Trying to be constructive: They could block the 'Living' ones for starters.

I must disagree with you re Hot Matches. I've now had about 6 positive contacts come through via this and loads of info - it's great! :-)))