Suggestions

Every other week I will give a roundup of the latest suggestions which I will add to this thread. This thread is locked because new suggestions should be made on a new thread or on the Trees, Records or General Suggestions threads.

The Suggestions Board is for suggestions for improvements to the site. If you are looking for help researching your family history you can ask our helpful members on the ‘Find Ancestors Board’ and ‘Find Living Relatives Board’. If you are having problems using the site we have a customer support team who will be happy to help you. You can email them at [email protected]

2nd May 2013 - A roundup of the latest suggestions from the Suggestions Board:

• Not everyone is paying the same subscription cost. You have said this will be changing soon and moving everyone across to the same subscription fee. When will you be changing this?
- We had started moving people on to the new price point gradually but now that we are confident that the payment system can cope with the price change and it will not affect your use of the site or your subscription in any way, we will be moving everyone. You will pay the new price upon your next renewal. You will receive an email 28 days and 14 days before this payment is taken.

• A ‘like’ button, similar to facebook, so people can like each other’s posts
- Great idea, I will share this with the product team and see if we can implement something similar. We’ve often thought about a star rating system, particularly for the Find Ancestors and Find Living Relatives board, to allow people to rate the help people give. Let us know what you think of this idea here: http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/suggestions/thread/1323948

• Moderation of the Find Living Relatives board
- We don’t have any plans to do this at the moment and currently only pre approve posts for the Success Board. We feel the current system works well, although it does mean that we rely on our members to report anything they feel is inappropriate. Once reported, the post is removed to be reviewed by a customer support team member.

• When using the site sometimes the page won’t load or messages won’t send and I receive an ‘error message’
- The phantom error message!! We are really sorry that some of you have to see this message. As frequent users of the site, you are the ones most likely to experience this inconvenience. The error message occurs when the server takes too long to reply to the site. This could be because it is a time of high traffic, or because the thread or page you are looking at has a lot of information to load. We are constantly making changes to the site to improve performance and reduce the number of error messages shown. When an error message does show, we suggest refreshing the page and reporting the error to customer service, as this will help us identify any patterns and particular problem pages.

• Surnames of all direct relatives to be put in capital letters
- We could use some help with this one. Who do you consider to be ‘direct’ relatives? Does this mean only blood relatives or just those in your immediate family? There may be a view in the family tree that we could create to show this. Let us know here: http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/suggestions/thread/1321511

• Change the background colour on the GR site
- Last year we redesigned Genes Reunited and made the site design much fresher and easier to navigate. Initial feedback did suggest that the background colour was too light, so we have darkened it. Since then feedback has been largely positive.

• Map to show ancestors locations and events
- We did use to have a map feature within the tree and for search results, but it wasn’t used by a lot of people, and it was an expensive partnership to use the maps. If this is something more people start to request, we will look into making it available again.

• Highlight the announcements board when Genes Reunited posts a new announcement
Another good idea, we’ll see what we can do.

• Make the search function on the boards work properly – still only the first 40 results appear when searching for a phrase
- This is something we know is not performing as it should, and we will be looking into it, however, there are other tasks that will take priority over this first.

• Remove the automated text from the standard message when asking to view another member’s tree.
- Thanks for your suggestion, I’ll discuss this with the Team.

• Why are some members notified when their thread has been removed but others are not?
- We weren’t aware of this anomaly, and all members should receive a notification if their post is removed. Please make sure the email is not being sent to your junk folder. If a post of yours is removed, and you do not receive a notification, please email [email protected]

• Notifications from Genes Reunited when a member has given access to a family tree should have a link straight to that person instead of the current link “click here to review your tree permissions”
- Very sensible suggestion – I will speak to the development team about implementing this change.


Natasha

17th May 2013 - A roundup of the latest suggestions from the Suggestions Board:

• Merge the stickied threads on Find Ancestors into one thread.
- This isn't something we plan to do at the moment because the threads are about different subjects and we're not sure that it will work combining them in to one long post.

• What is the point of the contacts list? Can it be shown in alphabetical order?
- The contacts list is currently in chronological order. I will speak to the product team to see whether it is possible to add an option to custom your contacts list to your preference.

