RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Inchworm on Tuesday 27 March 07 20:21 BST (UK)
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I have made some good contacts over the past few years through Genes Reunited. Even found branches of the family that had been long forgotten and resurfaced.
However this one takes the biscuit. Someone new contacted me about one of my distant relatives. Interesting, I thought, as I too didn't know much about this side of the tree. I replied and then looked at his tree, as he had given me access to it. It was a carbon copy of my own tree, right down to the last detail. Even the same amount of people in total. He had all of my husbands family there too !!!
Where he had got it from, I do not know. I am wary of letting people view my tree because of this. I can only guess that it has been passed on through another GR contact. How rude !!!!!
From Angry Inchworm >:(
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I sympathise, that's as good as mine! I contacted somebody as she had an exact match on her tree, but after a discussion it transpired that she was only researching this person in an attempt to find somebody else of the same name, so her tree was not linked to mine at all.
Then a real cousin asked me who it was who had MY family listed - there we were, my mother and father, even my own name. I contacted her again, furious, and gave her two days to remove us from there before I got in touch with GR and really caused a stink.
I did get an apology and she agreed to remove her tree and prune it considerably before it was put back but she wanted to keep my branch, minus my close family, because of all the research she had done on it, as it might just help somebody else.
My response to this was truthful ..... her tree wouldn't help any other researcher since it had a major error in it!! I think that stumped her.
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How can these people just steal our trees?
I had over 1000 relatives in mine to which 98% would have been meaningless to this person. What is the point of that? They are not even interseted in checking out the details. What are they trying to achieve? Beats me !! >:(
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Hi Phrishy, I hope it was a tree stump that you used, sorry to say i had the same problem on GR, a "lady" has 2500 + names, she just connects with any link no matter how tenuous. bodger
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I must confess that I'm sitting on just over 3000 names in my GR tree...OK, so it includes people very distantly related to me, but if I've been able to prove marriages and add further family groups, then I have done - they did all exist after all.
The thing that gets to me is when I get a message just saying 'can I see your family tree'...no explaination at all as to who they want to see...normally gets a questioning email sent back!
So far I have been quite lucky with the people I have shared my tree with - I usually get a message asking whether they can add info to their own trees from mine...I don't mind that one little bit!
Regards, Emma ;)
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We were discussing this on another thread last week.I think some people just like to collect names,so poach as many as they can from others.They don't know anything about them because they haven't done the research but that doesn't seem to bother them as long as they've grown their tree a bit more.It's annoying and I think everyone is wise to be cautious.
Jim
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I have had numrous requests to view my tree, usually via GR, but some others as well.
I send a polite reply asking them what it is they are looking for specifically. 10% reply and it is this 10% that are genuine.
I had one very distant relative [at least 24 steps away] contact me DEMANDING that I release information to her about her own family. I told her that the info was freely available via the IGI etc and if she put her hand in her pocket that she also could get it via Ancestry etc. Uncharitable of me I know, but a lot of my research has taken me years of hard slog.
If a genuine family member turns up [I have had a few in the past] I am quite willing to share.
Tom G
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I hope it was a tree stump that you used
;D ;D ;D
I'm in total agreement with Emsworthy in that I've shared my tree willingly with people who, after a discussion, it's confirmed that we have a connection. But as with Gensleuth, somebody who demands access would be refused.
The person who added my unconnected family to her own actually had over 10,000 entries - to my mind a clear case of being a name collector only.
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If everyone is so annoyed by people 'stealing' their trees (how you can steal public domain beats me) why take the risk of being upset and publish??????????????
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I suppose because every now and then a genuine family member makes contact which probably makes it worthwhile.Although most info.(not all) is in the public domain it's collating it all and making sense of it that takes all the effort.Out of about every fifty contacts I'll be lucky to get two genuine ones but they'll be worth it.
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Hi Indaloman,
It's not always public demain - that's the issue I'm ranting about anyway! Yes, I've got my tree on Ancestry - very small at present, and I'm trying to add all the facts! (If you search for James Rosevear Blake, you'll find it under public member trees and see what I mean!) In that case, I've put the details out there myself so take it for granted that they can be copied down by people.
The problem I have is when I get contacted via GR. In the past I've had contact from people about an individual from (for example) Wickhambrook, which involves a good proportion of my tree. They say they have also been researching that line from Wickhambrook and will open up their tree if I do the same. Being the friendly soul that I am (I'm not always moaning!), I tended to share my tree as they sounded genuine, only to find that when I looked up their tree, it included them and them alone or at best a very small number of their direct family line.
