GenesReunited

Not great for searching as such, but if you've found an ancestor elsewhere, it is quite easy to do a search on Genes for others with the same surname in the same place, and in the same household as that forename. The results then generally appear in order so you can see where one household ends and the next begins. Very helpful for hints as to parents/spouses/children. I don't know if you can do this on other sites, but I find this one very user-friendly

 

I was disappointed with Genes Reunited. I kept getting "hot matches" and they turned out to be not mine at all. There seemed to be one contributor who had some extremely vague connection to my family, who just collected names. No doubt he had lots of time to go through BDMs, both in England and Australia then post them to his tree. He did not reply to my emails. I have not renewed my subscription.

 

It used to be my favourite site. Mostly thanks to the excellent feature for displaying trees. It was without doubt the best one I have ever encountered. Sadly they binned it and replaced it with an "improved version" when they upgraded the site.

Like many other long term members I have since let my membership lapse because of this. Pity.

 

Me too. I also had problems with them "losing" my correspondence...I would look at a contact, which showed a last date of our contact, but then went on to say that I had never had contact with that person. To be fair, they did then trawl through the archives and recover the messages that I knew I had lost (sent them to me by email, not put back in GR inbox) and offered to look for any more if I gave them names. But how did I know what I didn't have?! Luckily I had taken copies of the more relevant messages and attached them to my Family History records. I agree with Mike and Alexander that I have found the most information from people on GR than from any other sites, in fact the very few "cousins" I have found I already knew through GR.

 

Yes Anne I also have a very similar story about lost correspondence and also a positive experience of helpful support staff. What I found was that when members left the site all details are deleted including their correspondence with me. Luckily they were able to retrieve the 'emails' from a backup. My fault for not keeping copies of course but you don't normally expect things to disappear from your inbox just because someone has left the site.

 

I used GRU many years ago and did get several contacts from that source. About half a dozen were "good" contacts, but by far the majority were of the "we seem to share relatives - can you give me access to your tree" type. The one really good exception was a contact from one of my lines that I knew very little about, who happily shared lots of info with me (and I did with her), and we are still in touch. Then I started hearing tales of how many folks were simply collecting names and stopped using the site, and I've also removed all my tree records just in case the data wasn't as secure as I hoped. The only reason I continued to use the site was to cross check their census search results with Ancestry and FMP at times when I didn't have an active sub to either - sometimes if a person appears to be missing on either of those they show up on GRU - but more usefully searches on GRU, even without a subscription, could give you a place of birth instead of just the Registration District which was very helpful if you were running on PAYG credits and didn't want to waste them. I must admit I haven't done this in the last wee while so things may have changed.

 

I am a bit abashed to have apparently recommended a site that so many people dislike.
It was the search facility for families etc I recommended, rather than a paid subscription. And, as Heilan Lass says, you can see a place of birth on the free search
I concur on the irritating messages- at present there is a 'template' message which merely says 'may I view your tree' to which the only possible response is 'Why?'. However, I have made more/better contacts (my mother's unsuspected 2nd cousin only last week) than ever through LC, much as I wish it were vice versa

 

I started my research in Genes reunited and have used it as my base site ever since. My ancestral tree was started there purely for the reason it is so simple to fill in. It is a bit 'old hat' but has it's uses. As i have grown in experience with GR i have learnt to question anyone that requests access to my tree. In the past i have allowed someone, only to find they have 'pinched' research i spent ages finding. I did get the last laugh when a mistake i had made was stolen ( and i say 'stolen' because i did not give permission!). I corrected the error, and in an evil moment did not tell the person for some time.

 

Nicely put Tim.