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Archiver > CHESHIRE > 2010-02 > 1265904498


From: "Ian Cameron" <>
Subject: [CHS] Genes Reunited - how effective is it?
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 2010 16:08:18 -0000


The current postings about the merits of the various "paid gen sites" prompts me to share with listers my recent experience of Genes Reunited.



I'm researching the lads from my old school who lost their lives in WW1, and I've been contacting people on GR who have someone in their tree who might possibly be one of our war dead. I've tried to contact 75 people, which is a large sample and probably representative of GR's subscriber base.



After over a month, 24 (32%) still haven't opened my email. Subscribers get an alerting email from GR that someone has tried to contact them, which suggests to me that most if not all of these two dozen have let their subscription lapse and haven't received such a message, although their interests are still on the GR database.



Eleven (15%) have opened and read my email and haven't replied, and after a month I think we can put that down either to discourtesy or oversight.



That leaves 40 who replied, little more than half. Some people could tell me their man had survived the war and wished me well in my efforts, but the great majority had no idea what had become of their man after the 1901 census, and couldn't help me. Their man might have died in the war, but they simply didn't know. Subscribers to GR tend to load everyone they can onto their tree, in the hope it will lead to an email arriving from a descendant of one of those distant kinsmen, who they hope will know more about their shared ancestry than they do themselves. That's a sensible tactic, but it means that in all other respects their interest in many of the people on their own tree is effectively zero.



Setting aside my low success rate among those who did reply, which was not unexpected, nearly half of my enqueries are lying either ignored or in limbo.



To end on a happier note, I also contacted people via Ancestry (too small a sample to analyse) and one turned out to be Lyn McCulloch, whose name will be very familiar to listers. You won't be surprised to learn that she was extremely helpful.



Ian Cameron


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