Genealogy Chat

I have frequently moaned on these boards about the utter uselessness of so-called 'hot' matches, which yield someone born in the same year as me, in the opposite hemisphere. However, in the two most recent lists, amongst the 50 or so pages of those have been four people who I'm reasonably sure are genuine links, whom I hadn't made contact with before. So, a grudging admission that it can be useful sometimes. Whether or not any of the four will have any information I haven't already got is another matter...

Hummmpphh.......... How come you get 50 pages for two batches of Hot Matches, but I only EVER get 4½ pages each time? Had a 15 match one this time........My first cousin who has accumulated a 3,000 name tree in under a year. Can't wait to see what he has to say for himself!!! Last year he told me family history is a waste of time. It has taken me 12 years to make some progress on our joint line! Merry

Most probably because I have so many Joneses!

Michael Don't want to rain on your parade, but a while ago I had hot matches to three different people, all of whom had the same section of my family. I got all excited - boom! First one had guessed, cos she thought it was the right sort of area. Second one had copied an Ancestry Tree, which had some of the right people and some of the wrong people in one family group. Third one had done an impressive tree showing his descendancy from our mutual match - pity she died aged 4. Hope you have better luck than me! OC

Well, Merry, if you will have relations who are called Sytherington-ffosse, Beluchina and ~Kempeston-Fearnley, no wonder you only get 4 pages. Now, if you had a few Greens, Bells, Robinsons and Woods, you'd get a lot more hot matches. OC

!! I'm still on the A's and B's!!! Adams Allen Arnold Bennett Brown Bryant and Buck being the main stumbling blocks. Merry

Sorry yours didn't work out OC, but thanks for the encouragement! I have also had plenty of mismatches, and one or two which were genuine but failed to yield any further information - such as the one who had my grandfather one his tree, which turned out to be my uncle, who'd joined GR a couple of years back, forgotten about it and only had four people on his tree. These four instances involve rare names, small villages and exact years, so I'm pretty certain they're genuine matches, but strongly suspect that any flow of information will mostly be from me rather than to.

Michael Um - these involved rare names, exact years and tiny villages too! And I have yet to be told anything I didnt already know. Probably because I have been doing this for many years and they have only just started, but its pretty depressing when I realise that I am always going to be the giver of information, even if its only to say 'No, you cannot be descended from Mary Buggins, because although she is a sibling of my 7 x GGM, the poor little mite died aged two - its on the IGI, if you care to look and I can confirm from the Parish Register that this is so' OC (bitter and twisted)

Lemon corkscrew... One reply - genuine, as expected. Not particularly enlightening, as was also expected - since he told me one of my existing contacts was his aunt.

You only get get a maximum of 100 new Hot matches each time. If you have 50 pages on your Hot Matches then you have not cleared them out, discarded the matches, from the previous lists. The quickest way to clear them is to do one page at a time. First tick all the boxes down the right - dont change pages. Then click the save button at the bottom of the page. Do this until you have none left (fiftty times for fifty pages), your next batch of Hot Matches will only show a max of 4-5 pages. The discarded matches are not lost though, just tick the 'Show discarded matches' box at the bottom of the page and they all come back, untick it and they all go. They have to be retained so that you don't get the same set of Hot Matches each time. My Hot Matches have not got past 'Adams' yet, I think I will have to turn all my Adams into zAdams to move on.

Haven't waded through my five pages of Eliza Smiths yet, but I am not living in too much hope. I have had the odd genuine match, but not often. As someone else said, you have to be careful. I had one contact who reckoned that a couple had married 50 years before they were born. Needless to say I didn't take the rest of what she told me dating back to The Flood too seriously.

Angela - you have reminded me... Before I started this in earnest (after my father died) he showed me a tree he'd copied from research his uncle had done in the 60's and 70's (Before Computer). Very impressive, getting our male line back to a Swaledale village in 1666. It only had names, very few dates, and no notes of sources. When I looked in more detail, there were 3 successive generations of chaps named John, who spanned a period of about 200 years. Apparently all having children in their 60's. I started with no preconceptions, surmising it was just wishful thinking on his part (the records for this village were transcribed in the late 19th C so are easily accessible). I am not looking at that original tree in case it influences my thinking. However, my research has lead me back to the same records in the same village. It looks like my dad or his uncle got confused with several generations of Johns all marrying Marys & missed out one or two of the intervening generations - so it remains to be seen whether I will get back to the same marriage in 1666. But the basis of that research is verifiable.

Paul I can assure you that until recently, I was getting a lot more than 100 names on each Hot Match batch. One thing puzzles me though - if I 'switch off' a hot match by deleting it, does this automatically remove it from the Hot Matcher's hot match, if you see what I mean? Is this why I am no longer getting Hot Match enquiry messages? OC

I'm still waiting to hear back from the lady who has 38 people that match mine in her tree ;o( Surely that HAS to be a match I'm thinking - but no reply yet to see whats going on. Crone - I don't think it will take you off their list when you discard them as it goes through each persons names alphabetically so will only show them th e connection when it gets to that part of the alphabet in their tree - if that makes sense. It may be that you had a big flurry at the beginning with people getting all their matches but once it hits Z it goes round to the beginning again and they will see your name as already contacted when they get the matches a 2nd time. Zoe

Oh so they do get it right sometimes then?! Most of the time, as you say, the name is the same (Tom Smith!!) but the place and date of birth is completely different, but hey, it's close enough to have the same name eh - must be a match!! lol. I don't bother with mine at all.

I have 22 matches to one member, all for the same family. But I realised a long time ago that there is no actual connection...research is flawed, and despite a lengthy email from me, the mistakes remain. I keep it on my Hot Match list to remind me NOT to bother with this person! OC

Second one also genuine, and also very close to a previous contact. I haven't very often bothered with HMs but I'm pretty certain mine have been on around 40-50 pages for a while. I hadn't noticed that they were in any sort of order: I have plenty of Atkinsons but they don't always come before the Carters, Knights, Hugheses etc. Just counting up... 'Hot' matches: 1,000 or so Genuine matches: 17 Genuine matches who could tell me something I didn't already know: 6 Still, I suppose I should be grateful, 6 is more than a lot of people get.

Hi OC, Your Hot Matches would not necessarily coincide with the Hot Matches for the other person who has the 'same' individual. So by deleting your Hot Matches you only turn off your end. I actually got 2 very promising matches out of my latest batch of Adams etc, although neither of them has responded after a week, so it may be worth persevering. I received quite a few enquiries this time from other peoples' Hot Matches with 3 matches. The more people in your tree the more likely a match, I have over 5,000 at the moment, so I get a rush of enquiries every 2-3 weeks then it al goes quiet again. Paul

Hi Merry, My list of As and Bs looks very similar to yours. The only differences are:- Bryans instead of Bryant Buckby instead of Buck I have probably deleted you, gently though, many times in the past. Paul