General Chat

Arthur ...........

many people change their email addresses and forget to change them for everyone.

GR is especially bad for that because a lot of people seem to join at the free level, which allows them to build a tree but not to post on the Boards. They get all excited, but then after a few months or years, they lose interest, get bored, or life intervenes, so they stop working on their tree, and gradually forget that they had one, or forget their sign in, don't remember to change their email address, and that is that.

GR never deletes a tree except in very rare cases when a member has been banned, only a member can do that OR someone knows their email address, password, etc. So trees posted back in the early days, beginning around 2003, will still be on here.

Keep that hope, Arthur.

I once had a reply on Genes many, many years after I had contacted someone.

Thanks for the replies. To answer some of the queries>>
Yes the messages have been unopened - I should have made that clear in my first post.
Change of email address could answer it, but if they are still interested in GR then surely they would also correct their email address.
I still have hope!

Arthur .......

have you checked to see if the messages you sent have been opened??

Just go to messages, click on Sent messages. If there is a green envelope to the left, then it has not been opened.

If it has been opened, then I think you have to assume that the person is either not interested, or just possibly is having to go back into their records to check.

Don’t despair Arthur, I had an answer about 4 years after sending one, so I think like has been said people lose interest and then come back. :-)

If they haven’t answered your messages then there’s no way to contact them

People don’t reply for many reasons

They changed the email address they used to join genes

They have lost interest in family research

They have passed away but their tree still shows on genes

Etc etc

Unfortunately if people don’t respond then that’s it I,m afraid :-(

Arthur

Non. Members can still receive your message. If they are not opened it could be that they have changed their email address, not interested.

I don’t use Facebook myself but many people do - you have a go.

After finding a new branch of my family I sent messages to several people on GR who possibly had connections to my family. Many of the messages remain unanswered. I presume that this is because the persons I have tried to contact have lapsed subscriptions to GR and my messages are not getting through.

If that is the reason it is so frustrating.

Does anyone have any guidance on how to contact these people?