So, it is the blatant copying of information that I haven't published that is my gripe - just goes to show they're not serious about genealogy if they haven't sat up night after night wondering just how many ways you can spell 'Edgley/Edgeley/Edgly/Edgely/Edgerly/Edgelery/...' - you get my drift!
Regards, Emma ;)
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Hi Emma
What I tend to do now is ask more questions about who they are looking for and what link they think they have to my tree before unlocking it.If I think they are just trawling I don't let them see it.If your tree is linked to theirs by them and some of their info. is incorrect which it probably is (because they haven't put the hours in ) then that means there is your family tree in the public domain that isn't correct.
Jim
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I am very protective of them now...they are 'my people'!! ;D
Much of the time now, I am contacted about my distant tree - the ones related to me via marriages...even then, I'm wary of who I'm passing the information on to! But when it's closer to home...pah! Back off!! And if anyone dares to touch Ephraim Warner, I'll have 'em! ;D
Regards, Emma ;)
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phrishy, I have over 10,000 entries in my (unpublished - due to my own slackness) genealogical database - all as a result of my own efforts I hasten to add. But I would most certainly not call myself a "name collector" ;) I might admit to being a collector of information ::)
A vast number of the persons in my database are from my children's direct tree and all the proven branches, twigs and twiglets of this and of persons related by marriage. Lots are from the two 'one-name' studies I am doing in an attempt to make connections to the former - the very rare name LOCHTIE/LOCHTY/LOUGHTY and the uncommon name MCLAUSE and all its variant spellings (approaching 100 variants so far). Then there are the trees of people who were rumoured in family folklore to be connected e.g. Henry HACKING of the First Fleet (I've been unable to prove any connexion though it would be great to have a connexion with such a rogue - and I must say that I've learned a great deal in exploring Henry). Then there are entries for 'witnesses' to events (ministers, witnesses, sponsors, informants, other people mentioned in wills, etc). Etc, etc ...
I like to explore far and wide along the branches, twigs and twiglets because - in my experience - it is amazing how often something which seems very distant and almost irrelevant throws light on (or even solves) a puzzle of a person more directly connected.
Indaloman, I agree with you that it can't be called stealing if it's in the public domain but ...
Courtesy of another RC thread, I've recently been introduced to WorldConnect at RootsWeb. On looking up names of interest to me, I've been struck by how often one is led to a site (let's call it Site B - and often C, D, E, etc) where it seems obvious (perhaps I'm wrong) that a GEDCOM has simply been hijacked holus bolus from an original site (lets call it Site A) and inserted into Site B,C,D, etc, etc, etc - to which is has absolutely no relevance! I find it annoying in the extreme to be led to irrelevant site after irrelevant site only to find the same hijacked (and often wrong!) information! And, of course, with no source information given!
On the other hand, some of the WorldConnect sites are fantastic - well-researched and reliable (as we found on the RC thread I mentioned). But the hijackers damage the whole project and would certainly deter me from taking part i.e. providing a GEDCOM. Though, as it happens, I came across one site there which was obviously genuine and I was able from my database - not a related person as far as I know but (NB phrishy!) from my one-name research - to clarify/correct something for that researcher (who responded immediately).
Emsworthy, I guess you won't be so trusting in future! The old adage "Fool me once ...", etc (the original - not the Bush mangling) ...
If I finally get around to publishing my information, it will be in the public domain - but it certainly won't be in the form of a GEDCOM which can be so easily hijacked :(
Cheers,
JAP
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The person who added my unconnected family to her own actually had over 10,000 entries - to my mind a clear case of being a name collector only.
I don't understand this. I have a little over 10,000 people in my family tree (not the one on GR, which I don't bother adding to or updating any more, but my own personal one). Every one of them is genuinely related to me and I'm genuinely interested in. If you follow branches across and down as well as up you do eventually have huge numbers of people - it's just the nature of things. I'm sure there are people out there who hijack other people's trees but I am not one of them, and I really don't see how the size of one's tree is an indication of any such thing.
Anna
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I like to explore far and wide along the branches, twigs and twiglets because - in my experience - it is amazing how often something which seems very distant and almost irrelevant throws light on (or even solves) a puzzle of a person more directly connected.
