Tree Matches

Barbara, I am also not PRO.
My experience is to use tree view and look for those little symbols top left suggesting matches. A single profile with one of those symbols is quite possibly not a match. But a cluster generally means something. Pick one of those names in the cluster which isn't so common. Put it in the search engine. Find the matches. It has worked for me!
Good luck.

Barbara,
another way to solve them without using the "Tree Match" function, is using a simple search. Yes, if the name of your relative is John Smith, this will NOT work, due to too many matches, but you'll get MUCH shorter lists for less common names. In the search results, you can look at the names in the immediate family column to ignore irrelevant matches as well.

You might be surprised to find your very own grandson in other trees. After all he IS parts of families other than your own (his other grandparents for example). A basic search for "Robert Cox" returns 577 results (304 living). To create a potential tree match, all you need is to match the name of some other immediate family member. i.e. Geni CAN generate a lot of false-matches. If someone else DOES have a copy of parts of your tree in theirs', that alone can account for dozens / hundreds of EXACT tree-matches until merged.

I managed without tree matches for two years. I STILL have 47 of them that I can't resolve...

Barbara,

Before I went PRO I just ignored those nagging tree matches. I used "search" or when I hand entered a new ancestor, the hour glass symbol to see if there were additional matches.

Can anyone explain to me why this person is getting 495 matches, which seem to have in common with him only the first name "Manuel?:

http://www.geni.com/search/matches/6000000003583665541

it's because his last name appear in the middle name field. that means you are seeing matches for just first name field for Manuel

I've changed it for you

:-)

OK that is still strange since it's shows only one match but when you look at it it's shows 495???

sorry but we have a double posting bug

Further proof that Geni's handling of the Middle Name field is "sub-optimal" (to put it in more polite terms than I would prefer).

@Ofir
Whatever change you made to that profile made no difference that I can see. i.e. I still get 495 matches

As for the change, since I don't have edit rights to that profile, I can't see how his name is apportioned among the name sub-fields.

Clearly, Tree Match is matching more than just "Manuel". If I search for "Manuel" I get ~120k matches. Whatever it's doing is a BUG, which needs to be fixed. I'll open a trouble ticket.

Philip - I am now only seeing 1 tree match for that profile at http://www.geni.com/family-tree/index/6000000003583665541.

Maybe what you are seeing is cached?

David: What happens when you click-through to the list of matches? Do you also see only one match?

Philip, it leads me to a screen telling me there is one match, but as I am not PRO I can't see that match.

Based on http://www.geni.com/search?names=Manuel+de+Puga+y+Figueroa, are there two matches?

OK I think there some kind of a bug with hot tree matches

since for the last day or so I;m seeing numbers for matches but when I look at them they show 0 results