GenesReunited Hot Matches
Posted: 15 Sep 2006 14:38
Having spent a week or so exchanging emails with GenesReunited support (who incidentally are extremely helpful) about how their hot-matches work (or dont), I thought other FH users might be interested in the result. Ill start with my conclusions and explain why afterwards. If you have a very small tree, and nothing but unusual names, dont worry, itll probably work fine for you. Everyone else
1. Remove everyone from your tree that you dont want to get emails about.
2. Mark all the matching trees for people youve already contacted as Dont show me these again.
3. Dont mark any other trees as Dont show me these again even if they only contain a few non-interesting or spuriously matched names.
4. Make sure the box in your account details that says Do you wish to be notified by a hot matches or new names email is checked, even if you dont want any emails.
You have to understand a bit about how it works Once a fortnight they go through the names on your tree one by one and search for matching names on other peoples trees. They match by first name, last name, and approximate date of birth. A lot of these will be just coincidence of name and date, but the whole point about hot matches is that you can make an informed decision about whether you share relations with someone by the number of names matching between your trees They display the tree with the most matching names first
Sounds perfect doesnt it But, each fortnight they will only find 100 matches with your tree. So, when it gets to your John Smith born in 1900, you will get up to 100 other John Smiths born in 1900 from up to 100 other trees, and then it stops. You will have no idea without looking at each one to check the place of birth whether these are likely to be your John Smith, because having found 100 matching names it will not try to see whether those trees also contain matching children or parents. Next time (a fortnight later) youll get another 100 matches, and these may be added to the trees youve already matched with. Over time, the trees you really do share whole families or branches with will accumulate more matching names and drift up to the top of your list.
So, back to the advice:
1. Remove everyone from your tree that you dont want to get emails about
GenesReunited is, weve found, a great way of making contact with people you can share research with. Even if youre terribly strict with yourself and check all the sources, its a lot easier when you know what youre looking for. But its not a great way of publishing your research find another site if thats what you want (no one can see it on there anyway unless you explicitly allow them). So, if you have a big tree and you dont want to be inundated with people who think they might be related to someones in-laws cousin, leave them off. We used to upload everyone we know anything about (we all like to show off a bit), then we cut it down to all relations, spouses and immediate in-laws, but now its relations and spouses only. FH Split tree helper with a custom query is perfect for this. At least most of the messages we get from GR now are actually about people were interested in.
But apart from that, all these names that youre not interested in are going to use up some of your 100 hot-matches per fortnight. This means it will take even longer for the names (or more to the point the families and branches) that you are interested in to appear as such in the hot match list.
2. Mark all the matching trees for people youve already contacted as Dont show me these again
Youve already shared your tree with these people. Youve probably copied names and dates from them, and they from you. Theres no point letting the next hot-match run waste its quota of 100 telling you about them. Let it find you something you didnt already know instead. You can always see them again by clicking the View ignored hot matches link.
3. Dont mark any other trees as Dont show me these again even if they only contain a few non-interesting matched names
Just because someones tree has a John Smith born in 1900, but on the other side of the country from yours, doesnt mean they dont share any other relations with you. Just leave them on the current list and ignore them if they have less that a few matched names. Next month (or next year) you may find they match a whole branch, in which case theyll move up the list and you can have another look. If you say Dont show me these again, it doesnt just remove them from your current list, it also stops it adding any more matching names from that tree, so you would never know.
4. Make sure the box in your account details that says Do you wish to be notified by a hot matches or new names email is checked, even if you dont want any e-mails
If you say you dont want to be notified by email it stops looking for matches for you. Maybe theyll change the wording one day. Just another junk mail to delete once a fortnight Im afraid (sigh).
And Finally
Dont mark all your hot matches as Dont show me these again even if that conflicts with the advice above. If you do, the next time you click the hot-matches link you get the page that says No matches, dont worry but it doesnt contain the link to view the ones youve hidden. Youll have to wait until it finds some more before you can get them back.
1. Remove everyone from your tree that you dont want to get emails about.
2. Mark all the matching trees for people youve already contacted as Dont show me these again.
3. Dont mark any other trees as Dont show me these again even if they only contain a few non-interesting or spuriously matched names.
4. Make sure the box in your account details that says Do you wish to be notified by a hot matches or new names email is checked, even if you dont want any emails.
You have to understand a bit about how it works Once a fortnight they go through the names on your tree one by one and search for matching names on other peoples trees. They match by first name, last name, and approximate date of birth. A lot of these will be just coincidence of name and date, but the whole point about hot matches is that you can make an informed decision about whether you share relations with someone by the number of names matching between your trees They display the tree with the most matching names first
Sounds perfect doesnt it But, each fortnight they will only find 100 matches with your tree. So, when it gets to your John Smith born in 1900, you will get up to 100 other John Smiths born in 1900 from up to 100 other trees, and then it stops. You will have no idea without looking at each one to check the place of birth whether these are likely to be your John Smith, because having found 100 matching names it will not try to see whether those trees also contain matching children or parents. Next time (a fortnight later) youll get another 100 matches, and these may be added to the trees youve already matched with. Over time, the trees you really do share whole families or branches with will accumulate more matching names and drift up to the top of your list.
So, back to the advice:
1. Remove everyone from your tree that you dont want to get emails about
GenesReunited is, weve found, a great way of making contact with people you can share research with. Even if youre terribly strict with yourself and check all the sources, its a lot easier when you know what youre looking for. But its not a great way of publishing your research find another site if thats what you want (no one can see it on there anyway unless you explicitly allow them). So, if you have a big tree and you dont want to be inundated with people who think they might be related to someones in-laws cousin, leave them off. We used to upload everyone we know anything about (we all like to show off a bit), then we cut it down to all relations, spouses and immediate in-laws, but now its relations and spouses only. FH Split tree helper with a custom query is perfect for this. At least most of the messages we get from GR now are actually about people were interested in.
But apart from that, all these names that youre not interested in are going to use up some of your 100 hot-matches per fortnight. This means it will take even longer for the names (or more to the point the families and branches) that you are interested in to appear as such in the hot match list.
2. Mark all the matching trees for people youve already contacted as Dont show me these again
Youve already shared your tree with these people. Youve probably copied names and dates from them, and they from you. Theres no point letting the next hot-match run waste its quota of 100 telling you about them. Let it find you something you didnt already know instead. You can always see them again by clicking the View ignored hot matches link.
3. Dont mark any other trees as Dont show me these again even if they only contain a few non-interesting matched names
Just because someones tree has a John Smith born in 1900, but on the other side of the country from yours, doesnt mean they dont share any other relations with you. Just leave them on the current list and ignore them if they have less that a few matched names. Next month (or next year) you may find they match a whole branch, in which case theyll move up the list and you can have another look. If you say Dont show me these again, it doesnt just remove them from your current list, it also stops it adding any more matching names from that tree, so you would never know.
4. Make sure the box in your account details that says Do you wish to be notified by a hot matches or new names email is checked, even if you dont want any e-mails
If you say you dont want to be notified by email it stops looking for matches for you. Maybe theyll change the wording one day. Just another junk mail to delete once a fortnight Im afraid (sigh).
And Finally
Dont mark all your hot matches as Dont show me these again even if that conflicts with the advice above. If you do, the next time you click the hot-matches link you get the page that says No matches, dont worry but it doesnt contain the link to view the ones youve hidden. Youll have to wait until it finds some more before you can get them back.