I couldn't agree more, JAP! ;)
Anna
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A vast number of the persons in my database are from my children's direct tree and all the proven branches, twigs and twiglets of this and of persons related by marriage.
I like to explore far and wide along the branches, twigs and twiglets because - in my experience - it is amazing how often something which seems very distant and almost irrelevant throws light on (or even solves) a puzzle of a person more directly connected
I agree, i think of my tree and its branches shoots, twigs etc as all my childrens relatives
also this week i found a rellie on my father in law side of the family, living next door to my mother in laws side of the family, 70 years before they met and married each other
have fun whatever way you look at it
Jo ;)
ps i have mine on tribalpages
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OK so that's put me in my place.
I still don't condone somebody adding my entire family, including myself and living parent, who was only married into the line, not directly descending from it, being added on to somebody else's published tree, after agreement had been made that there was in fact, no connection to the family being searched.
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I contacted someone on GR because they had the name of one of my g.gran's daughters from her first marriage in their tree and at that point I wasn't sure whether I had the correct family, so gave her the details I had. She replied and said that yes, the info I had was correct and she would open her tree for me.
She did open the tree and I put in the name of the person I was looking for and sure enough it was there, but no matter how many names I clicked on or routes I took through her family I couldn't see the connection. I e-mailed her back and asked what the connection was between her family and the person I was researching. She e-mailed back and said there was no connection, she had just decided to do some research on the name because they came from the same town as her!
I have just looked on GR and her tree is still open to me, and my relative is still listed, but there is still no connection. Now that's weird.
When I contacted another person who also had this particular relative in her tree, she was very wary as she had obviously come up against this other person before who had hi-jacked her family for no reason. When she realised that I did share relatives, my g.gran is her g.g.gran, she gave me her home e-mail address and we contact each other frequently with questions and answers.
When looking at trees that are open to me, there are a few with my name and details of my brothers, parents, aunts and uncles and I haven't opened my tree to many of the people who have opened their trees to me, so it must be that they are getting the information from someone else. I don't know who it is, as I thought I had a good relationship with the few people who have family members in common with me.
As I mentioned on another thread somewhere, there is a GR member who has 33 hot matches with me, including my mum's grandmother. When I wrote and asked him where he fitted in he just said my mum's grandmother was a very distant relation and that he had now deleted her from his tree. He obviously hasn't because it showed up again last week and the 33 hot matches are all still listed.
Somebody is giving these details out. I'm not really bothered if they want to collect names, I only want to know which branch of the tree they fit in to.
Liz
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I think I have been guilty of at least one of these 'crimes'. Perhaps describing them might reduce your stress levels because in each case I believe they were honourable.
I have, once, added a whole family to my tree that was, at that time, completely unconnected.
I collected the data from census so it was all public domain.
I chose to do this to try to find the connection of this family to my tree. I had good reason to believe that they were connected because their surname appeared as middle names in FOUR generations of my tree.
I did have several contacts, one of them helped me connect them up to mine and they are all there now.
I have just tipped over the 2000 people in my tree. I have been doing this for less than a year. I know almost nothing about most of these people.
When I first started growing my tree I made a conscious decision to allow this to happen in the early stages. That stage is now almost over. I am now able to study them, explore them, make them my friends. I believe I made the right decision.
That's the end of my confession but I would like to touch on one other point people have raised here.
I hold four different copies of my tree, one on my pc at home and one on each of Ancestry, GR and Tribal Pages. I find this easy to manage and control although the Ancestry tree is the most difficult.
The only way I can achieve this is through using Gedcom files. Please do not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Gedcom files are incredibly useful when you want your tree on public view.
Carefully used, Gedcom files can be great timesavers. If, for example, you hold a tree on GR, you can download it from there, upload it to Ancestry and it all looks about the same.
Happy hunting. :)
Paul
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Inchworm
If you freely provided access to your family tree on GR to person A and that person provided access to person B then you are can invoke the terms and conditions on GR which specify that a person must get a tree-owners permission before they copy information. The problem is though, person A may have given person B permission to copy, so person B has not broken any rule as far as they are concerned.
It is too late to pull your tree off of the site as the information is now in the public domain. Whether anyone has stolen any data is debatable. It seems to have been given freely to the parties concerned.
downside
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The trouble is that I am too honest. If I let somone to look at my tree (and that is very rarely) I don't expect them to pass it onto another person without consulting me first. The same way that I would not pass on another persons email address without asking the person whose address it was in the first place. Where are paoples manners, I wonder. ::)
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Hi all.
