What sites get you most contacts?

[Lindsay]

What sites have people found best for finding contacts?

I've had a couple from GR (one excellent)
One from Ancestry (again, excellent)

Currently looking at Curiousfox and wondering if it's worth registering

[Joy Dean]

rootsweb mailing lists.

[Janet]

Rootsweb,Family History Societies and online County/Town mailing lists.

Janet

[LorraineJ]

I have had three very useful contacts through Genes Reunited. One turned out to have worked with my OH last year and yet we had no idea we were related AND we live quite a distance from where they live.

[Mary from Italy]

I've had loads from GR, including some really good ones, a couple of excellent ones from Ancestry, and a couple more excellent ones from people who found me by googling for names in my tree.

Nothing much from Tribal Pages and nothing at all from Curious Fox, although some people have had really good results from both.

I've found very few people who've actually been able to help with the research, but lots of living relatives, some of whom have given me photos of various ancestors, which is a real bonus.

[maggie_4_7]

Mostly from Ancestry in fact 7 very good contacts. Who share with me and I with them. Info from each other's tree, certs, baptism records and photos.

2 in the USA, 1 in Australia, 1 in Scotland, 2 in England



5 from GR who all had the same mistakes has the man that started my maternal great grand father's family tree on there! Who all choose to ignore me even though having lived with my grandmother know more about her father than they could ever know. And also knew my mother and her siblings quite well strangely enough but still choose to have info on their trees that is pure concoction a lot of time! :(

[Glen in Tinsel Knickers]

Never had much joy with any of the well known sites to be honest, my best results came about from my now defunct FTM website and google matches to threads on here and Rootschat.

Then again though, if you add a "trying to find" type post to a site that google can find you just never know when a result might come about, you might forget you added it and years from now someone can find it and start tracking you down.

[herebedragons]

Only keep GR going for contacts as I've had most from there, plus a few more lately from Ancestry.

[Olde Crone Holden]

One absolute diamond from GR - a relation I didn't know existed and would never have even looked for him, of course. That was a big shock. (Nice one, but I had to rethink what I had been told by family)

A lot of no-matches from GR and a few very distant matches - who, like Maggie's contacts, refuse to believe the facts because they have all copied from each other, so nine people must be right and I must be wrong. The fact that they all descend from a child who died aged 4 appears to be no barrier to their beliefs.

One or two from Ancestry, surprises there even though again they were distant relations - I had forgotten I even had a tree on there and much of it is wrong anyway.

One from Google - I found a nine year old message (Rootschat???) and by some miracle the lady still had the same email address. I had the older part of the family, she had the newer part and we matched them up very nicely indeed - neither of us could have done it without the other's input to prove the join!

One from Curious Fox, several from Tribal Pages, including a very recent one who is sending me a tree back to 1279 which he is trying to sort out!

OC

[kathsgirl.48]

Ancestry has been the best website for me.

Found loads of second cousins all descended from my Irish grandmother and Irish grandfather. A couple of them even had my parents wedding photo..but thought it was their grandfather/grandmother's brother!

I've been 'found' by others too via Ancestry..again Irish side, so that has been very exciting. One even put me in touch with her uncle who lives in Dublin and he has been a 'diamond', looking up things in the parish records for our Brady family. Bless him!

GR has come up trumps too, so many to remember.

One was the grandaughter of one of my Irish grandmother's sisters.

All the rest have been the English side of my family.

So I now have a lot of photos of my english and Irish grandparents siblings...something I thought I would never ever be able to see.

[Pat Hope]

I have had lots of contacts through GR. I am not a paying member but I keep my tree on there. I have had a 'Hot Match' today who I couldn't contact but a very kind member on here contacted for me

[Christine in Herts]

I've had some excellent contacts from GR - right from the start, there have been folks who gave me chunks of info to set me on my way. I also made contact with some bits of my father's family who were drifting way.

I've had a couple through Ancestry.

I've had some excellent results for my niece as a result of joining a couple of S.I.G. mailing lists for her Jewish ancestry - including realising that one really helpful source of info lived just around the corner (literally so - I don't even have to cross a road!).

And then I emailed a local history group in Germany, in what I hoped was the right place to be the PoB for one of my niece's ancestors. They found a local historian whose project was the history of Jewish people in the area - including a great chunk of my niece's tree going back another generation or so, plus some copy documents, including a letter that confirmed beyond reasonable doubt that we'd got the right place/people match: a copy of a 1906 letter written from the residence of the son (her g-grandfather) in 1901 and 1911.

Christine

[Anne in Carlisle]

I've had loads in the past from GR. They range from the not very interested (so why did they start the tree??) to some who have given me 'flesh on the bones' material I could never have got otherwise. Such things as private letters of my great grandfather's first wife and the family page from a Bible with my great grandfather's actual date of birth (I only had his baptism previously)

I have not had much success on Ancetry. The only person who has replied to my messages was an old GR contact who 'was lost but now found'!!

I have a couple from the Bedfordshire FHS, one of whom I was able to help make a breakthrough because I was researching my part of the family from a different direction to her. This, imho, is one of the most important reasons for trying to make contact. It would never have been an option for her to start from my part of the tree - she didn't know it existed, whereas approaching the ancestor from my direction it was obvious.

Anne

[Little Nell]

I don't think you can make general rules, its such a hit and miss affair.

I joined Curious Fox and got nothing, until a while ago when I had a gem of a contact - turns out she is writing village history of one of my ancestor's villages. She is the parish clerk so she looked up some info for me including school registers for my grandfather and his siblings.

And she lives in the house where my gt x 3 uncle killed his fiancee and told me a story about it being haunted!

So that was well worth it!

[Penelope]

Redacted

[Val and George]

I have belonged to both Genes R and ancestry for a good few years, and I have never had a contact from ancestry - ever! But GenesR have come up with some really helpful ones, and hopefully I have been able to help people on there too with extra info.

[Lindsay]

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone - it's interesting to hear other people's experiences.

I suppose luck comes into it, but the wider you cast your net, the more likely you are to find a rellie!

[Teresa]

Hi I've had loads from GR really too many to cope with at times and keep corresponding with them.
Findagrave ~ in a round about way helped me find out about my great uncle.
None so far from Curious fox.
2 from Lost cousins.
2 from google searches including making contact with my grandads brother family, the brother had died in WW1 and we knew nothing about his son still alive who is over 90.
1 from Rootschat.

If I kept up the correspondance with everyone I'd contacted (on mine and hubbys tree) it would be a full time job and my paid work, housework and that pile of ironing resembling Mount Everest would never get done.

Teresa

[Jac]

I have had a really good one from GR a cousin who I had never met.Another cousin who I had lost touch with through Ancestry and several good contacts through Rootschat.

[Penelope]

My husband is on GR and Ancestry too and he has had maybe 1 message in 2 years on GR.. and that was his cousin! But I go through phases of nothing and phases of 3 a day! So it seems to be really random and different for different people.