How You can Help Yourself to Taste Success!

[peter]

My Match Potential went up .4 this week, how about everyone else?

Mine too - it's the first time the calculation has been updated for 6 months so it reflects the efforts members put in during both the Birthday Competition (which ended in May), and the Summer Competition (which ended a few weeks ago).

This change reflects what other members have done - our own efforts are rewarded with increases as and when we add extra entries.

 

[Red Dragon]

Hi Everyone!

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

• 70 new members joined the LostCousins site
• 6,057 new entries have been added and
• 752 relatives have been matched.

All numbers up on last week and all numbers above the running 20 week average. Great work everyone.

The match ratio of members added to matches made was a very impressive 8.05, on average every 8th person made a match.

New Members mean New Entries, and New Entries mean New Matches.

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.

• 53 new members joined the LostCousins site
• 2,851 new entries have been added and
• 92 relatives have been matched.

A steady set of numbers, always good to see New Members joining. Not many matches this week, which means they don't match with existing members but when the new members start adding theirs then there should be loads of matches.

New Members mean New Entries, and New Entries mean New Matches. Everyone wins.

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
• 1,955 new entries have been added and
• 518 relatives have been matched.

Another average set of numbers for New Members and New Entries. But, what did I say last week? "...but when the new members start adding theirs then there should be loads of matches."
An excellent week for Matches! This has produced a New Entries to Relatives Matched of 3.77, on average every 4th person added made a match.

New Members mean New Entries, and New Entries mean New Matches. Everyone wins.

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.

• 38 new members joined the LostCousins site
• 1,626 new entries have been added and
• 98 relatives have been matched.

All numbers down on last week, and below our running average. But not by much.

New Members mean New Entries, and New Entries mean New Matches. Everyone wins.

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.

• 37 new members joined the LostCousins site
• 1,928 new entries have been added and
• 56 relatives have been matched.

A steady set of numbers, always good to see New Members joining. Not many matches this week, which means they don't match with existing members but when the new members start adding theirs then there should be loads of matches.

New Members mean New Entries, and New Entries mean New Matches. Everyone wins.

Good Luck Everyone!

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

 

[peter]

The new members figure is net of members leaving (8 this week, rather more than usual). As those who leave have rarely entered even a single relative on their My Ancestors page, despite having belonged for 5 or even 10 years, I always feel that replacing them with new and more enthusiastic members is positive for the membership as a whole.

 

[Red Dragon]

Hi Everyone!

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

• 89 new members joined the LostCousins site
• 2,035 new entries have been added and
• 93 relatives have been matched.

All numbers are up on last weeks. And a big increase in new Members.

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.

• 84 new members joined the LostCousins site
• 2,708 new entries have been added and
• 192 relatives have been matched.

A steady set of numbers, always good to see New Members joining. New Entries and Relative Matches both up this week, which gave us a ratio of just over 14, on average every 14th entry added produced a match.

It's lovely to see the Green spikes on the graph, those are the New Matches.

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.

• 59 new members joined the LostCousins site
• 1,820 new entries have been added and
• 125 relatives have been matched.

All numbers down on last week, but even though it was a quiet week we still achieved a ratio over just over 14, the same as last week.

New Members mean New Entries, and New Entries mean New Matches. Everyone wins.

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.

• 73 new members joined the LostCousins site
• 1,822 new entries have been added and
• 0 relatives have been matched.

Well this is a very odd week! New Members and New Entries are both up on last week but relatives matched is down. In fact so far down that it's 0!!

I can only assume that some matches have been removed? Maybe Peter has an insight into what has happened? Obviously it is possible that 1,822 new people have been added and they have never been added before, but, in the 4 1/2 years I've been reporting this, we've never had a 0 before.

New Members mean New Entries, and New Entries mean New Matches. (Normally)

Good Luck Everyone!

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

 

[peter]

A long-standing member closed their account this week - reading between the lines I think they were terminally ill, and didn't have anyone they could pass their account on to. That would have certainly reduced the number of matched relatives, and it's probably just coincidence that it cancelled out the new matches.

