General Chat

Are Hot Matches still being given out?
I don't seem to had any recently

James

Last December, GR announced that they were changing the program so as to include POB in the match criteria.

This will have had two effects, firstly, the matching program will take considerably longer to run, so it is possible that there are some performance issues there, we don't know about.

Secondly and perhaps more significantly, it will considerably reduce the number of matches you will receive in future, probably down to a tiny trickle. As the program only checks 100 of your names each time it runs, the probability of getting nothing at all for a particular run has dramatically increased.

Some members might prefer the previous method which left you to check the POB, but this generated so much criticism because of "non-matches" GR felt obliged to change it.

4 hot matches last week...after putting a small part of my tree back on here.

1 I had contacted two years ago myself...2 with place of birth in England not Ireland as it was. 1 place of birth different continent , right year though.

So if the program only matches 100 names each time it runs, is it clever enough to start at number 101 the second time it runs, 201 the third time, etc. or does it always start with 'A'?

If we assume the program is not checking the same 100 names again and again just how long is it going to take to reach my Zs? I have over 3,000 names in my tree and quite a lot with the surname of Zinzan. So after 30 odd runs I may get a match. At a run a month that means a wait of 2.5 years - clearly this is just plain daft.

Genes have so messed with hot matches as to render it useless for anyone with a large tree. Is this just a first step in getting rid of the service completely?

No idea. From years of experience with the site I think it used to start at random, but I'm not sure if they changed that to start alphabetically.

I think it is a bit unfair to put all the blame on GR for the way HM's work . I for one was quite happy with it the way is was, just name and date but there were so many complaints about not matching place names that they obviously felt they had to change it.

Personally, and having had several years of experience with name and address matching with commercial programs within a major financial institution, I doubt they will get it to work, in a way that everyone is happy. It is not as easy as everyone thinks it is.

Anyhow, with names like Zinzan, why not just run your own search?

I agree with IGP. I have just put Zinzan into 'Search all trees' and I was given a list of 300 and gather there are more. You can narrow it down by giving first names as well, and y.o.b.

Huia.

I have just looked through my Hot Matches and found 30 or more which I had not seen last time I looked. I havent had any notification that there were new ones. Some were for the name Walker, some for Brown and some for Taylor, so they are not just doing A and B. I have not added any of those names in the past year, so it is not just matching against my new additions.

Huia.

Of course I do my own serches on many of the names in my tree, what I was doing was attempting to show that the Hot Match program has been changed for the worse not better.

Since replacing my Genes tree with a much larger one, down loaded with a GEDCOM from FTM late last year, the only Hot Matches I have received have started with A, B or C.. In addition, if they are also supposed to be matching POB then why am I getting useless matches where the name and birth year are the same but one person is born in Bedfordshire and the match in London?

Furthemore the person with the most match with my tree is listed with 77 matches, but many of these are multipule matches for the same person - up to five or six in some cases.

If the program for hot matches has been changed by Genes Programmers, so that it works poorly, then surely they should take responibility and either reinstate the old version or change the new.

I agree that what Genes is trying to do with Hot Matches is almost certainly not going to work,so why not either take a step back or tweak it? As it stands at the moment the program has not been improved and you only have to look at the message board to see that I'm not the only one who is unhappy.

How strange - After reading this thread, I decided to to use the HM button - there are 3 pages. And no email notification!

Remember also that if either you or another member uploads a new gedcom file then previous matched may be invalid. You will have to wait again until the names are re-matched over a period of time.

I recently uploaded a new gedcom and since then have noticed several 'new' re-matches with members, albeit ones I already new about. There does also seem to be an element of POB matching there too, although it is too early to see how the match algorith is coping with a multitude of alternative place name spellings. Not sure how blank place names are being handled either as yet.

Perhaps things are on the up and up and maybe we should wait and see how it develops before being too critical.

Well just been and checked mine as I haven't had notification for ages either !!!
GOOD match below ???
First name(s) Julia ...........Julia
Last name Wilson .............Smith
Year of birth 1840 ..............1835
Place of birth India Calcutta, .......St Johns Cathedral, Ben, India

Maybe not

Linda :o)

Well another Hot Matches e-mail arrived this morning, and once again a total waste of time. Once again I have had matches starting with A and mostly duplicates of matches from previous matches (my top person with 77 matches now has one entry matched seven times).

I get the impression Genes are trying to kill this service.

I e-mailed Genes with a few questions about Hot Matches and while the reply ignored most of my Questions and mosttly simply stated the company line, a couple of interesting points emerged.

1. The program checks 100 names each fortnight and should move on to the next 100 each time it is run. Thefore if you have a large tree it may be some time before it reaches the letters at the end of the alphabet.

2., The way the program works is under review.

There was no explanation for all the duplicate matches I get for both peoples trees and number of names in trees.

All we can hope is that the program review comes up with a better version.