Referring a friend when you don't know their email address

[Alexander Bisset]

I was out at a geocaching event today chatting with some geocaching friends and mention was made of family history. So I was saying to this other person who has been researching since 1981 that she should try using Lost Cousins. She had never heard of the site. I am about to post her a message on Facebook and was going to just send the link www.lostcousins.com but thought oh I could send a referral.

So I logged in and went to the referrals page. However that requires me to know her email address which I don't so I can't refer her? I'm not going to ask her to send her email address through Facebook nor am I going to publish mine there. Any way round this or should I just ignore using referrals and send the generic webpage. We are unlikely to have any ancestors in common.

 

[Bryman]

The main advantage of using the referral approach is to be able to get them started with a 'few' entries for their My Ancestors page. However, in this case you say that there are unlikely to be any ancestors in common so just sending the web page link does not really miss anything. Once they have had a chance to look at the site and read Peter's various descriptions, the benefits should be obvious to anyone who is serious about genealogy. The fact that there are over 100K members and there is no charge for getting started should be the clincher. However, pointing out a few of these advantages in your Facebook message should not detract at all.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

I discussed a lot of the advantages at the event. I was surprised that someone who had been doing family history since 1981 hadn't heard of the site. However a lot of her ancestors are Norweigan so that might explain it.

 

[Britjan]

I mentioned Lost Cousins at a resource page I set up at the Lives of the First World War co-curator Facebook (closed) group. (Sorry that's a mouthful!!) I was listing Canadian resources but wanted to emphasise that many Canadians had family connections on the 1881 census if not 1911.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

She signed up and started entering family. It so happens she got a match on her 3 g granddad, after the second household entered. Oddly I got a match popup too however I'm not sure if that's recent or not I didn't notice a date of the match. I did check and it wasn't with her family.

 

[peter]

I was out at a geocaching event today chatting with some geocaching friends and mention was made of family history. So I was saying to this other person who has been researching since 1981 that she should try using Lost Cousins. She had never heard of the site. I am about to post her a message on Facebook and was going to just send the link www.lostcousins.com but thought oh I could send a referral.

So I logged in and went to the referrals page. However that requires me to know her email address which I don't so I can't refer her? I'm not going to ask her to send her email address through Facebook nor am I going to publish mine there. Any way round this or should I just ignore using referrals and send the generic webpage.

You don't need to know someone's email address is order to use My Referrals - whether you choose Refer a Friend or Refer a Relative the notes at the top of the next page state:

"If you leave the email box blank we won't be able to send an email on your behalf. Instead we will give you a referral code for you to pass on to your relative, together with a page of instructions that you can print out if you wish."

When you use Refer a Friend there is no personal information passed on, so it's OK to post the referral code on Facebook. The main advantage of Refer a Friend is knowing whether or not the other person has registered.

You can also use the Personal referral link shown on your My Summary page, which is designed to be used by multiple people and is ideal for posting online (provided you don't mind people knowing your membership number). However you won't know who has joined, though I can give you statistics on how many have joined if you ask me.

 

[Bryman]

Thank you, Peter, for the reminder. I thought that I was 'on top' of this one but obviously my memory was incomplete in some respects. Although I am always looking for opportunities to pass on a referral, actual instances are not very frequent and I need a refresh of the details on a regular basis. If I am about to make a referral then I check the instructions on the LC site but otherwise assume (oh dear) that I still remember.

I must be very lax at keeping up to date with any changes as having read your post above, I went to My Summary page and found what I thought might be a change in my coupon code and had to check against my profile. I don't know how long that has been so. I hope not too long. I don't look at My Summary every time that I add new references to My Ancestors. Please might it be possible (not too time consuming for you) for members to be reminded when such updates have been made so that they can check? Perhaps some form of notification which can then be cancelled by user action? I saw the forum post which advised that new codes should have a later sort sequence but my code had not changed at that point.

 

[peter]

Please might it be possible (not too time consuming for you) for members to be reminded when such updates have been made so that they can check?

The updates are only made when a member looks at their My Summary page - it's all done in real-time. I have no way of knowing which members are going to see a new Coupon Code.

 

[peter]

You can also use the Personal referral link shown on your My Summary page, which is designed to be used by multiple people and is ideal for posting online (provided you don't mind people knowing your membership number). However you won't know who has joined, though I can give you statistics on how many have joined if you ask me.

I have just added this information to the My Summary page - it's the last statistic.