Look up requests

[patrish]

Thanks for the link Frances,  thats a brilliant idea.


Down  loaded  it . but cannot view, file is corrupt 

[Frances]

Hi Patrish,

Thats odd,  I have just checked it now and it has opened OK I wonder what the problem is?  I do not have the knowledge to answer that one
Hopefully someone else may have the answer!

Frances

[JAP]

I just looked at it - no problems at all.

Incidentally, I hate it when people simply give a year of birth and then, subsequently, one finds out that they didn't know the year of birth at all - it was only an approximate year of birth calculated from a census age!  Grrr!

So, if you want people to give a year of birth rather than a census age, please ask them to say (for example) approximately 1840 or circa 1840 or 1840 (calculated from age of 21 in 1861 census)!

I prefer ages myself ...

JAP

[patrish]

Sons sorted out it, working now,

thanks everyone 

[celia]

On the top of the Common Room, Topic "Important advice on Posting from Rootchat" it says

In your post, please be sure to tell us what you already know and most important please tell us what information your are trying to find out.

You can always tell who has read that topic and who hasn't  A favorite request i once viewed went something like.Grandfather being in the merchant navy and wanted to know what ship he was on.No info at all,i was soooooo tempted to reply but it wouldn't have been appropriate

Celia

[patrish]

Exactly

I often wonder how many "new" contributors  actually read that. 

[Gadget]

It's very sad, because some of the Mods have put in hours of work on these info/advice messages but I would guess that few new members read them. We've all experienced it and getting information that is known is sometimes (increasingly, it seems to me) like getting water out of a stone.

I've seen cases where the 'helper' has done masses of research and then the 'requester' comes back with something like 'Oh yes, I've got that' and even changes the initial question 

I agree with JAP here, it would be best to say the age from the xxxx census. I always like to check back to their sources.

There, moan over

Gadget 

[celia]

like getting water out of a stone

don't you mean blood

I've seen cases where the 'helper' has done masses of research and then the 'requester' comes back with something like 'Oh yes, I've got that' and even changes the initial question 

Yes but that is the helpers fault for not asking first
I think with vague requests, to save a lot of brainwork,we are only volunteers, and shouldn't really be expected to be a mathematician as well we should give a standard reply like the one i copied & pasted from advice on posting from rootschat.If that is acceptable of course

Celia

[Gadget]

Thin blood,  Celia 

Perhaps we should try your suggestion  for a while and see. We could keep it in a file and just copy it in.

Gadget