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How You can Help Yourself to Taste Success!

12 months on and I am slowly getting through the 'hints' on my FTM, many of which are member submitted and of dubious factual use, but in the process I have realised that for every person in my tree, the relationship to me is clearly displayed (my old program only offered selected relationships), so in due course I will list 19111, 1881 and 1841 census entries on Lost Cousins for any remaining people I amy have missed who are a direct cousins or cousins x-times removed, ignoring any relationships through marriage. In this way, I can focus on the people who are most likely to bring me results and about whom I can offer information to other researchers, rather than going off on a tangent on lines where I have little or no interest. As I have a very large tree, I have realised that I have probably missed recording some people on LC, particularly the the children and grandchildren of my great great grandparents' siblings......

I have been using the relationship status to determine whether or not to save a copy of relevant census entries in my FTM and suddenly realised it is the perfect way to determine who to add to my LC list....but that will take time as I am currently on childminding duty for the summer holidays! Alexander's FTA didn't work with my old program, but I will give it a try in due course, though I am sure it will flag up very distant relationships by marriage which I pursued in an attempt to trace my cousins, but do not want to add to LC....

Great to see how well the LC membership is progressing.
 
Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.
  • 50 new members joined the LostCousins site
  • 2,243 new entries have been added and
  • 141 relatives have been matched.
A good set of numbers, New Entries are up which is always good to see. Summer is here and I'm going to use FTAnalyzer to help me find and load the next batch of relatives to load.

I see from My Summary that I haven't entered any for a couple of months!

Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.
upload_2016-7-25_9-26-42.png
 
Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.
  • 54 new members joined the LostCousins site
  • 2,122 new entries have been added and
  • 85 relatives have been matched.
It's been, what some would call, an average week. But, look at the numbers. If we get an average of 2,000+ new entries every week, then actually that's quite impressive.

If you make matches, then please let us all know over on this excellent thread.


Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.
upload_2016-7-29_13-2-22.png
 
Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.
  • 47 new members joined the LostCousins site
  • 1,778 new entries have been added and
  • 61 relatives have been matched.
A quiet week, but to be expected. The figures are very similar to a year ago.


Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.
upload_2016-8-5_14-24-14.png
 
Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.
  • 37 new members joined the LostCousins site
  • 3,252 new entries have been added and
  • 167 relatives have been matched.
A nice big increase in numbers this week. That's more like it. They're predicting 2 weeks of hot weather, but time will tell.


Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.
upload_2016-8-12_12-19-3.png
 
Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.
  • 43 new members joined the LostCousins site
  • 2,400 new entries have been added and
  • 502 relatives have been matched.
What a good week! 502 relatives matched. Great news. These figures gave a very impressive ration of new matches to relatives entered of 4.78. Every 5th person entered got a match!

If you made matches, then please let us all know over on this excellent thread.


Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.
upload_2016-8-20_13-34-19.png
 
A big thanks to everyone who has recommended LostCousins on the FutureLearn discussion forums (or indeed elsewhere). More members means more cousins for all of us!
 
Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.
  • 43 new members joined the LostCousins site
  • 1,964 new entries have been added and
  • 142 relatives have been matched.
A good set of numbers, Summer is here and I'm going to use FTAnalyzer to help me find and load the next batch of relatives to load.

Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.
upload_2016-8-26_12-10-39.png
 
Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.
  • 47 new members joined the LostCousins site
  • 1,533 new entries have been added and
  • 94 relatives have been matched.
Always good to see new members joining. Wish there was a way that we could help and encourage them to add their ancestors.


Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.
upload_2016-9-2_11-14-13.png
 
Red Dragon said:
Wish there was a way that we could help and encourage them to add their ancestors.
Click to expand...

Red, I don't wish to criticise the way that anybody else works but I find it best to add census references to My Ancestors page as soon as I find the appropriate census record. That way they do not get forgotten. I then use FTA later to check that nothing has been missed.

