Problems moving forward and back

[HeatherB]

Well this problem might be because I have an old computer with less memory than modern day machines. This is what happens to me I key in a surname of interest and start to look at the pages one by one that download. I notice my chosen surname has 56 pages. At about page say 4 I see a message I want to look at so I copy the number down 164 I then continue on and maybe at about four message 265 could be a possibility for me then I continue on to to page 5 and pick up that 477 might also be a source of interest. I cannot move forward to page 6 or even to page 5 to read the information of 477 when I go back to the find facility put the surname in plus the page number nothing happens.

when I had been to a different surname that only had a couple of pages previously and looked till I found something I thought might be useful. When I closed that page that took me to the persons query instead of taking me back to the list I found myself back at the home page what am I doing wrong?
I am just getting more and more confused.

[Ruskie]

Where are you searching for these names? I initially thought you were talking about a "google search", but then I wondered if you were referring to Ancestry or some other genealogical website.

Or, are you talking about rootschat? I can't work out what your problem is or what you are trying to do.

Can you tell us exactly where and what you are searching for please?

[HeatherB]

I was in Rootschat looking at the Douglas postings and attempting to look at the headings page by page and as there was so many. Then I listed on a bit of paper the ones I would go back and open and read later perhaps I was trying to make life easier and simpler for myself than it was possible. Who knows!

[Ruskie]

You will undoubtedly get lots of irrelevant mentions of "Douglas" as it is a common name.

Did you find the Douglas posts via the SEARCH function on the dark bar at the top of the page? If so, you can try to narrow down the results by adding an extra word or two ... for example if your Douglas's were in Fife you could add the word Fife to your search term, or perhaps a particular name like "William Douglas" in inverted commas.

I still can't really grasp what the problem is with you being unable to go back and forth from page to page. Your computer shouldn't really affect this I don't think. I suppose the only thing you could do is read each thread of interest when you find it rather than trying to return to it later. Maybe admin or one of the moderators or another member might understand your issue better than I do and be able to give you more constructive advice.

One more thing if you are looking for a particular surname:
At the bottom of the page under "Your Tools" is "Surname Interests". You can click on that and via the alphabetical listings you can look for others on rootschat who might be researching the same Douglas branch as you. You can click on the member's name and send them a personal message if you wish. Sometimes people join up, list their names and don't return, so this is something to take note of if you find a match, as the member may no longer be active or contactable, which can be disappointing.

Unsure if any of that helps you .... 
 

[HeatherB]

Hi there

Thank you I think the problem is probably mine, the laptop was bought in 2002 and has only 760 megabite of ram and the amount used for the cache has been reduced to give me more to use for my documents so I think with all the advertizing that goes hand in glove these days with websites the poor old thing just ran out of space so I will look at each item that might be of interest (not always easy as headings often give no indication of content) then mark what page I have got up to and next time I go into the website start looking from that page. When I use to look at rootsweb in the early days I had less on my computer and you had less on your website so I could look at everything quickly, the answer is to visit more often to keep up with the play. Thanks

[KGarrad]

I am also confused!

Are you referring to RootsChat or Rootsweb? Different websites, and not linked to each other!

How are you searching, in order to get all these pages?

If we can understand how you get to these pages, maybe we can help by suggesting a solution?

[Ruskie]

I'm glad I'm not the only one confused KGarrad.

All I can think is that Heather is reading all the threads on rootschat which mention "Douglas" in case some are relevant to her Douglases. There are a lot of results and there is some issue with her being unable to move back and forth between the pages of results. The only way I can imagine that happening is if she used the SEARCH facility on rootschat.

I think the reference to rootsweb may be a mistake and Heather may mean Rootschat?

Heather, when there are lots of results for a search of a common surname, at the bottom of the page you may see something like this related to page numbers:
"Pages 1,2,3,4,5,6 ............68" (with the dots denoting all the page numbers in between.
If you want to move ahead and back I think all you can do is, for example, (using my example above) click on the page number 6, then you will be moved along to the next 6 pages and be shown 6 to 12, then click on twelve and it will move you along to the next 6 and so on.

Obviously this is just an example and your actual results will be different.

Is this what you mean when you ask how you can move back and forth? 

[larkspur]

Heather if you use the Search in the Black bar, as suggested earlier, and not the white box at the very top of the page.
Click on the search
Underneath the pretty blue line is a tick box, that says "check all"
Untick this
Then click on the blue bar that says " choose a board to search in..."
Put your Douglas name in the "search for" box.
Scroll down and tick every box that is relevant to the area your Douglas family were.
Then click search at the bottom of the page
I searched for Douglas on beginners board and Scotland board and it came up with 3 pages.
Hope this helps.
Rootsweb is here. As you see it will take you to the Ancestry message boards.
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/

[HeatherB]

So right I didn't actually realize that their was a website called rootsweb that was a separate entity. I just thought rootschat was part of rootsweb like all part of the same family so yes I did mean rootschat.

I have followed the advice given and have had some measure of success, I think part of my problem was I wanted to read everything just in case something I missed out on was the discovery of a lifetime. I think more practice and less quantity is the order of the day.

Thanks everyone I shall keep trying cheers