My hubby had the same thing happen through genes yesterday. Someone had asked permission to view our tree, so when he clicked on the link to view their tree, our tree came up person for person. After 5 minutes ranting & raving, he realised that although he had clicked to view their tree, genes had diverted it to ours! It must have been something to do with the new version 5 upgrade.
Do check again in case this was the problem!
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As I mentioned on another thread somewhere, there is a GR member who has 33 hot matches with me, including my mum's grandmother. When I wrote and asked him where he fitted in he just said my mum's grandmother was a very distant relation and that he had now deleted her from his tree. He obviously hasn't because it showed up again last week and the 33 hot matches are all still listed.
The above quote is from my own posting, but it is relevant. I e-mailed 4 members of GR with whom I share ancestors asking about the person who has 33 hot matches with me, each one said he had contacted them too. One said he had over 100 hot matches with him and that this character wasn't related to most of them, but had just hi-jacked them and added them to his own tree. Another person said he also found this person had hi-jacked his whole tree, even though most branches were not relevant to him. He is going to write to him asking him to remove all his relatives. I told him if he still doesn't remove them he can be reported to GR.
Liz
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Inchworm,
I was going to post the same as Doorwoman.
Since Genes has updated it's tree there seems to be a glitch that actually takes you to the ancestor you are looking for, but in your own tree, not theirs!!! ::)
You can check, as it'll say "your tree" in the drop down menu on the top right side. So then you just click the name of the person who's tree you thought you were going to!
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Yes, I have noticed this too.
The way around it is to open your own tree from the menu on the left side. Once you have your tree open, then use the drop down list of trees that you have access to in the top right hand side.
Inchworm :)
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Another person said he also found this person had hi-jacked his whole tree, even though most branches were not relevant to him. He is going to write to him asking him to remove all his relatives. I told him if he still doesn't remove them he can be reported to GR.
Liz
Best of luck to him if he reports the theft of his to to the GR site administrators. I tried this after my tree was hijacked and got no response at all. GR are simply not interested in what is done with information posted to their site, perhaps if they administered it more closely then hijacking wouldn't occur so often. I stopped using that site completely after someone proudly e-mailed me "look what I have found for you family" and proceeded to read my own research back to me, which she had obtained from a third person.
Like many people posting to this thread, I don't mind sharing information. I limit the amount of information out there by not putting on any sources - just a note that I hold sources for all of my entries and that anyone is free to contact me for that information.
I have had a couple of good laughs over the years. One notable one was when a "cousin" carefully checked the details that I had given to him before entering it on his own site - then found my husband's name on the IGI and concluded that he must have been the John K..... that was baptised in 1797!.
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It is very difficult to know if you are offending a contact or if the info. one has entered will appear on another tree.
I try to only enter new ancestors on GR and then the contacts line down to c.1900.
The rest of their line goes on to my "familyhistorian " file.
Conversely there are some relations I would not have known about unless a rellie had not entered then from another contact(who I don't know about)
One lady who is not related to my OH(but has a distant rellie who married into our family) has put my part of the family (including me ) onto her tree. I shall ask her to remove my side and I think she will as we have had an amiable correspondence.
It is only to be expected,the more people who search and find contacts then the more "our" and"their" trees will appear on the Internet, but surely that is what we have been trying to do all these years? Find our Families
Spring
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Hi Springbok
I do agree with you - we are all trying to find our families but my annoyance is with those people who copy your tree and your hard work and then hold out to others that this is their own research.
Kate
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Ah I thought it was just me, I have always opened my tree in good faith some folk do open theres and if there is 100% no conection i remove my tree permisions, However if there is a definate connection I will leave it open, Recently I found a connection through someone who contacted me i looked at his tree, and there on his direct line was my 2x great grandfather he had no info on him apart fron that he was the father an illigitamte daughter, I opened my tree and gave him my contact details because the tree is a touch complicated, looks like someone made it up lol but its for real,and i have all the proof, I have never heard from him again, I had printed of his tree, and we found several errors, the could have been typos with the dates etc, but guessed he decided, a) i had proof and his was partly leaps of faith, b) he did not like what he saw (all the inbreeding).
so i decided to get tough prove your connection, that dosent work either ,, tthey do you open your tree, and thats the end of it you dont hear from them again
Sadly I find it is getting more common on GR, If i want to used part of a tree that connects to mine i fist ask permision, why cant others do the same.
