Find Living Relatives

I have been a member for about 3 weeks now and whenI first gained access to find any possible living reletives, I was so hopeful. I lost my mum when I was 12 and never knew my father. I have 2 older sisters who (even after 30 years of asking, pleading and begging) refuse to tell me anything about my parents and furthermore, they also refuse to have anything to do with me. I am 50. Their cruelty is beyond me and if there was a law against family witholding information from other family members, I would have sued them by now.
I tried so hard, with the limited info I have, to trace grandparents, aunties, uncles etc as I simply know nothing about my family and after a wild trail of following names on this site, I thought I had found something. I bombarded the Comunity on here with info and they were so helpful and resourceful. But after finally being in a position to receive a copy of my mum's marriage certificate, I realised I was following the wrong trail. I was shattered and felt so bad for (what I felt was) wasting the Comunity's time .
I have now got the right names for my grandparents but have hit another brick wall. I find it very upsetting that all the members I sent messages to in the past don't seem to be members any more as they are not replying. I myself, will probably not renew my membership if nothing becomes of this as it would seem pointless therefore, I assume that these members I have messaged have not renewed either as they propably (like me) didn't see the point if they never found anything out. Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that there is a narrow window of opportunity for reletives to actually cross paths on here.
Regards, a frustrated and tearful member. :-(

according to your profile you have been a member since June, but you say three weeks

when did you send these messages? June or in the last three weeks?

Even if they are non paying they can still reply, yes they could have changed their email address's in the last 10 months...have the messages been opened?

I paid a membership fee on the 24th March but I think I may have attempted to sign up earlier but never completed the process even though I'd made a profile. I used to be a member about 7/8 years ago and I remember receiving an email (after my membership had lapsed) from Genes Reunited saying a member had comtacted me but it wouldn't allow me to open it unless I renewed my membership and pais the fee. Around that time, I was going through a divorce so probably got side tracked.

If you rejoined under a different account number you will not see the previous messages

You don't need to be a paying member to receive and reply to messages....but you do need to log into the site to read them

There might be other ways of getting in touch. Have you tried 192, electoral roles, facebook or other websites?

Graham, I have tried facebook but the trouble with that is if you're not friends with them, then any messages go into their 'other' inbox and from experience, not alot of facebook users even know it's there so don't read them.
Jax, I guess then, that those ex-members may have changed their emails.
With a surname like Edwards, its like trying to find a needle in a haystack!!

Carole it's a lot to expect that people you're looking for will be members of this site, or even in the trees of people on this site (who are not supposed to have living people in their trees without their permission anyway)

there may be all kinds of people out in the world who are among the ones you are looking for

that is what this board is for ... not just so that some day, someone may do an internet search and light on a post here with the name they are looking for ... but so all the other members can lend a hand

When you say helpful members, you mean you have had threads in forums here about your family and info was found by unrelated people here but it turned out to be the wrong family ? no worry, everybody understands that someone with as little info as you may have false starts.

now that you have good info, your grandparents' names and marriage, you could always try again

if you are convinced they are deceased, you could post their marriage details here ... it might be possible to identify their children (and of course not post that info in the thread since their children might be living)

and by looking for them and their children in all the places they might be found, you never know, if you could find just one person it might connect you up with many

as jax says if you received a personal message in the past you would have been able to read and reply to it even if you had not paid, you must just not have been logged in

if you could remember the email address you used to open that account you might be able to access your messages still

probably you can't still access that email account if it was that long ago, so you could contact support and tell them what your email address was and could they help you access the account, try here

http://www.genesreunited.com.au/help/contact/support/forgotten%20password

here's a thought

if you can remember someone who was in your tree here, do a search of trees and you should find yourself as a member who has that person in your tree! and then you will know what your member number was - it is the long number right after
/messages/
in the link beside your name in the search results

and you could tell the support team that information

Carole could you not start again on the "Looking for Ancestors "page nowthat you have the right names/details of your grandparents. I found some living relatives when reasearching ancestors .members on here are really helpful and sometimes what you see as time wasting will be part of the challenge for them . It could be useful for new members who are also searching for Edwards family members ; I wish you all the best .

Carole thread

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/living_relatives/thread/1338812

so no need to start another

Thank you everyone, I am using all of your info and suggestions to work through this.
It was entirely my fault that I came up with the wrong names. I started by matching Edwards and Nicholas marriages in Glamorganshire (I had this info from my mothers marriage search details on here). There was only one and it was in the same place as my mother's marriage info so I assumed it was a match. Then after receiving the copy of her marriage certificate in the post, I was shocked to learn that her father's name was completely different and it was with his details (Thomas Edwards) that I found a second Edwards/Nicholas match. I don't know why this second one didn't show up the first time but I wished it had.
So I now know who my mum's parents were as one of their childrens' names is Joseph Jenkins Edwards. Joseph was my great grandfather's first name and Jenkin was my other great grandfather's first name so the names were obviously selected from both fathers. Hopefully, I'm on the right track now.

Is this Joseph with a father Thomas on the 1911 census

Print this page View image
First Name JOSEPH JENKIN
Last Name EDWARDS
Relationship SON
Condition -
Gender Male
Year Of Birth 1908
Age 3
Occupation -
Address 16 JOHN ST NANTYFFYLLON
Parish HIGHER LLANGYNWYD
County Glamorganshire
Country WALES
Where Born GLAMORGAN MAESTEG
Year Of Marriage -
Years Of Marriage -
Archive Reference RG14
Piece Number 32531
Census Reference RG14PN32531 RG78PN1858 RD591 SD1 ED6 SN140
Registration District BRIDGEND
Registration District Number 591
Sub District MAESTEG
Enumeration District 6
SubDistrict Number 1
Other Household Members
First Name Last Name Relationship Year Of Birth Age Where Born
DAVID HENRY EDWARDS SON 1911 0 GLAMORGAN MAESTEG I
ELIZABETH HARRIET EDWARDS DAUGHTER 1909 2 GLAMORGAN MAESTEG I
EVELYN MAYD EDWARDS DAUGHTER 1905 6 GLAMORGAN MAESTEG
FRANCIS MARY EDWARDS DAUGHTER 1904 7 GLAMORGAN MAESTEG
HARRIET EDWARDS WIFE 1883 28 GLAMORGAN MAESTEG>>>>
THOMAS EDWARDS HEAD 1882 29 GLAMORGAN MAESTEG>>>>>
THOMAS JOHN EDWARDS SON 1903 8 GLAMORGAN MAESTEG
CHARLOTTE HOWELLS MOTHER-IN LAW 1855 56 GLAMORGAN MAESTEG I

Edit have transferred this to your other thread

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/living_relatives/thread/1338812