Genealogy Chat

Well I've stirred up a hornets nest here. But reading all the arguments I'm inclined to agree with having some details on even if they are a rough guess than nothing at all. It is after all meant to be a site to connect people together. If you have common surnames sending e-mails to ppl whose ancestors may not be in the same country let alone county must be very frustrating. I'm sure Graham is great at answering his e-mails but plenty on here arn't even when they do supply the details. So far I have just ignored the names with no details beside them is that what the GEDCOM users want?

Sorry if I've opened a can of worms here, but I still don't see what uploading a tree onto here from a gedcom achieves. The originator doesn't need it on here, after all (s)he has their own more detailed version . Without dates (even if approximate), and often locations, its use to other members is limited, especially with more common names. After all, who wants to e-mail a thousand John Smiths to try to find the one which matches with their own John Smith, Reading, 1848?

Sorry clare I have just realised of course you would have to put them in one by one in gedcom. I`m a bit slow I think. Debbie

You still have to enter the names into a gedcom, but with mine i can add a whole lot more as well

I thought that adding names would be more exciting than loading from gedcom. surely the pleasure is seeing a new name you have just entered. Even if I had found a thousand names to put in I would do them manualy. if you done it by gedom it would be so quick and thats the end. no satisfaction and boring. So I think these people that do load from gedcom just want to get as many names on to their trees. nah not for me. Debbie

Am I missing the point here or What? I thought the idea of this site was to try and trace family members. When you initially create records on this site you start with yourself, adding parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents etc. Isn't this supposed to be what building a family tree is all about? The researchers always say start with yourself and work backwards. What is the point of not adding details of family members in the 70's onwards. Some poor sole researching the same family history in 50 years or so time will be having the same problems as some of us are having today!! So all these folk who are getting frustrated about non exsisting dates etc that's what the site is for to find the missing links ---- isn't it? There are some very nasty written messages on this site --- Just take a breath count to 10 and chill out. Live is too short!!

Well Graham if you've deleted your tree than thats afew more names less to worry about!!!!!!!

My last post - have deleted my tree and am giving up GC. What a sad crowd some of you are to be sure.

What IS a Gedcom anyway? Richard

I totaly agree with you Dierdre what is the point a lot of them just have names, no dates or areas, its like looking for a needle in a haystack Christine

Think you guys should get a life!!!!!!! Graham

I'm with you Brian. When I first registered with GC it was easy to navigate the names and find matching families. Now I don't know where I am half the time especially with the common names in my tree. I am new to genealogy and initially found this site invaluable, but if its purpose is primarily to help us connect genes, then it's pointless to allow names to be added with no other details available. Dierdre X

Yes i agree with you graham it will be all blah blah, but the thing is i wrote to 6 people asking them for information about someone in there tree who i thought maybe connected to mine, i only got 2 replys, and they were nothing to do with me so whats the point

I'm just musing to myself here about those members who HAVE filled in blank spaces with details in order to get the name uploaded onto GC - for all we know, these dates are a total fiction or guestimate. So where does that leave us now? As for writing to GC - good idea - you will inevitably get the standard 'thanks for your suggestion....blah blah....currently overwhelmed with suggestions ....blah blah..feedback is very important to us..blah blah. and nothing will be done. Graham

Maybe we should all write to GC about this, after all we have to put in the information, so why shouldnt everyone else!!!!!!!1

Amen to that Margaret. Graham

Margaret - I had a similar problem but got round it where I knew the baptism/christening was in the same year as the birth by putting in the year only in the birth field (similarly in the death field when the burial date was known) - but that is taking a bit of a risk I must agree. Graham

I'm trying hard and failing swiftly here. I've just added several hundred names to my tree (thanks to contacts I made on GC would you believe) in spite of missing dates etc too!! Now if I follow the advice posted earlier in this thread I should go through the whole tree and put in approximate dates?!!* I'm just supposing that had I done this a week or so ago and now I have to upload more names - first I would have to delete my tree back to my own name and then upload the new gedcom file and then go and edit it. Sorry, but it just doesn't work for me. Graham

Graham, Don't go all pouty on us. Be a sport and debate your point! Crista

*sigh* I sometimes despair at this site - think I'll just delete my tree and give it up as a bad job. Then again - why should I - after all, if someone wants to ask the question of any of my names I can easily give the reply - at least I always reply to any enquiry I get. Brian - I think you should clarify the point you're making - it's not clear to me what you are actually saying - after all, don't we all have a local version of our tree somewhere other than on the GC server? So why should I put information on my tree which has no source or verification other than the notes that I put in (which aren't accepted by GC)? If there's a way to stop causing irritation, I'm all for it, but the only way I can see is to delete the tree completely. Graham