One World Trees .....

And It Makes Me Shine · Post by **And It Makes Me Shine** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 4:38 pm

I have joined up with ancestry.co.uk on the free trial with the intent of continuing on after the two weeks. I started to find quite alot of matches for individuals on one world tree's but when I look at some of the details I am a bit dubious of theyre use. Some are accurate but some are so way off the mark its scary. Different spouses 4 lines back that then go a further 4 lines after that. I am now more confused since looking at them than I was before. Has anyone else had the same experience or is it worth sticking with.

Post by **Tracey** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 6:24 pm

If you are stuck and do find someone on these trees that match who you could be trying to find it could be a incentive to start to prove if they are who your looking for or not . Or if your lucky the person who put it on will know although half the time they dont because they have added someone elses tree to theirs - if all that makes sence

.
I will own up and say that when my tree was published on certain sites i stuck a few "fairies" in and that way i knew who had coppied my tree and not done their own homework !!

ASGROOMBRIDGE · Post by **ASGROOMBRIDGE** » Thu Jun 15, 2006 8:51 pm

I was having a look on the site the other day and found a connection similar to mine but with a big mistake, then I realised I had made the same mistake but sorted it out many months ago, now did they make the same mistake or did they copy mine as I looked further I found one of mine with a spelling error and sure enough there it was on my tree and yes you guessed it I had the spelling wrong as well. What had happened he had his own line and when he found mine he added it to it without checking the details. I have since checked his line for myself and he is a second cousin twice removed. Worth finding as I knew very little of that branch of the family, just a shame he did not do a bit of checking himself.

Swings and roundabouts really but I would stick to it there are a few pearls in the grains of sand.
regards,
Audrey

David Douglas · Post by **David Douglas** » Sat Jun 17, 2006 9:17 am

There's also http://www.gencircles.com which has a 'smartmatching' function that works pretty well - almost all its suggested matches are really the same person. Some of them, of course, might be copied uncritically from your own data.

To get the smartmatching feature, you have to pay 30$ a year, though you could always just register for free - yesterday they were showing smartmatching for free as a promotion, and they might do it again.

It's the only place I submit data - I don't see why I should supply genealogy sites with data so they can charge others to look at it. Apart from the smartmatching, gencircles.com is free.

StewL · Post by **StewL** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 5:03 am

Hello David

I joined gencircles at the start when smartmatching was free (never had a match yet). I am now seriously considering removing my file from the site since they started charging for smartmatching. I to take exception to a site charging for matching on "MY" family file. I didnt put my file on the site for them to make money out of!!!

ASGROOMBRIDGE · Post by **ASGROOMBRIDGE** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 6:57 am

Hi Stewie,

After Davids post I put mine on as I thought it was a free site, like you I am now wondering if I should take it off if they are charging for matching the names, I though it was fast checking they charged for and ploughing on through was still free.

Audrey

Post by **Ina** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 7:10 am

I joined gencircles a few years ago when it was free. Never did find any smartmatches.

I removed my family tree from gencircles. Like StewL I didn't want gencircles making money on my files.

Ina

ASGROOMBRIDGE · Post by **ASGROOMBRIDGE** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 7:13 am

Thanks Ina,

Will try and remove mine today.

regards,
Audrey

David Douglas · Post by **David Douglas** » Wed Jun 21, 2006 3:24 pm

I don't mind them charging for the added functionality - all it does is do millions of searches that non-paying users could have done manually.

Money has after all to come from somewhere to run the site. I think they have a reasonable balance whereas there are sites that take your data and give you nothing at all in exchange.

Having said that, gencircles, and its parent company (who sell Family Tree Legends) have been in difficulties recently, and the site has been more or less abandoned for several months, with no essential maintenance being done. That has resulted in files not being processed, and smartmatching being unavailable even for those who've paid.
They're looking for a buyer for the company, I understand, and there has been a bit of activity on the site again.
I'm not going to renew my subscription and will do without the smartmatching.

But it's a useful place to publish my data so I can refer others to it rather than sending off large gedcom files by email. And it's ability to hide information on the living from all but the owner of the data is very useful. It's also useful having your data on the internet - I've been able to take advantage of unexpected opportunities to to some research while travelling, when I hadn't brought along my laptop.

I find the matches start to turn up once I get back about 6 generations or so - the further back, the more likely it is you'll come across someone researching the same line.