Genealogy Chat

I would have thought with all the publicity regarding identity fraud where the most common identification question asked is mothers maiden name, GR would be more security conscious and put the onus on us to allow people to view this information and not their decision, unless we remember to opt out. JoJo

If I click on a name on these boards, it just asks if I would like to send a message. If I say yes it brings up the dialogue box and the send message box. No where on that page is there a tick box to allow or deny access. Is this right and does this mean that I am giving the person access without my knowledge? If I look at my shared trees, instead of the four or five I had theres now about ten. I wonder if this means that every time someone contacts me I'm going to have to ask them to delete me so I can keep my shared trees tidy and relevant?

Agree with all the ' anti ' replies. It's not good enough. Understood when I joined at the beginning of the year that info is confidential unless and until we decide to allow access. I don't want to waste time going through other people's family history not relevant to me anyway and am concerned about the info falling into hands of the ' wrong ' people, particularly where living relatives are concerned. It would not be too difficult for unscrupulous types to trace families and young children. I seem to have a different page lay-out as there is no checkbox on the page where e-mails are written. Is this the wrong page ?

PC what happened to your other thread. I got a reply from Gene's this morning, same reply as yours, so I have now deleted my tree. My membership is due for renewal in 10 days but I won't be renewing. A shame as I enjoy helping people but there are other sites I can do that on. Will try and see if they change their minds in the next 10 days. Irene

Who's Julie?? Am I supposed to be Julie??

Joy I have been putting this thread on the General, (Records and Tips Boards), but the reception it gets there is very frosty to say the least, I am so surprised at the distinct difference between post repliers on each thread. Generally Tips are shocked and annoyed General say they are happy for GR to change things Records are indifferent

I got exactly the same Julie well bang goes the renewal

And finally, they tell the truth!! Thanks for your email. We have changed this because the whole point of the site is for members to share their information. At the bottom of the email box it is very clear that you must untick the box if you do not want the other member to see your tree. I'm sorry that you are unhappy with this, but we currently do not have any intentions of reverting back to how it was previously. I will, however, pass your comments on to our team of developers and also the Genes Reunited manager. Customer feedback is very important to us so thank you for taking the time to write in with your comments. Regards Julie

I received a reply back from them - anyone else received the same reply? Thanks for your email and your feedback on this area on the site. I can confirm that we do read all emails that are sent to us and we make our managaement team aware of any issues brought to our attention. This topic has been brought to there attention and they are looking into this area of the site. But for the moment the box will continue to be automatically ticked so you will have to untick if you do not want another member to view your tree. Please advise us if you need any further information.

Kathleen Note your remarks. I did not know GR had been playing about with script sizes. I have a problem using the message boards etc my text size is about 1.5 ins on screen with my browser settings at smallest. GR support are looking at this problem for me hopefully they,ll sort it. Ron

Just received another standard reply have already sent back reply with the lead sentence similar to this Please read this before replying I know it is probably a new process for you but occasionally it works quite well the message finishes I will consider renewal of my subscription when the changes have been made Now I sit back and wait again

That is the exact same reply that I have just received from GR. I replied back saying that it doesn't help, and a standardised reply was not what I was asking for. Will you just listen to us, GR????

I emailed GR the other day about this change and they replied saying that the matter would be passed to their technical department to deal with in any future update of the site. I think what has happened is that last week when they messed about with the new script sizes and underlining links, someone probably altered the tick box without realising what they'd done. I can't imagine they changed it deliberately after all the aggro they got last year about this same problem. Hope they change it back soon. Kath. x

Pat in Concentric Circles You mean you actually get newsletters lol

Oh Nell I so agree with you always have agreed about that homepage, it's is ridiculous the trivia top and the important stuff so low down the page. I think it would be great if GR would include a survey in the mailings they send, find out what THEIR members think and above all ask for suggestions (ok as if they would lol). Pat x

Have messaged them (see below) I am fed up with them not listening to us. We are the reason why their site runs! Dear GR Could you please remove the tick from the 'tick box' which automatically allows contacts to view our trees. You did so last year, and we were thankful for that. However, reintroducing this without consulting members or letting us know about it (and the complete ignorance of it when people did contact you) is outrageous. Please could you revert it back to the way it was. If people want to give access to someone then they should be only allowed to do it consciously, and not by mistake. You have changed many things on these boards, and have done very little in the form of satisfactory explanations. We are paying members, and there are sites where we can add our tree for free, and post messages for free. Listen to us for once! Chloe

Please note that none of the details you enter about your family (apart from their name being added to the name search feature) will be available to anyone else unless you actually authorise this through the facility on the site. Quote from Gr 'How do I build my tree'. And I thought living people weren't supposed to be included without their permission so how does that fit with them being'splashed all over the place'?

the point is that we the members told GR last year not to do this, yet they have reverted again

All you need to do when checking your message to others is to make sure that the box is unticked and then there will not be any problems. You can always check your tree permissions in your contacts list straight afterwards to make sure. I am fanatical about reading small print and tick boxes. Pippa

Whoops! That explains why I can see alot of trees that I never asked to see and have no interest in whatsoever!! The worrying thing of course is they can see mine!!! Just off to remove permissions!!! Thanks so much for puting this here Suexx