Genealogy Chat

Ive had 3 hot matches, the only thing is they stick to the same surname Harrison. There must be other matches in my other names. Regards Yvonne

Obviously there is still a lot of work to be done on the Hot Matches. It says on the matches page that they will be updated every 14 days. I do hope that when they are, I will get further into the alphabet that the letter C, which is as far as they go on my names so far. However, the advantage really comes when someone has more than one match with your own tree - say a father and son. Yes, I know one could search against each name on the site and then try to spot which people have got more than one match to your own tree (much higher chance of it being a correct match then), but Hot Matches does make this quicker and easier. I really can't wait for them to get to the letter J!! Tina

I must just be lucky then, as I have had 4 matches already. My brother who lives the other side of the country, my nephew I've found our connection in Australia and someone researching who I came across on a church record. I feel mean now, but it obviously works sometime Lynda

I tried them thought they were no good but as I was deleting I found a match for my husband's GGG grandmother her twin with out this hot match doubt if I would have found it as her sister had a comman name Jane. just waiting to hear back.that was the only 1 out of 4 pages already knew the rest. Jeanette

I was wondering if the blank ones may have been if the person on the other end had already deleted theirs. I had 10 matches with someone who has 27000 in his tree. I know that they were matches but it comes up blank when I click on the hot match. (Not that I want to contact someone with 27000).

I use Lost Cousins site, you put in details of ancestors from the 1881 census and anyone else who ads the same details gets matched with you, I've had quite a few contacts from that site.

Hi Jan I've been clicking save for each person, I'm down to two pages now. Heather

Hi Heather Yes, I did click the save button, at the end of each page because I discovered you had to do it page by page - as normal with this site, everything throws you back to page 1. I'd gone through all 5 pages ticked those boxes, clicked Save at the end. It didn't work. Threw me back to Page 1. So did it page by page......and you know the rest LOL The Save option didn't make any difference though, same ones still there today I'll be giving this a miss until it works. jan xx

I assume it uses a ridiculously crude algorithm which only checks a spelling match for the name and a numeric match for the year of birth. So I'm offered hot matches for John Hill born 1796 about 4,000 miles away from where mine was baptized. GR would probably be better off removing this and coming back to it once they have developed a sensible program - one which at least takes account of the place and preferably also the rarity of the names. And to make it useful they need to include baptisms as a substitute for births. I also have quite a few blanks - no name at all. So yes: the original tip is spot on: Don't bother.

Jan I think you have to click the box and click save at the bottom of the page too. Heather

I got 5 pages of so-called Hot Matches. Only problem is they all over the world and mine definitely are not. Also loads of blanks, no names on there at all - what's that about. Yesterday I ticked a whole load of boxes 'Don't show me this again' and guess what - they did HUH Jan xx

I had 3 pages of Mary Davies's!

I take it all back one was a relative

Just wait until they get up to the S's. I will have a million Smith matches lol Wonder how many people will get a hot match on the names Swan or Vesta?? Merry

same here i have John Jones also!!!!! Star

I made the mistake of having a Linda Jones and a John Jones in my tree! Now GR sends me a match for every John or Linda Jones that has EVER been entered with the same birth year on the site - what a waste of space!

It's pretty useless without a geographical match facility as well.

Well, I looked at Hot matches (for the first time) and did find a genuine Hot match. But I had already made contact nearly a year ago and the link is very tenuous anyway. Is everyone else limited to 5 pages? I haven't looked at every one, but my matches seem limited to two names, not ones I'm really interested in either.

Never heard of Gencircles. Logged on and found one of mine straight away. Thanks

I do hope they will adjust it so you only get people in the same area otherwise its a waste of time