Genesreunited.co.uk > Reviews (13)

Long on advice, support from other users and fresh ideas, but short on genealogical records and technical support - Genes Reunited has had me as a member since about 2005 and I'm still there! One feature it took me a while to locate but wouldn't be without (Genes don't do a lot to praise the people that - in my opinion - really keep the site going, the members) - are the message boards. In a relatively recent reorganisation, the site has finally sectioned the "Chat" board into actual threads so it is no longer one long, incomprehensible mass of replies from one member to another.

For £9.95 a year (as it was when I joined and still is as long as you renew within two weeks, I think, of your renewal date) you are able to contact other users, exchange messages and (if permission is granted by them) view their family tree. The Hot Matches facility is quite good - it seeks out matches with other trees, so that - if you have a Gertrude Rothwell b. 1863 in York - it will find all other matching Gertrudes born in 1863. (The problem is, the matches don't take birthplace into account - don't be surprised if you get a load of matches for a Gertrude born in Adelaide, Australia!) Another slightly odd problem I've encountered is clicking on a match that claims to be with Gertrude only to find the "matching name" is one Sarah Smith b. 1872 in Bradford, Yorkshire (for instance). I have come to the conclusion that this occurs because Hot Matches only update every fortnight. If - halfway through that fortnight - the owner of your "matching" relative's tree realises his grandma (or whoever) was not Gertrude but Sarah and changes it accordingly, Hot Matches will only correct this in its fortnightly reassessment.

Please don't, however, fall into the trap of thinking that Genes provides comparable content with, say, Ancestry or Find My Past for a tenth of the price. It doesn't - what it works best as is a kind of "contacts" database and names database that you can explore. What census records it says it provides (I have been an Ancestry subscriber so have never used them - this next bit I've gathered from the comments of other site users) is actually stored on another site and the credits you buy to view the records you think are on Genes are actually used when you're directed to another site. Genes Reunited do offer a Gold Membership or something similar for about £35 for six months, I believe, but I gather that all you really get is what I described above.

Although a good contact tool, Genes doesn't help the "unfamiliar" with any assistance on how to use the site. From the five years I have used the site, I have come to realise that there is a (quite reasonable, in my view) kind of protocol about using the site. I find it best - if I think I've got a connection to someone - to write a brief message, stating who I am interested in (although if you do this via the Hot Matches system). The problem is, you only truly become aware of this as a long-term user who visits the message boards and new users often commit errors that seasoned users find unacceptable - simply because Genes doesn't help them with what to expect.

But because there is no stated guidance on the best way to approach or contact people you think might be related, this has led to huge confusion. Some members believe that the best way to approach others is to click on the tab that allows the contacted person to view their family tree - but, as I have found, this can be really confusing for the recipient, especially if the "opener" of the tree doesn't send any explanatory message about who they are interested in and how they are related. This has led some members who use the community boards to say they never reply to the automated tree requests - reasonable from one perspective, but on the other hand the message sender will be wondering for an eternity why that person hasn't got back to them.

I am adding a tiny update here to highlight one more problem I have just been reminded of today - when one member sends a message to another user, they are able to put whatever they want as a subject heading. Because it isn't compulsory to name the relative you're interested in, this leads to some very vague messages - today I have received a message with the title "Hot Matches", and the sender has simply told me I appear to have a match with their tree. Now, I have 2000 relatives in my tree and they have 300 or so - because of this oversight (which I think is down to Genes Reunited providing insufficient guidelines on message writing - I am sure a lot of the site users are quite new to the internet, too, and it is their genealogical interests that have got them online) unless I send a message back asking for more specific details, I am going to have to spend a long time searching this tree and, with the keenest interest in the world, even I can't keen a mental list of every name in my tree in my head for reference. This problem can be hugely irritating and sadly makes me want to just ignore a lot of enquiries. Genes isn't helping itself here.

Other users (including myself) can be put off by other users who keep pestering to gain access to their family tree, but again I think this is because of bad site information. Many users have spent time and effort and money on certificates to back up their research, only to see another user copy every scrap of information they have and pass it onto others (sometimes incorrectly) - consequently and understandably, these users have practically got a mental padlock and combination lock on their tree. That isn't to say that access to a tree means anything, anyway - I once got in touch with a niece of my great-grandad who knew little about her elder aunts and uncles and who kindly gave me lots of details (birthdates for these 13 siblings - it would have cost me £91 to buy all those birth certificates, jobs they did, what they looked like) that were really invaluable and which I couldn't get on any genealogy website for all the money in the world. It was over a year before she opened her tree to me but she gave me so much more than names and dates, I couldn't be offended if I tried.

I'm going to return now to the message boards and general site layout. Unfortunately, unlike with MSN's message boards ("we only support Internet Explorer and Firefox and any other browser will not be accomodated" should be their motto) and the Internet Movie Database, there is little to no moderation. Requesting a review of an offensive post often means that just that post will go - if the user is persistently antagonising others, the moderators won't look at all their contributions, they'll just swipe that one post. This has led more calculating users to provoke others so much that they can then get the victim suspended from board contributions. Sometimes - to be frank - it's like a child's playground. I once saw a user who put up an infertility or miscarriage support thread (due to her own experience) being torn to shreds via message by another user who, rather than just not contribute, felt the need to criticise and pick at every vaguely loaded word this woman typed. Often this happens at night - yet the site management still don't see any need for moderation, it seems. On the whole the boards are an excellent place for support and comfort - I have read of births, marriages, deaths, divorces, illness, problems at school and so on - but sadly some users just aren't happy unless they're fighting. (Fortunately this is quite rare now.)

One other little problem - be aware that from time to time, for unfathomable reasons, the site creators will get the creative urge and start tinkering with new formats. For a few days last winter, the site looked different every time I logged on - the irony being that the new format that they couldn't possibly change was gradually reduced and modified down to basically what had been there a week before. (Obviously they finally realised that pale green text on white might look pretty but it's just not user-friendly.)

On the technical side - the tree works pretty well on Firefox (I am a member of that thorn in the side of Microsoft, that sidelined bunch of Macintosh users) but if it runs into trouble, support are hopeless on support issues. I once sent a series of exchanges to support that went something like this - "Every time I try to save a new person onto my tree, Firefox crashes - I'm using version 10.3.5 (or whatever", "Oh, right - have you tried using Internet Explorer for Mac?", "Yes - Internet Explorer totally scrambles the content of the screen so it's impossible to use", "OK, right - I suggest you use Firefox". They could really benefit from a knowledgeable, reactive computer problems department.

Give it a go, by all means, but remember that you get what you pay for. In spite of the arguments, it's actually belonging to the message boards that has made me renew at least two years running.