THANKS GUYS GOT THAT OFF MY CHEST NOW
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Hi everyone, yes i had the same problem on gr, mine was my aunties grandaughter who i made contact with. I gave her some info through the post as it was easier and hey presto she put her tree on with what i had given her, also she is asking for another line in the family which i now have but she doesnt know about and dont intend to pass on either. I have spent pounds on geneology and dont mind swapping details with anyone but not for them to just walk in and take the lot.
moira
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i hate it when you get a hot match and ask for info on a matched person giving as much detail as possible with out giving to much away. and the next reply you get is can i view your tree. or some times the first reply you get is can i view your tree?
i respond with which person are you interested in i would be willing to help give more info if i get no further reply i delete them i only share my tree with people. who i know have to same info as me after much discussing.
some people will automatically let you view there tree which i think is risky.
also when i do make a correct connection i ask do you have any certs to this person etc and tell them i have certs I'm willing to share. only genuine people would have certs and be able to share. i do let them know i have certs and what certs i have regarding the individual hot match. only when I'm sure 100% do i get and send copies and that is after we have exchanged a few other names to like our families. not just the one name on a hot match.
it is very risky and you do have to be careful.
like my son said pirates rob the treasure from ships your tree is your treasure chest, guard it with your life. you wouldn't give your Credit cards away. so don't give out vital info on your tree unless your 100% sure its a distant relative.
don't be afraid to ask questions regarding hot matches. and say no to demands.
name collectors soon give up.
Bitz
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It's the "copy & paste" brigade that I object to. They don't even check out any details. All they want to do is have the worlds longest family tree.
It feels as if they are stealing your ancestors. :P
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Unfortunately the name collectors have been around on the internet since the early days, if they are not careful they will have a 200,000 name tree with no proofs as one Rootschatter claims. But think more seriously have you bought any, better go on the Company A principle here, Genealogy Cd's lately. This company has my tree on its Cd's, which it sells, even had the same mistakes I made in the early days, one is a whole line which I had to delete.
Not all Data thefts are made by Egotistic individuals or innocents.
Alan
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You are right Alan.
It's the nature of the beast.
If you put the info out into the public domain, then it's the property of the public.
I don't think it's ethical but it happens all the same :-\
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I find it a bit of a "Catch 22" situation. When I first started family researching some 10 years ago, other researchers freely supplied me their information, which I gladly accepted to get me started. Now after 10 years its me that is freely supplying my own researched information to other researchers.
I don't mind these researchers using my information, and some do acknowledge their source. Its the ones that use my information in the form of "copy/paste", which tends to annoy me. I had one researcher, who I did not know, supply me with a transcribed document that she thought I might be interested in. Amazing, that was my own document that I had transcribed several years ago - same spelling/typing mistakes included!!!
I even found one researcher who use my notes in her notes quoting the words "my grandmother", "my grandfather", "my great great grandfather" etc. etc. Unfortunately, these ancestors were MINE, and not hers!
At least if I use somebody else's research material I do retype it into my own words.
Les
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Its the ones that use my information in the form of "copy/paste", which tends to annoy me.
Indeed. Things can be in the public domain as much as they like, but if you're going to reference someone's research you have to do just that...REFERENCE it. Copying someone's research verbatim, even going so far as failing to make fundamental changes to the semantics of the notes, is not research at all...it's plagiarism, and I'm a great believer in that if you're going to do research and use someone else's work you should follow the correct academic rules of citation.
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It's a very difficult situation, isn't it? I would find it very annoying if people just lifted heaps of names from a tree, especially if they obviously hadn't bothered doing any checking, but I hope I wouldn't end up like one contact I have made.
He has been researching one of my lines for over twenty-five years. He has been on the receiving end of "tree thieves" and now refuses to discuss his research unless you can first give him something he doesn't have - information, photos, etc. All I wanted was verification that a certain couple were the parents of an ancestor but because I had nothing to trade, he wouldn't answer the question. I found that rather sad - for him and me. He probably knows more about this family line than anyone else now so the people he can share with must be very small indeed.
Monica
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Someone pinched my tree and put it on Rootsweb with some mistakes.
