Genealogy Chat

I have contacted a few people in the last week who I thought shared a common relative with me. However I have had no replies. When you do a name search and find people with a surname interest are they all current GR members or are some people listed whose membership may have lapsed? Could this explain why I have no replies? Thank you for your advice, Anne.

Hi Anne This appears to be a common problem. A good percentage of people never reply to messages for one reason or another. However, if they are no longer members, what is the point of retaining their information on this site, as it serves no purpose whatsoever? G

There is no point, Gordon, but GR don't want to take the chance of their numbers of names falling!! Merry

Hi Merry Frustrating isn't it though, when you are sure the name and place of birth of an entry is just what you're looking for!! G

Gordon You are wrong, all that pointless information DOES serve a purpose - it means that GR can advertise 60 million ancestors and umpty million members!! Anne I sometimes do not reply to Hot Match messages, depending on how bad-tempered I am feeling. I do not reply, for instance, to a message which says 'Hi, we are related through James Bloggs, show me your tree' I want to know how you KNOW your James Bloggs is related to mine before I enter into any great discussion, because if you only have ONE match with my tree, you are very unlikely to know you are related to my James Bloggs who was born in 1700. But, if you have messaged these members with a bit of information to show your reasons for thinking you might be related, and they have not replied, then they are either not full members of the Site, or they are just not interested. Olde Crone

Thank you for your comments Gordon, Merry and Olde Crone. I did explain how I thought we were related and mentioned quite a lot of names and dates. Perhaps I will just have to accept they are not interested or are not paid up members. Anyway thank you for your messages! Anne.

I would say, don't give up hope, Anne. I had the same thing happen when I contacted somebody and had no reply. I waited for three weeks then, at the risk of being pushy, I sent another message. I had an immediate reply, she'd been on an overseas trip and missed my first message. It turned out that we were second cousins who didn't know of the existence of each other. Our grandfathers were brothers and we were both so excited to find each other. So give it time, Anne, maybe you'll get lucky. Margaret in Canada

Not paid up members can, I believe, still reply to messages. But they can't initiate a contact

Don't give up Ann, I also have sent Message's to people and had no reply. Then out of the blue 3 days ago I recived a message form a lady who turns out to be my 2nd cousins we are haveing a great time exchanging family snipits. It's the best match yet. Diane.

I have two 'memberships' on GR, one in my name for my family and one in hubby's name for his. I'm only a 'paid up' member in my name as there is no point paying twice. If you haven't paid you can reply to messages and allow people to view your tree. You cannot initiate contact and you cannot view other people's trees (even though contacts may click to allow you to view and it appears to them that you can see their trees!)

Thank you for your comments too. I will keep my fingers crossed. Anne

Well, here's a message currently on the Success Board: 'I started using Genes reunited about two years ago but stopped looking at my msg but i started looking again and now i have found 154 new members of me family i never knew i had' !!!

It might be just me but... since January for the dozen or so messages I have received only one has been notified to me via e mail! I am in discussions with GR over this but no conclusion as yet. I still get new names alert and new hot matches, it is only messages that don't get through. I check my junk folders daily so don't know where they go. netti