Genealogy Chat

It used to be approx. every 14 days but I uploaded a GEDCOM file in early February and nothing has matched since.

Also, there's only one Match, whereas there used to be hundreds.

Are GRU letting this service wither and not bothering with it anhy more?

Regards - David :-(

Don't know David.

My home page states that the last 'run' on my names was in Aug last year when they didn't find any new matches. I'd have thought that there should be a similar message at least once a month.

Having said that, some people have said that they are receiving hot matches. Odd.

Thanks.

There's nothing on my Home Page, nor on my Hot Matches page.

I wonder if it's worth escalating this to Customer Support? :-(

David,

I haven't had Hot Matches since last year. GR used to try approximately every 2 weeks and then I uploaded a Gedcom and the system has gone to pot.

I personally use the Surname summary as I find it more reliable.

It is working, apparently, as I had one as recently as the 8th March 2013, but then there is a big gap back to August 2012. In all I have 10 pages so 200 matches in all, but most are those I already know about.

A couple of years GR were persuaded by a vocal lobby of members to add place of birth to the match criteria. To me this was not a good idea as all it did was give GR performance issues by increasing the time to complete each match run, in order to produce fewer matches.

The number of names checked each time was also reduced from 100 to 50, presumably to counter the performance hit from having to match additional criteria. Other issues with the process meant that it wasn't always run for months at a time.

The result? Fewer and, in many cases, no matches at all for many members. With hindsight, not a good move.

Like Gai, I tend to use Surname Summary to look for new ones - that is when it doesn't time out when I try to move from page to page.

According to the home page I have had about a dozen hot matches. Up to August about 8, then a gap until February when I am supposed to have another4.
keep checking, but so far, there is nothing new on the Hot match board.

I haven't had any for ages, but neither have I updated my tree since the site was "improved"!

I agree with IGP that the main reason is probably the inclusion of place of birth. I have a lot of ancestors born in Bradwell and baptised in the nearby village of Hope. Before the introduction of place of birth I had matches of:-

Bradwell;
Bradwell, Derbyshire;
Bradwell, Derbyshire, England;
Hope;
Hope, Derbyshire;
Derbyshire;
England;
or a blank.

All were the same person, but none would come up as matches now.

I'm keeping my tree up to date and have added a lot of new entries. I get a "Hot Matches" message every two or three weeks but haven't had a new Hot Match since August 2012.

You're right that there used to be dozens of new matches every month - it was a chore to go through and delete the obvious lemons. I prefer the new system.

No change over the month, last one still 8th March.

GR looked for hot matches on the 6th April for me and didn't find any matches.

The time before that was the 6th October.

Funny I had plenty until I uploaded my Gedcom.

But that's ok as I check the surname summary every day and if I don't then there's no point because I get the dreaded error message.

Gai