Sharing info on LC site

[Liberty]

This may be blindingly obvious but....
Is there a way to share entries with a cousin you've met via the Lost Cousins site? I know that when you 'refer' someone you can tick which of your entries are of relevance to the potential new member, but can you do something similar with an existing LC member?
I have just made contact with a 4th(?) cousin, and would like to be able to share the census entries for our common relatives. Is there a way other than e.g. giving her the census references so she can look them up, and enter them , herself?

 

[Tim]

Its an interesting question.

But I think you need to send her a branch of the tree that's common. Sharing them via LC does not get the family members into her Family Tree. She will have to add them, or if you send the branch as a gedcom, she maybe able to import them into her tree.

Are you talking about a huge number? Maybe you could contact Peter directly?

 

[Alexander Bisset]

I think the premise of the Lost Cousins site is to facilitate members to talk to each other. I'm not aware of any automated means of sending the census data. Although presumably several people have got the images.

It would be a nice feature although it might take a bit of coding to link the entries in ones tree to the images on FMP or Ancestry. Lost Cousins has the exact census reference after all and it would be a good visual check for the user that the reference entered was correct.

 

[Liberty]

It wasn't so much sharing the tree I was after. But having just referred a couple of cousins I found offsite, I recognised how nice it was to flag up our common relatives as a 'welcome present'. Now I've made contact with someone via LC, I wondered if I could do something similar with my list of ancestors, to say 'This one, this one, and this one are your blood relatives'. I don't know how the plumbing of LC works, but if you can do it for new member, presumably you could do it for someone existing

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Forgive me its been a while since I had a match but I could have sworn the system automatically showed you which of the people in the list were matches and what the relationship was? ie: blood relative, married, employee etc.

 

[Liberty]

Forgive me its been a while since I had a match but I could have sworn the system automatically showed you which of the people in the list were matches and what the relationship was? ie: blood relative, married, employee etc.

Yes it does, but my 'new' relative had only one census family entered that was shared with me. She did not know that my 3G GM existed. I have entries for my own line and for those of other siblings that I would like to point her at, also her own direct ancestors in 1841. Obviously I can type out the info in an email, possibly share a branch of a tree, etc. but in theory I should be able to say 'and here is the census entry for your 3G GF in 1841'

 

[peter]

Unfortunately there is no automatic way to copy your entries to a cousin who is already a member - it's something that can only be done when someone joins (believe me, I pushed the programmer hard on this point - but there were all sorts of complex issues).

However you can make it easier for her by exporting the information on your My Ancestors page to a spreadsheet (start from the 'More detailed' view) - that way the only ones she'll need to look up are the ones where data appears in italics (ie where you've made additions or corrections).

It is absolutely crucial to send referrals to the relatives you already know, rather than allowing them to join independently - a few minutes of your time can save them hours. Yet amazingly more than half of all the active LostCousins members (including many members of this forum) have NEVER used their My Referrals page!!!!

Tip: once you've done a referral to one cousin you can use it as a template to do referrals to others - simply click the family tree symbol.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Tip: once you've done a referral to one cousin you can use it as a template to do referrals to others - simply click the family tree symbol.

You can also embed the referral code in a link when you publicise Lost Cousins website in other communications eg: when visiting other forums, newsgroups. You can even embed the code in links in any Family Tree Analysis software you write

 

[Liberty]

It is absolutely crucial to send referrals to the relatives you already know, rather than allowing them to join independently - a few minutes of your time can save them hours. Yet amazingly more than half of all the active LostCousins members (including many members of this forum) have NEVER used their My Referrals page!!!!

Peter, perhaps you should stress this in a newsletter. I'm afaid I don't find this 'amazing', as it is only recently that I realised there was any benefit to either party in getting people to join via referral. I have been suggesting to people I 'meet' that they should join, but in a diffident, British sort of way. (Actually, most contacts I have made, through any route, LC included, seem to be extremely tenuous - e.g their 3G Uncle married my 3G aunt - so there aren't many relatives in common.)

 

[Tim]

Mentioning tips about LC and the forum in the Newsletter is a good idea. They might have missed something, it not easy to read all the posts here...

Peter's idea is good.

Press the "Show more detail" button, this will open in a new window. Press CTRL+A to highlight all the cells, press CTRL+C to copy all the cells, goto Excel and press CTRL+V to paste the cells.

You can then add filters to remove what you don't want to send, and hey presto, a file with all the details she needs.

 

[peter]

Peter, perhaps you should stress this in a newsletter.

I thought I'd covered it in my previous newsletter.

 

[Liberty]

I thought I'd covered it in my previous newsletter.

Presumably this in the Competition announced two issues ago
"Your My Referrals page allows you to invite both friends and relatives, and when you invite a relative to join you have the option of identifying the entries on your My Ancestors page that they share - in which case those relatives will appear automatically on their My Ancestors page. "

It's possibly this that made me realise that I could 'give' them the census references. I don't think it was, but I really meant it when I said I'd only recently realised. Have the referrals gone up since you announced the competition?

 

[peter]

It's possibly this that made me realise that I could 'give' them the census references. I don't think it was, but I really meant it when I said I'd only recently realised. Have the referrals gone up since you announced the competition?

Not significantly, I'm afraid. Unfortunately the number of members using My Referrals dropped off significantly with the advent of Facebook and other sites that give referrals a bad name (by writing to everyone in your address book), and there seems to be nothing I can do to increase the numbers.

 

[peter]

You can also embed the referral code in a link when you publicise Lost Cousins website in other communications eg: when visiting other forums, newsgroups.

I wouldn't recommend publishing any referral code because the system isn't designed to handle multiple registrations using the same code.

You certainly shouldn't do it with a code that begins 'LCR' (a relative referral) because you could get all sorts of unintended results - everyone who uses the code will appear on your My Cousins page whether they are related to you or not, and all the relatives included in the referral will be added to their My Ancestors page, whether (and however) they are related to them or not.

If you want to publish a link that will identify you as the source of new members please use the 'personal link' on your My Summary page - that's what it is designed for.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

My apologies Peter I hadn't appreciated the difference between the two link types. I was indeed meaning the Personal Link. This is the one I always use.

 

[Liberty]

Unfortunately the number of members using My Referrals dropped off significantly with the advent of Facebook and other sites that give referrals a bad name (by writing to everyone in your address book), .

Ah, maybe that was (subconsciously) why I was not accepting the urging on LC that says something like 'if you like this site why not tell your friends about it - click here'. I had rather felt that if I liked it (as of course I do)I would tell my friend about in the course of an email
Maybe it is worth spelling it out that this is a single message sent in your name, tailored to the recipient, and will be of Huge Assistance to your relative.

 

[peter]

I have emphasised those important points on many occasions, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.