How You can Help Yourself to Taste Success!

[Alexander Bisset]

Red assuming you are using excel then you can use conditional formatting options to colour the numbers under the chart. So for "regular" values you could use White background and for others use colours.

There's a lot of info out there if you google excel conditional formatting.

 

[Red Dragon]

Hi Alexander, thanks for the suggestion. I did Google it and unfortunately you can't apply conditional formatting to data tables.

So I cheated. I've removed the data table and created my own.

How does this now look? I have to use the Snipping Tool now but I think it's clear enough? The other great thing is I can copy and paste from the Snipping Tool straight into the reply box, I no longer need to save a file and upload it.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Less clear actually. I was thinking that the conditional formatting could be used to highlight particular values eg: traffic light sort of conditional formatting. Red green scale according to percentage greater than the average (greens) or less than the average (reds).

This would then have most of the rows in the table black and the titles black but the really good or really bad values would be highlighted and picked out.

 

[Tim]

Conditional formatting can now be used now that Red has used a separate data table. But one of the suggestions was to colour the whole row. Maybe Red could try that next time?

 

[Red Dragon]

Hi Alexander,

I looked at conditional formatting but it won't allow it with relative cells.

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.

• 90 new members joined the LostCousins site
• 3,244 new entries have been added and
• 290 relatives have been matched.

So a great week, all numbers up. The ratio of people added to matches made was 11.18, on average every 12th person added made a match.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Hi Alexander,

I looked at conditional formatting but it won't allow it with relative cells.

Shame that it's family history data then. I assume that if it wasn't dealing with relatives it would be fine?

 

[Tim]

Lol, do you think Red was aware of the pun?

 

[Red Dragon]

Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.

• 66 new members joined the LostCousins site
• 3,639 new entries have been added and
• 123 relatives have been matched.

A nice set of numbers for this week, new members normally means the potential for new entries, and new entries raises the potential for new matches. A win win win scenario!

Puns? I never make puns!


Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.

 

[Red Dragon]

Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.

• 49 new members joined the LostCousins site
• 3,509 new entries have been added and
• -476 relatives have been matched.

New members continue to join, lets hope they're busy adding their ancestors. Perhaps a competition would inspire them to add all their ancestors? And perhaps they could be told about FTAnalyzer, a really great way to find who still needs to be entered at Lost Cousins.

Matches have dropped this week, I assume someone has left

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.

 

[Red Dragon]

Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.

• 33 new members joined the LostCousins site
• 2,820 new entries have been added and
• 156 relatives have been matched.

A below average week, but all numbers are positive and people are working hard entering their relatives and finding matches.

FTAnalyzer is helping me this week to find people who I've not found on the 1911 Census. I'm using the Children Status Report which was an idea by Tim started in this discussion. Alexander quickly developed this into a report in FTA which is now very useful.

By recording how many children were born in total, how many alive and dead, FTA reports on how many you have missing from your tree! And then you have to track them down

Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.

 

[Red Dragon]

Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.

• 45 new members joined the LostCousins site
• 2,799 new entries have been added and
• 221 relatives have been matched.

New Members and Relatives Matched both up this week. This gave a match ratio of 12.6, every 13th entry on average made a match.

FTAnalyzer has some great new features. You now copy and paste the census reference data from the Lost Cousins website into the notes section of your Family History software. FTAnalyzer can now read these notes to create a virtual census fact. Using the Colour Reports then allows you to see who could be added to Lost Cousins. More features are to be added soon that should make this even better!

I managed to complete adding all the outstanding Children Status facts (145 of them) and now I need to review the Mismatched Children Status Report to see how many children are missing!! And then go find them!!

Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.

 

[Red Dragon]

Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.

• 44 new members joined the LostCousins site
• 2,580 new entries have been added and
• 89 relatives have been matched.

Apologies, I wasn't able to extract the data from Lost Cousins last week due to the issues with the server. This weeks numbers are therefore the numbers for 2 weeks.

The numbers are low, probably in part due to the server issues, but the weather is getting warmer in the UK, and the days are getting longer, so much more time is spent in the garden.

Peter has added some useful features over at the Lost Cousins site and FTAnalyzer is proving to be a great utility for helping me identify suspicious data.

Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.

 

[Red Dragon]

Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.

• 29 new members joined the LostCousins site
• 1,875 new entries have been added and
• 183 relatives have been matched.

Things have settled down with the server and we're back to a good set of numbers. (Don't forget last weeks numbers were for 2 weeks)

Last week's new entries to matches ratio was just over 10, meaning that on average every 10th person entered created a match for someone.

Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.

 

[Red Dragon]

Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.

• 108 new members joined the LostCousins site
• 2,826 new entries have been added and
• 108 relatives have been matched.

A nice increase in new members, 32 above the average. It's always pleasing to see new members joining, as they start to add their ancestors then we are more likely to get matches. And New Entries were up 1,000 on last week as well.

Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.

 

[Red Dragon]

Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.

• 54 new members joined the LostCousins site
• 2,546 new entries have been added and
• 160 relatives have been matched.

A steady week, and not bad for the Summer months here in the Northern Hemisphere.

I should have published these figures sooner, but here's some statistics from when I started collecting the data back on 17th May 2013. These are the totals for the period from the 17th May 2013 to today. Just over 2 years. These are really great numbers.



Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.

 

[Red Dragon]

Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.

• 49 new members joined the LostCousins site
• 1,879 new entries have been added and
• 160 relatives have been matched.

A quietish week, members continue to join and entries are being added and matches are being made!

But all values are going up so a great effort is being made by people. Some of your distant relatives may also be my distant relatives, so I encourage you all to refer them to Lost Cousins and when they start adding their other relatives, we will start to make matches.

Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.

 

[peter]

Some of your distant relatives may also be my distant relatives, so I encourage you all to refer them to Lost Cousins and when they start adding their other relatives, we will start to make matches.

No dragons in my tree, but it's excellent advice.

And when you follow Red's advice do use your My Referrals page (even if you don't have, or prefer not to provide, the other person's email address) since it enables you to keep track of who has and who hasn't joined. You'd think it would be a no-brainer since it's free, they get my newsletters, and - if you've taken a couple of minutes to tick the relatives they share when doing the referral - they'll have a head's start when they first log-in. But amazingly most people who are invited don't join - maybe they think there's a catch?

 

[Liberty]

. But amazingly most people who are invited don't join - maybe they think there's a catch?

I am relieved to hear this - I thought I was just phrasing my invitations wrong!

 

[Margery]

maybe they think there's a catch?

Peter, you may well be right. We are constantly being warned about unscrupulous people trying to harvest personal information through free sites. Apparently, at the best, we could be targeted by advertisers, or, more sinisterly, identified for criminal purposes. Many people would not be aware that Lost Cousins is a perfectly legitimate site.

 

[Bryman]

Many people would not be aware that Lost Cousins is a perfectly legitimate site.

Very true and we all need to be on our guard, but surely we do not invite others to join on our first contact. We need to introduce ourselves and build some trust first. Maybe pass on a link to the latest of Peter's newsletters, or a specific issue, so that the potential member can see what is involved and can assess the likely benefits.