• Implementation of an IT help board.
- Our customer support team are able to help members with all of their queries, including IT support. You can contact them at the following email address: [email protected]

• Ability to add records as a jpeg to posts
- At the moment the boards do not have the functionality to allow you to attach images or jpg’s to boards; however, this is something that we are reviewing. In the meantime, you can upload images to your keepsafe or attach them to a personal message.

• The first line of the community drop down menu should be “Start a New Topic”, when you click on this a page should load that gives a summary of the boards so the member can post on the suitable board. Could have a tick box so people who know how to use the message boards don’t have to view the message again.
- Thank you for the suggestion, but at the moment we feel that the current navigation works.

• Stick to your policy and remove members profiles who have had 3threads//posts reported and removed.
- We do not like to ban any members, and instead prefer to have a conversation with the member and see if it is an issue we can overcome. We do keep a record of how many times someone’s posts have been reported. We treat each report individually.

• Searching the Find Ancestors Board (and others)- improve the search so that you can search each board individually and group the results in chronological order with the newest on the first page.
- If you click on Advanced Search you can choose which Board you would like to search, the results page is listed in date order with the newest at the top. We do have plans in the pipeline to improve the search facility on the community boards further.

• When the original post has been requested for review can the whole thread be locked whilst awaiting a decision on the report?
- As soon as a post is reported it is removed from the conversation. We want to allow members to be able to continue their conversation on that thread so we think it is probably for the best if we don't lock it.

• Threads should be limited to 5000 posts and then locked with GR creating a new part 2 thread with the original post and link to old thread. This should help the error message issues.
- Good suggestion, I will discuss this solution with the Genes development team.

• Allow members to add corrections to poorly transcribed records
- If you contact our support team with any corrections to miss-transcribed records, they will send these corrections to the GR developers to rectify. You can contact the support at: [email protected]

• Be able to save an article that’s been found on the BNA – not just the link
- You can save an article you have found on the British Newspaper Archive, or any other record, to your Keepsafe. You can do this by clicking on the button ‘Save to Keepsafe’. I’d also suggest that you use Windows snipping tool or screen grab the page, that way you can save it to your desktop.

• Is it possible to have a disregard/ignore tick box in the tree search results that if ticked would reduce the numbers quoted in the purple star and refrain from showing me again in the search results.
- This is a good suggestion; I will pass this on to our development team to see if it can be implemented.

Natasha

31st May 2013 - A roundup of the latest suggestions from the Suggestions Board:

• Is there a way of letting paid members know that they are messaging non paying members?
- If you message a member who isn’t subscribed to Genes Reunited they will still be able to respond to your message. We don’t think that it is necessary to identify what subscriptions levels members are.

• If Genes Reunited uses the same records as findmypast then why are some of the GR records inaccurately transcribed and FMP ones correct?
- The records on GR and FMP share the same transcription. It’s possible that certain transcriptions errors have been reported to FMP directly who have made the corrections to their records. If there are any in particular you have come across please let our customer support team know. Our technical team will then make the changes. You can email the team at: [email protected]

Natasha

20th June 2013 – A round up of the latest suggestions from the Suggestions Board:

• Posts should only be edited within a short period of time, perhaps ten minutes. Or the posts should show the text before it was edited (how it’s done on facebook).
- Thanks for your suggestion; we have plans to improve the community boards further so I will discuss the best approach to this with the rest of the team.

• Can we go back to the old layout for searching censuses? Also, can we add the filter for county-level on BMD records?
- We are sorry to hear you are unhappy with the site changes. The changes to the search facility have actually made searching records much easier, as the results should be faster and more accurate. However, we realise there are some features missing that were present before and we will be working on getting these back on the site as quickly as possible. If you are having problem navigating the site, please contact our support team who will be happy to help. Their email address is: [email protected].

• Can you remove the option to tick when a thread has been answered or change it to “I don’t require any further help”
- Thanks for pointing out the issues that arise with new members who sometimes mark the thread as answered even if it actually hasn't been. I will speak to the team about changing the wording.

