Suggestions

This must be a better way of finding connections ? PLEASE

I use Search all trees on the drop down menu when you click on Search.

Hi Gary,

in each tree, against each relation, you'll see a purple rosette where there are matches for that person. You'll see matches with our records and also tree matches. If you click on the tree matches, this will take you to a page showing you a list of members who have also added that same name to their tree.

Kind regards,

Estelle

The problem with Estelle's method is hat the member may not have logged on for yonks or indeed be active at all.

Unfortunately GRU do not provide any information about the user's current status e.g. last logged on though they could. They do not because it would then be fairly easy to work out how many of the "millions" of members were active. They should 'cos there are other ways to ascertain currenrtly active users and this information would help researchers.

A fairly reliable method is to use the surnames list and filter using "added in last 14 days". The chances that the member is active are fairly high.

This approach works best with less common surnames or where you can be fairly precise about dates and location.

If you wish owner of another tree to share details *think* do you really need a share or just help with one or two people? If you do wish for a share then be sure to add some relevant detail to your request otherwise it is likely to be ignored.

good luck

Thank you all. But don't you feel like on Ancestry message boards that it is easier to home in on that certain person your looking for, rather than having to contact a lot of people with the same name in a tree?

Gary

Yes but it does cost about £100pa more to be able to do that.

That is why I am on G.R But it's worth asking, you never know ;-)

I have used Ancestry Message boards and they are completely free.
However I did find that they are very quiet.

I think that it was mainly american posting, so not a lot for us, but I do think it would be more active here and be an asset.

try roots web ( free no sub needed )

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

Had a look Rollo , have not been there for a while . What I noticed was as Thelma said the messages look quite if you go by the date, but going into them I found the threads fairly active, sadly mainly for the other side of the pond. Perhaps if when posting a thread it would help others to pinpoint better if it started with the person/date and location?

Gary
We used to have three surname boards on Genes but four boards were merged,by the new owners,to make Find Ancestors.
Now you have to enter a surname in "Quick Search"

Why I get problems with that Thelma is that my surname is Dance, when I punch that in I get a list of everyone that is holding or mentioning a dance rather than looking for a Dance person.

Gary,

I have a similar problem when researching my paternal grandmother's family the Read family.

Which reminds me that of the strange looks my son got in Italy when filling out a form saying he was a student at the University of Reading! Reading/reading geddit?

:-D

Did they? Good one