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The Kitchen Table

Genealogy hunters......

16 years ago

Does anyone know what happened to GenForums?????

It won't come up on our computers...it just sits there humming :^)

Many thanks for any information.

J

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Comments (11)

Zipper_TX
16 years ago
I noticed that too, I don't have a clue what happened to it, but it won't come up here either.
trinitytx
16 years ago
Nothing here either....

Trin
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anne_ct
16 years ago
A thought...........

I am in the address book of an avid genealogist. Early Sunday morning I received an extremely odd email from this person in which was a URL for some site I'd never heard of. My anti-virus program...and other puter alerting systems...reported there was no virus involved with the email. However...it wouldn't allow anything involved with the URL to fully load.

I hadn't heard from this particular person in eons but was so annoyed with the behavior of the email that I wrote to the person requesting an explanation of the email.

It seems that there's something roaming around...originating at one or more genealogy sites...that's creating this problem. My friend's computer shut down and/or crashed early Sunday morning and at the mid evening point last night...it was still down. To make matters more mysterious...my friend had no recollection of ever creating and/or sending any email to me.

It looks like this unwanted visitor attaches itself to the recipients address book...then mailing a rather virulent piece of spam to the addresses listed therein.

Soooo...perhaps this is the reason you're unable to load the GenForums site. Perhaps there's a lot of cyber housekeeping going on today.

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jannie
16 years ago
The only geneology type forum I ever used was the Social security Death Index. Couldn't find my own Grandparents-Grandpa died in 1928, Grandma in 1961. Neither one ever collected Social Security. Guess that's why ...My SIL uses Ancestry dot com.
jaybird
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks folks!! I hope they get their problems under control. We use that site a lot.
I appreciate your time to answer!
J
Lindsey_CA
16 years ago
"The only geneology type forum I ever used was the Social security Death Index. Couldn't find my own Grandparents-Grandpa died in 1928, Grandma in 1961. Neither one ever collected Social Security. Guess that's why ..."

Social Security didn't start until 1942. So, since your grandfather died in 1928 he never would have had an opportunity to pay into the system.

Even though your grandmother didn't pass away until 1961 (and would have had ample opportunity to have Social Security deductions from her pay), and even though you say she never collected Social Security benefits herself, that's not why her name wouldn't appear on the Social Security Death Index.

Folks only appear on that list if the decedent had been issued a Social Security Number AND their death has been reported to the Social Security Administration. And, basically, a death is considered "reported to" them when a claim is made for death benefits to be paid out -- the sum ($255) that's paid as a "one-time death benefit" or when survivors (spouse or children) file a claim for survivors' benefits.

So, your grandmother could have had a Social Security Number; could have been paying into the system on a regular basis; but if no claim for after-death benefits had been filed, her name would not appear on the Social Security Death Index.
jemdandy
16 years ago
I tried to access genforum around noon today and decided the site was either bogged down, under a 'denial of access' bombardmant, or the server(s) were sick. It behaved as though a full maintence procedure was being run.
grandmamary_ga
16 years ago
Seems to me some time ago I read somewhere that one of the genealogy sites was closing down. Could this be the one?
Mary
jaybird
Original Author
16 years ago
I tried this morning, with the same results as Jemdandy!
Mary, if it were closed down would it act as if it were trying to load, or would it give you a message that it was closed??? I don't have a clue as to the protocol of such a thing!
Thank you all for your help!
Cherryfizz
16 years ago
I just got on with no problem so it must be working again.

Anne
jaybird
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks Anne!!

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