• I recently had a match from GR linking my tree to others. If GR can recognise a match to our trees, why can’t it do the same with relations already in our trees?
- We already compile what we call ‘Hot Matches’ for relations already in your family tree. We recently changed the way in which we search for these matches so the results are far more accurate. You can see your Hot Matches by going to ‘Relatives’ in the top menu and clicking on ‘Hot Matches’ in the drop down. If you haven’t received any, please contact our support team by emailing: [email protected]

• Still receiving error messages
- We experienced some intermittent problems during the release last week and then again on Monday night where people could not log in. Both of these issues have been fixed. If you are experiencing an error message when using the boards or your contact centre, and it is a long thread or you have a lot of messages, you may experience a time out error because of the amount of data the website has to load. Please can you let us know which error message you are still seeing.

• Change to the order of the boards: Find Ancestors, Genealogy Chat and Find Living Relatives should be first. Also, being able to select all boards in the advanced search.
- Thanks for your feedback and suggestions; we do have plans to improve the search facility on the community boards further. I will update you when I can.

Natasha

5th July 2013 – A roundup of the latest suggestions from the Suggestions Board:

• Could the save button on the tree page be put to the top of the page? ( I use XP IE8 I have to put Compatibility on for the boards and off for my tree in order to see the save button at the bottom of the page)
- This isn’t a bug we are aware of so apologies for the inconvenience. There is a big design project happening on the tree at the moment which we will test with members before we change anything, but this won’t be until Autumn time this year.

• It would be helpful to have an A-Z search by surname facility where we could look up names of interest.
- If you go to the Relatives tab at the top of the page and click on Surname Summary on the drop down tab you can see a list of the total number of matches on Genes with the surnames in your tree. If you are looking for the meaning of a particular surname you can click on the surname and we will explain the origins of the name in the box on the left hand side. You can also search for a particular name by going to Search All Members Trees and type in the name you are looking for. The results page will show you a list of the other Genes members who also have that name in their trees. This is a great way to connect.

• Please change the detail text box to be a floating rather than a fixed screen box as this should alleviate the problem with adding relations when using certain laptops or tablets.
- We were not aware of this problem, could you please take a screen shot and email this to us at: [email protected]

• You can’t forward an image by external and internal email as an attachment
- This functionality is already available in the contact centre. When you compose a new message, below the subject line there is a button that says ‘Choose File’. If you click on this it will allow you to attach a photo or document to the message.

• Is it possible for Genes Reunited to develop a more robust and definitive search engine. On another genealogy site where I have just completed a trial period, they have the option to add parents/spouse and sibling names.
- Thanks for the suggestion, this is something we are currently working on and should be completed soon.

• A new board – where people can post the problems they have using Genes Reunited
- If you experience problems using the site we recommend you email our support team who are there to help. This method is far quicker than the proposed new board, our support team will get back to you within 48 hours. You can contact them at: [email protected] You can also post suggestions, ideas or problems on our Suggestions board.

• Changing the wording in the first contact message, people need to send as much information as possible, the way it is currently worded does not work.
- This is something we are aware of and we are really sorry for the delay in changing this. This will be changed soon; it has been made it a priority.

• Posts should have a draft button which can save a draft post as well as a preview and submit button
- As the post can be previewed before it is submitted we don’t think having a draft option is necessary. However if this is something that members are really keen to see implemented, we will look into adding this feature.


Natasha

19th July 2013 – A roundup of the latest suggestions from the Suggestions Board:

• The threads on the Success Stories board have a button to ‘watch this thread’. As it is not possible for anybody to post on these threads, what’s the point of this button?
- Thanks for this suggestion; it certainly makes sense to remove this option. I will speak to our development team.

• Is it possible to hover over a title of a thread instead of having to click on it to view it? This would save a lot of wasted time.
- Thanks for your suggestion but we think that the way in which the threads are currently laid out, showing not only the title but the first line of the OP, is enough.

