Find Ancestors

I think some of the problem comes when people import their trees from other programs. If people have entered full dates/details of baptisms rather than the dates of birth, GR doesn't pick up on this and leaves the year of birth blank. Don't know if this could also account for place of birth or not. Unless the importer goes through their whole tree adding year of births, they will all remain blank. Sam

Whilst I appreciate privacy on living relatives I do believe that the purpose of this sort of site is to share information, surely it doesnt hurt to list those now dead with full details, if not, then what is the purpose of listing at all? I was unaware their was a way to privatise, I dont think it was there when mine were entered and yes it should show private, perhaps the staff can rectify this. For my personal opinion it defeats the purpose to list this way, sharing is the whole purpose of the site and if members feel they are unable to share then I hope they dont ask for help on the boards from all those beautiful caring members that not only give their time to queries but sometimes their money to look up things.

Thanks Jools Perhaps if we all do this and ignore these they will learn to put some info in. Regards Christina

Christina - I totally agree with what you say about the names summary. I just do NOT understand why GR allows new names to be entered without a year or county - it is not rocket science for the webdesign team to prevent this - and without a year, country or county the data is about as much use as a chocolate teapot. Like you, if there's no year or other info, I ignore the posting - my theory being that if they don't know either of these, the rest of the information they have is also suspect.

I have noticed a significant amount of new entries without county or country entered even though some are in the 1990's. Whilst it is appreciated that some of the earlier years may only have a name to go on surely the later ones know the area of birth. Most of us look up these names in the hope of finding a match, even if you arent sure, how about an area with a question mark, I notice some are doing this. So if you want to find a match for your tree help others to help you, I for one have adopted the policy of not bothering to try and match names where the info has not been entered, otherwise you are sending countless e-mails for areas that are nowhere near yours.