I recently received a match (just the one!) with a 7th cousin who has not entered references for many years. He has now sent me information about many family members that I had uncovered but not researched further. I would not be surprised if this will lead to me adding more than 100 census references to My Ancestors page when I have verified the new details. If he had entered all references to his page then we would have been matched many years ago.

One never knows which 'fish-hook' will be nibbled so make sure that they are all baited with lines cast in all directions. I have just checked and found that I now have a match for every 5.3 references entered. When I started, I had entered over 200 references before I obtained my first match.
 
Bryman said:
Red, I don't wish to criticise the way that anybody else works but I find it best to add census references to My Ancestors page as soon as I find the appropriate census record. That way they do not get forgotten. I then use FTA later to check that nothing has been missed.
Click to expand...
Hi Bryman, no offense taken. I don't see any criticism!

But to clear up what I was trying to say, I think it would be good for New Members to be able to contact an existing member to ask any questions, and for their "Buddy" to help and encourage them to add their ancestors.
 
Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.
  • 44 new members joined the LostCousins site
  • 1,609 new entries have been added and
  • 78 relatives have been matched.
New members is very consistent, but we're below average on Relatives added and Matches this week.


Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.
upload_2016-9-9_15-30-26.png
 
Red Dragon said:
I think it would be good for New Members to be able to contact an existing member to ask any questions, and for their "Buddy" to help and encourage them to add their ancestors.
Click to expand...

I agree but isn't that what matches are for in the first place? It is so much better if the help comes from someone researching the same/similar families.

This forum also provides a good environment but members don't get invited to join until they have entered enough references to 'qualify'. How many references would be required to reach that level (approximately, as I realise that it depends on which years are entered)?

Perhaps Peter might consider adding a yes/no choice to My Details page for each forum member to indicate their willingness to help a new member get started on a one-to-one basis? I would be happy for Peter to assign one or two new LC joiners to contact me (if they don't have a referal) for the first month or two for additional encouragement/assistance/guidance. However, I don't know if Peter would want to delegate that responsibility.

It ought to be possible to keep contact details annonymous but that might require system changes which would require more work for Peter.

What do other members think?
 
Bryman said:
Perhaps Peter might consider adding a yes/no choice to My Details page for each forum member to indicate their willingness to help a new member get started on a one-to-one basis? I would be happy for Peter to assign one or two new LC joiners to contact me (if they don't have a referal) for the first month or two for additional encouragement/assistance/guidance. However, I don't know if Peter would want to delegate that responsibility.

It ought to be possible to keep contact details annonymous but that might require system changes which would require more work for Peter.

What do other members think?
Click to expand...
It's something I've considered but it would involve quite a lot of extra work if it was done in that way (as did the 'Buddy' scheme I ran when the site was new). However I do have a couple of other ideas which I'm mulling over....
 
Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.
  • 22 new members joined the LostCousins site
  • 1,075 new entries have been added and
  • 68 relatives have been matched.
A quiet week, but every new member and every new ancestor added helps all to make matches.


Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.
upload_2016-9-16_10-31-6.png
 
Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.
  • 39 new members joined the LostCousins site
  • 1,026 new entries have been added and
  • 41 relatives have been matched.
Another quiet week, but every new member and every new ancestor added helps us all to make matches.


Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.
upload_2016-9-23_14-26-1.png
 
Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.
  • 45 new members joined the LostCousins site
  • 1,182 new entries have been added and
  • 68 relatives have been matched.
All numbers up on last week. But we're below the average for the last 20 weeks for relatives added and matched.


Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.
upload_2016-9-30_10-43-37.png
 
Hi Everyone!

Here's a weekly update on how well people have been doing over at LostCousins.
  • 24 new members joined the LostCousins site
  • 2,080 new entries have been added and
  • 134 relatives have been matched.
A quiet week, but new members and relatives matched are above average. The ratio for this week was 15.5, on average every 16th person added procduced a match.


Good Luck Everyone!

Here's a graph showing the activity over at the Lost Cousins site.
upload_2016-10-7_13-5-35.png
 
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