General Chat

Why is it the many do not have the courtesy to respond to an email query on GR. Some emails sent are not opened, folk may be away or no longer subscribe. BUT what of those who open the email whether or not is belongs or pertains to a family member.
I am feeling very disappointed at the rudeness of some people.. On GR one can tel, if an email or query has bee sent.Very disappointed.

It might depend on how you've worded your PM. If it was a rather blunt 'show me your tree' - that might well be ignored.

If they've been opened, give it a day or so. They may not have had a chance to look into it properly. Otherwise try again with a few more details such as
"My tree has xxx born xxxx the son of aaa and bbb. Does this match with the xxx in your tree? Would you be able to assist with further information please? Thank you. "

if someone just mentioned say a Joseph Green, it might be difficult to sort out *which* Joseph Green you were referring to!

Although ready to be corrected, someone has mentioned that Smart Phones give the impression that messages have been opened when in fact they haven't.

As you've rightly pointed out, unopened trees probably mean that the GR member is no longer an active participant.

Hi Roslyn,

ooops!

repeating what has already been mentioned....LOL

do you mean the cursory type of genes message?
eg

let me see your tree!

is X one of your ancestors?



or a proper email enquiry, giving details of a person you are looking for?

I might not respond to the genes one but I would most likely reply to a sensible query...that contains possible relevant/interesting information..
regards, Bob

Also......bear in mind that GRs is a free tree so it may be the case that those who do not reply aren't interested in contact from others.

When i first joined GR in 2007, i had lots of queries and also sent quite alot myself, and nearly all were answered., . Over the years, this seems to have declined, for reason unknown, but now its once in a 'blue moon'.

There is another site Ancestry, where people can view others' trees without permission, (public trees), and am wondering if this could be one of the reasons.

Give it a bit longer, most decent people would answer , i hope.!

Sue
:-)

I think lots of members have moved to another planet.

:-(

I still send contact messages, lucky to get a response to 1 in 10.

I think it is very unfair to call those who do not respond to messages as rude or not decent. Nobody is obliged to reply, it isn't in the rules.
Just look upon those replies you get as a bonus and get over the ones who do not want contact - it's their prerogative.

Having been a member for over 10 years now I have probably contacted most members who I think may be of interest, and I must say, overall, have had a reasonable response record over that time, probably pushing up to 50%. As a result I have well over 80 pages, more than 1,600 members in My contacts and that is after deleting those who are of no interest.

If I know someone has opened my message I sometimes send a polite follow up, otherwise they get deleted. Their loss, not mine.

These days, I tend to look for those members actively updating their trees so those who have added something to the names I am interested in over the past 14 days are a good bet. Responses from those can be pretty good.

I have had someone tell me her 'Blackberry' automatically read emails.....not sure how that would happen as I thought you actually had to come onto this site and click the message to show that it has been read?

Although I have Genes,Ancestry and FMP on my phone, I have never accessed my emails from there

Thanks for responses, but I am polite and do not ask or demand to see one's family tree. My enquiry goes something like,

" Hi, I am looking for Joe Bloggs born 1920 give or take a year in the Newcastle NBL area. He died 2000.A little more brief info re marriage or single."
I do not think I am rude or unreasonable. In he last 6 months I have sent just over twelve inquiries with only two responses , from those who we have found no connection.
I was taught when you receive a letter it is common courtesy to answer it.
I have been a member of GR for many years.

also remember that many, if not most, members are Free members.

They may have joined many years ago, just as a place to start their tree.


GR sends people an email to say there is a message waiting in the GR internal system ....................... if a member has changed their email address but has not notified GR, then that message will just float around the wide blue yonder!


Also, if someone has not accessed the site for some time, they might have forgotten their sign-on and password ................... and those are needed to access the message system from the email sent out by GR, as well as to sign on to the site.


There's all sorts of reasons .................... from the above ones to debilitating sickness and death


I think that plain ignoring is in fact the lesser reason for ignoring a pm which is more than the "Open your tree to me".

Roslyn did make it quite clear in her opening post that she was referring to people who had opened those messages. ;-)

It may a good idea to state in sent tree messages that,,,although they may not be a paying member they can reply to you.there may be some free registered members that are unaware of this.