Genes Reunited - hot matches!

[GallowayLass]

Here's a list of my Hot Matches for today.

Other person's tree (in order);
Goldie Penrod 1898 Pennsylvania, USA
Marion Hamilton 1886 Blinkbonnie, West Calder, West Lothian
William Gilbert 1868 Moss-Side, Lesmahagow
Margaret Sinclair 1882

My tree;
George Smirrel 1902 East Calder, Kirknewton
George Smirrel 1871 Bellsquarry, Mid Calder
Ann Cunningham 1850 Mid Calder parish
Catherine Gilbert 1825 Mid Calder parish

I have already discarded another 4 Hot Matches from somene else's tree this morning but at least the names matched and dates were nearly right. The birthplaces however, were all on opposite sides of the Altantic.

The above 4 souls though aren't even the same people and in 3 they aren't even the same sex. Gimme strength

[ayse]

I've just been through mine. What a waste of time. Still mine expires soon so I think I'll pay up to Tribal Pages instead. What does anyone else think?

Ayse

[Stacky]

I've got loads of Smiths, Watsons and Jones in my tree and I do get some comical matches. If they were all born in the same Continent it would be helpful!

[BC]

I've said this before, BUT, for all the anti-GR remarks, ( and I left them several years ago ) that is the only site where I have ever had any contacts so it does work in some cases !

[GallowayLass]

I've said this before, BUT, for all the anti-GR remarks, ( and I left them several years ago ) that is the only site where I have ever had any contacts so it does work in some cases !

Me to BC but the good ones were where I searched trees for matches to mine and contacted the people myself and others have done vice versa. I've always found the Hot Matches thing to be duff at best and it's getting quite appalling now.

[Laura the Explorer]

I am still not getting any;D



Laura

[Penelope]

I've had all my best contacts there and I never go looking for them. But as I have probably said before it's just because I come from a lot of large families, I think. With 15 siblings per generation, all surviving nito adulthood, you're going to get a lot of descendents! My husband gets almost zero contacts on GR. And only speaks to his cousin on Ancestry!

The hot matches are insane. I suppose the criteria is *Does it contain some of the same letters of the alphabet*.

I did score a spectacularly snotty contact last week who is convinced (from 5000 miles away) he has found a critical error in my tree. (I live a few miles down the road from the archive where the relevant records are and have maybe spent hundreds of hours there looking at originals and all kinds of other doucments as well as parish records. I'm assuming he has the IGI)... I don't mind people finding my boo boos in fact am deeply grateful. But this bloke tore into me with his not particularly substantiated theories. I haven't answered him cos I can't be bothered to engage with it. But the message reads like it was written by someone in a tearing RAGE!

[GallowayLass]

I am still not getting any;D



Laura

You can have some of mine Laura, they might be more use to you than me

[Peter Stenning]

Most of my hot matches are my Sisters tree which would be the same as mine anyway lol, and a person who suddenly appeared to copy my entire tree so i ignore that as well .

I have had some contacts there that have proved to be having my ancesters on there tree allthough of course they often are a vague connection a sister of a cousin way back .


Peter

[greybird]

I have to say I have had a lot of contacts through GR, some from hot matches although many of those are bizarre. One of my ancestors appears on 57 other peoples trees!

However, my recent resounding success was finding a friend I hadn't seen for 27 years who appeared on her brother's tree. We have just met up again during her visit to UK from Rio de Janeiro!

[Christine in Herts]

I've had a lot of useful contacts through GR.

I recall reading that when you get these clearly-wrong "HotMatches", it's because the other person has uploaded a fresh GedCom (or otherwise changed their tree) since the links were made.

The matches are only ever intended to be between names+dates. Anything more exact they do on a single-match basis (?Family Trumps? or something like that).


That said, it's still weird when they come up like that!
Christine

[Jill on the A272]

There can be good matches out there but you need to seek them out yourself. You can opt out of hot matches if they annoy you.

[GallowayLass]

There can be good matches out there but you need to seek them out yourself. You can opt out of hot matches if they annoy you.

I never realised I could turn them off. Am going over to that now. Thanks Jill.

[John_8251]

I found a distant cousin in Tasmania (on hot matches) we hit pay dirt exchanging dozens of new relatives. But, 99% of hot matches are poor. It was worth sifting through them all just for that one hit.

Without wishing to hijack.... can anyone tell me if Tribal Pages is on parr with GR? Just looking at options. Are they as big as GR?

[JBee]

No Tribal Pages doesn't seem to give you much in the way of contacts - but it is extremely good for hosting and altering your tree.

[John_8251]

No Tribal Pages doesn't seem to give you much in the way of contacts - but it is extremely good for hosting and altering your tree.

Thanks JBee, I will did a bit deeper re the options offered Tribal

[failsworthexile]

Gr was good for me initially--met a good few near relatives and a whole lot more gggrandparents cousins gggrandchildren!-depends how big you want your tree really-I gave up with them a couple of years back ,now just plodding along on my own ,a lot less stressful !

[dicole]

I have had some good contacts from GR, but the hot matches either give me trees that have been copied from mine, I don't mind that they did it, but there's no-one new out there !!

[Stella]

GR has it good and bad points. It was through them I found all my rellies in Australia and am in contact with them.

[Blackberry]

It's invaluable for finding contacts and that is all I expect from it.

I do not bother with hot matches, as it can only pick up dates and names as already mentioned. When I joined GR, it didn't offer census lookups and the like, so I subscribe elsewhere for such facilities. As for the messageboards, I have never used them as they are not in a very user-friendly format. So none of this stuff rattles my cage.