• When searching member’s trees we should have an option of a check box to search ‘exact match surname’. The added within field is a waste of time, unless you are checking daily which is unrealistic and should be removed.
- We’ll talk to our development team about implementing this suggestion. We’ve found that the ‘added within’ field is very useful. I met a member at the Yorkshire Family History fair last month who checked the ‘added within’ everyday for a certain name, so we won’t be removing this.

• Can we have the ‘quote’ function activated. This will stop misunderstandings happening when replying to posts not directly before one’s reply. This function is available on other SMF forums and would be a welcomed addiction.
- Thanks for this suggestion; I know that quite a few members have requested this. It may not be a quick change because the way in which our boards have been created but we will look into how we can make this possible. I’ll keep you updated when I know more.

• Stop ‘improvements’ to genes. Prefer the old way to search, the new way isn’t great- there’s no way to refine your search and hardly any information given – you can’t see the person’s birth area without having to go into them all.
- We are sorry to hear you are unhappy with the site changes. The changes to the search facility have actually made searching records much easier, as the results should be faster and more accurate. However, we realise there are some features missing that were present before and we will be working on getting these back on the site as quickly as possible. If you are having problem navigating the site, please contact our support team who will be happy to help. Their email address is: [email protected].

• We allow people to conceal individuals born in the last 120 years from their trees. This function is limited to everyone we give permission too. It would be better if we could choose who we allow to see our full tree, a separate check box should be placed under each contact.
- Thanks for this suggestion. We have a team working on improvements to the tree on Genes so I will speak to them about implementing this function.

Natasha

13th August 2013 – A roundup of the latest suggestions from the Suggestions Board:

• When checking for possible tree matches it says if prior contact has been made – is there any way that there can be a link to show the correspondence that has previously been sent.
- We think this is a great suggestion. I will speak to our technical team to see if this is possible to implement.

• Would it be possible to add a description to the titles of the other Boards to indicate what each board is intended for? (currently only on suggestions & FLR)
- Good suggestion and by adding in this description at the top it will hopefully eradicate any confusion people have on deciding which boards to post on.

• I don’t think Genes should send possible matches if a subscriber is already in touch with that match.
- Hot Matches are generated by our computer system and whilst you may have already made contact with a member, there may be matches that you were unaware of.

• Please remove the option to tick a post as answered.
- A previous suggestion asked for this text to be changed to “I don’t require any further help”. I will discuss both options with the rest of the product team.

• It would be welcomed and appreciated if all matters in the suggestions board were dealt with, please, ie noted / actioned / removed as appropriate, starting with the first post and working forward
- From May we have been updating members every 2 -3 weeks on the latest suggestions on the suggestions board including those in the threads: Records, Tree and General. If you have a suggestion that hasn’t been addressed yet it’s best if you repost this on the suggestions board.

• I checked my tree on Friends Reunited and it is there in the old format (the dark green background) why?
- Thanks for pointing this out. The tree on Friends Reunited will be changed over to the new and improved tree on Genes Reunited shortly.

Natasha

3rd September 2013 – A round-up of the latest suggestions from the Suggestions Board:

• Please could you highlight the HELP option more clearly in the menu?
- I’ll talk to the design team about your concerns on the position of the help section.

• When searching for a new name in all members’ trees, it would be useful to have a filter to only list new contacts or to be able to sort on this fact.
- When searching member’s trees you can sort by names that have been added in the past 1-14 days.

• Finding own posts within threads
- Thanks for your suggestion. We have plans to improve the community further so I will suggest this to be included.

• Adoption register details on the Find Living Relatives boards – can GR not provide a link to adoption agencies at the top of the board?
- At the top of the FLR board we have written an introduction to the board which has a link to a separate page which has further advice and links to adoption agencies.

• Please move a military research tips thread into the new military chat board
- We've compiled a list of threads that should be moved to the two new boards – Military Chat and Hobbies & Crafts – this one has been added in. The changes should be made today.

• “Cookies” policy- should there not be a notification on the site about the “cookies” in accordance with the EU/UK “cookie” law?
- There is a notification now at the very top of the site when you first visit. It has a grey background with green font and can be closed once viewed.