 

[Tim]

That's a shame. Makes me wonder if there is anything that can be done for these Lost Trees. Maybe a side Branch from Lost Cousins? Store the Gedcoms for the future related researchers?
Keep the details on Lost Cousins, when someone makes a match with a departed member (and meet certain criteria) allow them access to the research?

 

[Liberty]

That's a shame. Makes me wonder if there is anything that can be done for these Lost Trees. Maybe a side Branch from Lost Cousins? Store the Gedcoms for the future related researchers?
Keep the details on Lost Cousins, when someone makes a match with a departed member (and meet certain criteria) allow them access to the research?

I agree it's a shame. The original person must have put a lot of work into all the entries - sad to think all the effort would be lost....

 

[peter]

If someone has been diagnosed with a terminal illness there is no way I am going to make things more difficult than they already are by putting pressure on them, or making them feel guilty.

It's much better if these things are thought about in advance, hence the My Beneficiary section on the My Details page. I trust everyone on the forum has completed this?

 

[Tim]

I wasn't suggesting any form of pressure or even contacting these people again. I was suggesting something to offer for members in the future. Somewhere that there work can live on after they can no longer maintain it.

 

[peter]

I wasn't suggesting any form of pressure or even contacting these people again. I was suggesting something to offer for members in the future. Somewhere that there work can live on after they can no longer maintain it.

That's what My Beneficiary encourages. There's no point preserving the information unless people are going to have access to it, but there needs to be someone controlling the access.

Some people donate their research to a FHS or the SoG.

 

[Bryman]

That's what My Beneficiary encourages. There's no point preserving the information unless people are going to have access to it, but there needs to be someone controlling the access.

Some people donate their research to a FHS or the SoG.

I think that we all understand that but perhaps Tim and Liberty are trying to find a way to go a little further.

If someone no longer has immediate family interested in their family history and is not associated with a local FHS or the SoG then such a member might appreciate having their LC research remaining within LC even if there is nobody to return contact requests when matches occur? There may be several members already matched to parts of that research that might be useful contacts for a 'new' member who is not directly matched with them. Just my initial feeling.

I may not have expressed this very well, nor thought this through completely, but feel that there could be value in offering the option of making LC the beneficiary. I am not suggesting that Peter take on the role of maintaining the account (he is too busy) but perhaps there may be some way to avoid 'wasting' years of research that could be helpful to other members.

 

[peter]

Members already have the option of leaving their account open, even after their death. They can pass on their account to somebody else, either during their lifetime or afterwards, or their executors can make the decision after their death.

If the members and their families are not prepared to take any of those simple steps then it is not the role of LostCousins to step in. After all, the information on the My Ancestors page is just a very small fraction of the whole, and it can easily be replicated if required.

 

[Bryman]

I think that LC has this about right but I was just trying to avoid the loss of potentially hundreds of hours of census searching from the benefit of those members remaining.

Sadly, we will all eventually get to the point where we can no longer maintain our account at LC. I was not suggesting anything to help those members but rather all other members. This particular discussion began when any new matches were cancelled out by the removal of one (?) member's census records. It is up to each member to decide what they would like to happen to their data but I was wondering if LC might offer an option which would allow those records to be retained within the LC database and possibly marked as unmaintained, or some such. If so, would there be some way of telling the member with a matched entry about other members who might be able to help with related families?

I have a non-member blood relative nominated on My Details page but what would happen to my data if we 'deceased' at about the same time?

Perhaps Tim and Liberty, or any other members, might like to add their comments if they think that I am missing something or veering away from their intentions.

Members already have the option of leaving their account open, even after their death.

Where is this? I could not find this option explicitly.
If the records are retained then what happens when a match is found? The departed member may not be able to respond. Is that what has happened to all my non-responders?

After all, the information on the My Ancestors page is just a very small fraction of the whole, and it can easily be replicated if required.

It may be 'easy' to replicate most of the entries but it could also take a very long time.