Genealogy Chat

I am not sure what those purple stars on each of the members of my tree mean? They have numbers in - is this the number of matches?

Sorry to be so dense!

Chris

Yes it is , if you click on them you will see the matches in trees and records for that person :-)

If you click on the purple star it will show you how many 'Record Matches' and how many 'Tree Matches' you have for that person. You can then view the matches by clicking the relevant button.

Chris

But you need to be aware that the "matches" GR suggests are not necessarily the same person as the one in your tree.

For instance, one person in my tree has apparently one record match, and one tree match.
The tree match is the right person, because it's in the tree of someone to whom I gave the information.
The record match, however, is for a completely different person who has the same name and year of birth - but was born in Newcastle upon Tyne, whereas my relative was born in Stirling.

Even worse than that are the supposed 16 record matches for my mother. The 16 people have the same first and last names as my mother, and were born in the same year, but some have different middle initials, and they were all born in England, whereas my mother was born in Edinburgh.

Similarly the 9 record matches for my late husband - the "matches" are all people with the same name and year of birth, but born in England, while he was born in Ireland.
And of the supposed 52 tree matches, only a few are correct.

If you're looking for a record match with a relative born in Scotland or Ireland, the system's useless.
And even if your relative was born in England, unless he/she has an unusual name, you'll be given the names of lots of unrelated people, perhaps with the correct one somewhere among them.

Thank you everyone, hmmn maybe not a lot of help then!

Chris

I've found the "tips" on here and on ancestry (it's a green leaf on ancestry) are basically useless.

Like AG, I find that the link is either to the tree of someone to whom I gave the information, or to people with the same name born in completely different years and different parts of the UK.

The ration is about 20% to the first category and 75% to the second.

In other words ........... about 5% may seem to be close enough to warrant a contact.

I've even had matches on here to people with completely different names :-S