• Can you ensure that new members who do not have a board name are contacted by you to tell them how to enter one. How is one to know which “unknown” one is speaking to, or helping?
- It must be frustrating when helping members not to know who you are addressing, especially if there are several ‘unknowns’. I’ll discuss with the rest of the team to decide where we can add this in, it might be that we add it into the welcome email. Thanks for the suggestion.

• When GR posts a new announcement can it be highlighted as new on the board?
- Good suggestion. This is something we would like to implement; I will speak to the team about when this can be implemented.

• GR has a presence in social media out of working hours but why not on its own site?
- The social media is run by the marketing team who work out of office hours for certain events and activity. The community boards are managed by the customer support team who work normal office hours. We are reaching out to different people via our facebook and twitter pages and the posts we make are to encourage new people to try out Genes Reunited as a place to start their family history research.

• When a post has been reported, and GR have reviewed it, and returned it to the board, could something be done to make sure the post cannot be reported again?
- Good suggestion. I will speak to the technical team to see if this is possible.

• Incorrect transcriptions – can we have a button to report
- Unfortunately we don’t have this button at the moment, it is certainly something we would like to have but there are other tasks that will take priority first. In the meantime you can contact our support team who will pass the transcription changes onto our technical team to change.

• Please can you make it possible to delete other people’s trees from the “Trees shared with me” list on the tree dashboard.
- Great suggestion. I’ll put this idea to the team. It certainly makes sense to remove certain trees if you have shared trees with a large number of people.

A couple of suggestions have been brought forward on the Suggestions Board, they have been answered in previous round-ups, and the original responses are below. I don’t have any further updates for these two at the moment.

• Can we have the ‘quote’ function activated. This will stop misunderstandings happening when replying to posts not directly before one’s reply. This function is available on other SMF forums and would be a welcomed addiction.
- Thanks for this suggestion; I know that quite a few members have requested this. It may not be a quick change because the way in which our boards have been created but we will look into how we can make this possible. I’ll keep you updated when I know more.

• Only 40 matches when searching for a topic.
-This is something we know is not performing as it should, and we will be looking into it, however, there are other tasks that will take priority over this first.


Natasha

26th September 2013 – A round-up of the latest suggestions from the Suggestions Board:

It has been a quiet month for suggestions. I'm hoping to update you all soon with which suggestions have so far been implemented.

• Marking a post as answered: people are not fully understanding the function of this button and therefore marking their post as answered when it hasn't been.
- We’re looking into getting this changed. I know this has come up a few times and people have requested for its complete removal or for the wording to be changed to: “I don’t require any further help”. We are discussing both options and I will update you when I know more.

Natasha

6th November 2013 - A round-up of the latest suggestions from the Suggestions Board:

• Flagging threads as closed
- Makes sense. We will look to implement this

• Reinstate the 'Contact Support Team' link within the 'Help' section
- This has been raised by a few members. Your comments have been shared with the team - we will look to reinstate this

Shelley

4th December 2013 - A round-up of the latest suggestions from the Suggestions Board:

• I've been using Geni. To add a portrait to the name, you click once, your files are shown, you choose, open a photo and it's uploaded. Can the Genes system not be as simple?
- Thanks for your suggestion Charles, your comment has been passed to the development team

• When one looks at the comments about the "new tree" since it was introduced it is obvious there are very many members who are unhappy with it and am sure would welcome back the old tree
- Thanks for your comment Barry, we have a team working on the tree. The development team do take notice of comments and suggestions on the board

Shelley

• I suggest that you include a column that shows the senders so that we can identifiy the direction of the post either WE have sent it or the person it comes from

- Great suggestion Stephen_SG. This has been passed on for attention

Shelley

Hi Everyone,

We have been asking for your suggestions, which have been a great help in drawing our attention to how we can make improvements on Genes Reunited. Here's where we are with all of your outstanding points:

• Flagging threads as 'closed'
- We have had feedback that users prefer not to leave closed threads on the boards. However, whoever starts the thread can delete it from the site

• Remove completed actions/threads from the board
- We can remove these. Again, the member who initiated the thread can remove the thread by deleting the first message in the string

• Fix the 'tick' so that it can be turned off
- This one has been passed to the tech team. Great suggestion, we hope t implement this one soon

