Lost Cousins Referrals

Couple of updates:
FTAnalyzer 3.6.0.0 will have a Lost Cousins Referrals report that will have similar information to the refer a relative button. I still need to work on the look of the report and in particular get the sort order to match the sort order of the report but I'm not quite sure how Peter has sorted the data on the referrals page 2 I think its in census reference order then order of individuals as entered? Could you confirm please Peter? BTW would it be possible to display the census reference at the head of each group? That would allow users of the referrals report a much easier way to cross reference the referrals page on the site. BTW2 I hope it would have your permission Peter to put a link to the refer a relative page on the referral report. I know it requires them to login and I'll put text to that end on the report.

My Canadian cousin who I referred a couple of weeks ago and caused the start of this sub-forum and thread, has joined and she did use the referrals code I sent as it shows all the matched people on my page. So I'm not sure why she isn't showing up as having used a referral code in the stats?

 

I gave the figures for the most recent 30 people to join, which meant going back 3 days - your cousin registered 7 days ago, but only logged-in for the first time yesterday.

 

There was at one time a link on one of findmypast's results pages, but it disappeared some years ago - it dated back to the time before they were taken over.

 

It should be in the same order as when the My Ancestors page is sorted by household, ie by census then by census references, then (within each household) in the order in which the individuals in that household were entered. But at the moment there's a difference in the way that the members of the household are ordered - they're sorted by age (descending), then surname (ascending), then forename.

However, since FTA won't know which order they were entered, perhaps I should leave the sort within the household as it is?

At the moment I can't see an easy way to implement that.

No problem including the link, but if they do have to log-in they'll be taken to the home page afterwards.

 

It probably shows that existing members don't appreciate the advantages of using their My Referrals page - but it could also indicate that they're contacting several friends at the same time.

If you've identified them but don't know how to contact them doesn't that usually mean they're not researching their tree?

I wouldn't dream of mentioning LostCousins in the first email - I'd normally only do so once it has been established how we're related (or that we're not related). Until I know who the common ancestor is I won't know which parts of my tree are relevant.

 

It would certainly be easier to replicate a sort order of census, census ref (where entered in GEDCOM), age (desc), surname (asc), forenames, if you are happy to keep it like that on the webpage.

Is there a specific census ordering say on importance? ie: does 1881 England & Wales get pushed up the queue? I seem to have England and Wales 1911 followed by England and Wales 1841, followed by England and Wales 1881, and lastly Scotland 1881 so I'm not sure what the ordering is. I don't have any other years/countries entered.

PS. I don't actually have a cousin with an email address of test@test.com hopefully I never got to the stage of that getting added to the database.

 

Whether we are related may not matter, but it does nevertheless determine which type of referral we use.

 

The censuses are sorted based on the internal census codes, which were chosen for historical reasons. I'll PM them to you shortly.

 

It's not something I'd do on a first date, but if it works for you, great! However from what you've said ("a lot of the former, and very few of the latter") it would seem that perhaps it isn't working very well?

I believe that people are more likely to take my advice once we've got to know each other. If somebody I'd only just met recommended a site to me that I'd never heard of I'd naturally be cautious - how could they possibly know it would be right for me?

 

Some people are naturally curious and trusting some are naturally cautious and suspicious. Personally since I am well aware of the nature of the internet I'm far more likely to investigate any recommendation that a new contact has made than suspect that they are out to trap me into something bad. It just comes down to our nature are we naturally trusting or suspicious.

My general approach to life is to assume that most people are to be trusted rather than to assume that most people are out to rip me off. That DOES NOT mean I throw caution to the wind, its perfectly reasonable to assume people are trustworthy and to take their advice whilst being careful.

On the point of "how could they possibly know it would be right for me" the answer is the incredibly simple "they can't", only you can know that. Unless you actually check out a site for yourself you can't ever know if its right for you. If they never suggest it you might never come across the site. To me there is nothing to be lost by suggesting they try the site and to be brutally honest if they are the sort of person who are going to get suspicious and negative about my attempts to help them then I'd really rather not get involved with them in the first place. I dislike that sort of negativity as a personality trait. My experience has been that sort of person typically is keen to get information on their family from me but is suspicious and reluctant to be helpful and share information with me in return, thus I'd really rather not deal with them, let them stew in their own negativity and paranoia is my view.

So on this one I am very very firmly in Liberty's camp. I will mention the LC site to contacts who are keen researchers, I make regular mentions when relevant in family history forums, but I'd only go to the point of making a formal referral once the individual had expressed a keen interest. I'm not going to ram anything down anyone's throat, but I am keen to promote the site as by helping individuals see the benefits and get them to enter their relatives as that benefits everyone else using the site.

 

If I could summarize, as I actually believe we're all on the same page.

Referring friends and relations is a good thing to do. But for the referrer it's not a quick or simple thing to do, being able to select a household at a time would be quicker and using the soon to be released new version of FTA will also help greatly. Using a previous referral is also going to help us.

The fact that we all do talk about LC and make referrals is also a good thing. How and when you do this with a new contact is down to both your own personal approach AND how the new contact responds to your various forms of contact.

When I make a referral I do point out that they don't have to do anything other than accept and enroll. This is normally quick and straightforward for them to do. After they do I go on to explain the further benefits of them adding the other members of their family lines, to make more matches with the lines that we don't share.

 

Peter, I do have a situation where I have just made a match. I'm cultivating the relationship at the moment as we only matched on 2 people out of a whole household, so it would appear they haven't entered the other members of the household. I'm also assuming that they haven't gone any further back in their research or maybe just not added it to LC yet.

So the question is, is there a way I can "add" the other households, a bit like a referral, to an existing member? Did that make sense?
I have added the data already and I'm willing to share the entries with them, exactly as I would if I was making a relative referral.

I also assume that the lack of further entries by my new match is the reason why we only have a match rating of 0.2 (you are related, but probably only by marriage) when we are cousins?