Genealogy Chat

Hi All, It comes up several times for discussion that you contact someone and they don't reply. My normal answer is to wait and be patient. If I do not have a reply within 3 to 4 weeks I generally email them once again. This tends to work. I contacted someone who has an almost identical tree but appears to have bits that I am missing and vice versa. Well, after nearly 3 weeks waiting he has replied. He's just moved house and is still not connected to the internet, used a friends computer and saw my message and replied asking me to ring him asap. I have been in touch with him by telephone and I can only say is most impatient for us to meet up this weekend to swap notes. Moral of the story - be patient. Cheers Paul

Well done!

Well done....your patience has been rewarded. None of us know what is going on in a contact's life.... a family trauma may have occurred so that GR is far from their mind. In the old days of letter writing to possible relatives, I had a reply after 7 YEARS . Circumstances had changed and the distant relative felt free to contact us, without being harassed by another family member. I hope your meeting is great. Gwyn

I agree Paul. I was trying to contact a B/relative with the same name as me ! so obviously there was a bit of confusion. I wrote several times, with several different 'subject' titles AND eventually weeks later they replied. Never give up folks, patience wins in the end.

That is a good point, Paul. What with there being so many gadgets these days, so many ways to contact people so readily we either feel that we have to respond if they're ours or we forget that other events take over, whatever they may be. It may even be - and I had a response from a distant relative who had been in this same position just this last week - something as simple as people being on holiday. We are going abroad this August for two weeks and I don't anticipate being able to get internet access during that time. Similiarly, people get ill, maybe have to go to hospital, family problems or something comes up and they just don't have time or the opportunity to get to the internet.

I agree totally with what has been said about being patient, as we can't know the personal circumstances, within someone else's family, but Genes must be held responsible for a large part of this problem. I have accepted that there will always have two levels of membership, one where you can reply and one that doesn't have that facility, I don't like it, but will have to live with it. But they could help their full members, very easily. If the Curious Fox can mark along side each message which type of account is held, why can't Genes. Thats all it would take. The theory behind the hot matches is absolutely brilliant, but with less than 201 chance of receiving a reply I don't even bother looking at them. It takes at least two hours to go through them its a lot of pain for no gain. I am sorry to sound off but it is only said out of sheer frustration.

Non-paying members *can* reply, they just can't initiate contact.

We don't have an internet connection! When your laptop holds all your family tree info, and your local cyber cafe is the only means of accessing GR, it can sometimes be difficult to answer people who have contacted you because you don't have all the little bits of info you need to hand. We haven't forgotten anyone, we will get round to replying :)

Or they may not be members anymore.... Lin

A contact of mine had a number of messages from one member, which got increasingly more impatient and rude. As it turned out this lady was in hospital for over 4 months following a stroke! Members please bear in mind that someone may have a reason for not getting back to you and have more going on in their lives than genesreunited.

I found out that i still had 1 of my fathers brothers living,( family lost touch many years ago) so i wrote a lovely letter(or so i thought) the reply i got was ' what do you want after all these years, i dont have any money to leave folk'!!!!!!!!! sad i know, but it still made me smile...... wonder why the family lost touch lol. Jean

Hi 'Mary from Italy' This is a genuine thank you for that bit of info. I was told quite a while ago that they couldn't reply but the word initiate wasn't mentioned. Regards Half Pint