• Difficult to find the 'help' section
- Again, this one has been noted. We want users to be able to contact the team for help

• Emoticons not working
- This issue has been fixed. If anyone is still experiencing problems please email [email protected]

• Notifications on the user homepage saying they have unseen messages when they have been seen
- If you are experiencing this please email [email protected]

• For travellers in and out of Britain 1900 to 2004. Add old elector roll information please
- Unfortunately we don't have this data, but adding new records all the time

• Would like to see the 'Find My Family' extended to the antipodes (Australia)
- We don't have Australian records at the moment, but they may be added in the future. You can search tree to see if anyone has added the names the member is looking for with the place of birth being Australia

• Missing 'Next' census button - if the family that you are researching is listed on the end of the census and then on the next census page, you need both names to access it
- We are currently looking in to this bug

• Members offering lookups and then asking for payment for further information. Can something be added to the information for new posters that any such request should be reported as being against T&Cs
- Any posts asking for money should be reported to [email protected] - we do not allow posts of this type

• I've been using Geni. To add a portrait to the name, you click once, your files are shown, you choose, open a photo and it's uploaded. Can the Genes system not be as simple?
- At the moment we will not be changing the way we add photos. Your comment has been noted for future development

• Reinstate the old tree printing facility
- We will be keeping the current facility in place for now - which prints the view of the tree which can be seen on screen

• Unable to close my own thread
- Members should be able to close their own threads by deleting the first post. If you are unable to do so please email [email protected]


Shelley

Hi Everyone -

We are working on the outstanding suggestions, but please continue to post.

Wishing you all a great Christmas!

Shelley

7th January 2014 - A round-up of the latest suggestions from the Suggestions Board:

• Add additional space to individual data entry forms for GRO information

• Add 'Exact Match Surname' box

- Thank you Stephen_SG for both suggestions. We are looking in to these.

Shelley

24th January 2014 - A round-up of the latest suggestions from the Suggestions Board:

We have continued to receive feedback regarding the tree. Comments/suggestions are passed to the development team, who are currently working on an improved tree.

Suggestions previously submitted have been passed on for attention. Please continue to post or PM me directly.

Shelley

14th February 2014 - A round-up of the latest suggestions from the Suggestions Board:

• Add board for local history
- Thank you for the suggestion Graham, we can certainly do that!

• Improve capacity for uploading media
- We will look in to this and see what we can do

• Incorporate the facility to have multiple trees
- We are working on a new and improved tree, and will keep you updated

• When editing relations in my tree (marriage date and place added), details are not saving
- This one has been flagged with support Peter, who will be looking in to this further

• Would it be possible when a new thread is started, to check that the same thread title and body from the same author, has not been posted in the last few seconds, and if so to reject the second?
- Thanks KenSE, great suggestion. We will see whether this can be implemented

• Bring back surname summary

• Include an illustration or sample of what is indicated when putting forward a suggestion

Shelley

3rd March 2014 - A round-up of the latest suggestions from the Suggestions Board:

• Capacity to have more than one set of parents (ie for people who have been adopted)
- Thank you for the suggestion Julian, we are always looking at development of the tree

• Preview of message without opening the message
- Thank you johnenigma, we can look in to this

• Re-order the community boards, with Genealogy chat appearing higher
- Thank you for your suggestion BeverlyW

• Provide non-registered people to use a Genes guest account

• Enable the ability to add photos to queries
- We will look in to this and see what we can do

• See whether members have opened/read PMs beyond checking sent emails

Shelley

Hi everyone,

Could I ask that you use the Suggestions board for suggestions, and other questions and searches for the corresponding boards. We want to ensure that your posts are not missed by the team and GR members by being on the incorrect board.

Thanks

Shelley

28th April 2014 - A round-up of the latest suggestions from the Suggestions Board:

• Add an esc function on if tree views are taking too long to load
- Thank you eponymic - would you be able to contact either myself or [email protected] an we will look in to page load times for you

• Amend lines/indentation on ancestor & descendants view to enable more people/generations when printing

Thanks

Shelley