I was just trawling the other day to see if anyone else was on there. What did I find but one of my ancestors is now down as dying in USA instead of Norfolk England. Some of his relatives also seem to have aquired new wives in America. Looks as if the trees are mixed up. I hope no-one believes anything they read on these sites
Sylviaann
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I have become extremely reluctant to post anything publicly, which is not really a solution, just a demonstration of the problem. My biggest beefs are with people who insist on putting in the names of the living, and with those who seem to have no clue or are reluctant to disclose the sources of their information. I would often love to believe they are correct, but how can I?
Two years ago I found a tree online of one of my most difficult families, where I had no clue where to go, and I was very new at genealogy. This woman who had posted the info, who would not tell me her name, claimed to be a first cousin of my grandfather's brother's wife (people I never knew, and knew nothing about). I now know that the tree had many errors in it, because she had made assumptions when she did not know the anwers. However, if it were not for her, and one of the contacts she led me to, I would be much the poorer for some of the valid contacts which I would never have gotten otherwise, and I do mean never, as they had all left England for another country that I would never have imagined! I have recently learned that she had my greatgrandfather's "brothers" all wrong; one of these "brothers" was in fact his uncle, and another was his first cousin, plus there was an actual brother whom she missed, and he had several other sibs in another country! But she would never give me any info on why she thought they were all brothers.
It is so tempting when people post your family history back to the year 0, but won't tell you how they got it!!! I would so love to believe them, but how can I?
I guess I'm slightly off topic here, but I think I needed to vent!!
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Vent away, Loo ;)
I have only come across one other researcher on my Wilshaw side, she had researched the parish records in depth (luckily for me she worked there) and then when she couldn't be sure, stopped.
I came across all our ancestors names published on a site and the fella had worked forwards instead of backwards and just attached our ancestors to a Wilshaw in the early 1700's :o I explained that this was all wrong, he acknowledged this but still hasn't changed anything.
So, if there any Wilshaw researchers out there they will probably find him first and possibly go with it ??? ???
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To be quite honest I wouldn't like anyone to hand be a complete tree or even branch.
Sometimes I wouldn't mind a hint in the right direction, but then I wouldn't get the satisfaction of doing it myself.
wini
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Hi all
I also have been offered a tree of a branch of my OH's family but declined as I like to do the research myself. I think the person offering it to me thought I was mad ;) However I think you can remember things much better if you seek and find yourself..... and I need all the help I can get in the memory department.....at times ;D I know I can always call on this person to help me if I hit a big brickwall and also for helping 'to put meat on the bones' ;D
I have had a grizzle quite a few times on rootschat about my family tree being placed on the web by a person who is not a member of our family but a 'friend' of a relly - and the relly has told me that genealogy is not one of her interests ??? Emails and pm's have been ignored pointing out the errors on the site and the copy and pasting from responses to my lookups .....some of which have been proved to be incorrect or not applicable to my family. The sad thing is the incorrect information has been copied onto two other web sites.....and that is the thing that makes me mad. >:( The author of this site has now removed the url link from her home page....this has happened since I pointed out and put the link to the url on a rootschat thread.....but the incorrect info is still there.
Cheers
cando
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I've often thought about joining GR...think I will give it a miss. I'm all for sharing information but stealing it? Where's the satisfaction in that??
Caz
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You can join GR without putting your tree on it.
I did, and found one very good connection, with the granddaughter of my mum's first cousin. But I have never posted a tree there, so there is nothing for anyone to look at. I merely responded to a query this young woman had posted. I was able to verify for her that her long lost uncle really did exist, although he's still "lost". This was a big help for her, as her father wasn't 100% sure if he existed; complicated story. We have also exchanged photos.
Nonetheless, they keep sending me "hot matches", which have nothing whatever to do with my name, which is the only name they have from my membership. I think it's fair to say that I'm probably the only person in the world with my actual name, so it's easy to see that all these so-called hot links are fake. Very annoying. But I did appreciate the link.
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Hot matches are a joke. It's a way to be sent links to people you know you're unrelated too, while people you know are in your tree are overlooked. How the system that selects them works I don't know, but I personally believe that put everyone's name in a big hat and have a monkey draw them out every 2-weeks (well I say 2-weeks since that's the time there's meant to be between new hot matches, but I've not received any for 6-weeks...although I've made new contacts with people I've searched manually).
Indeed, all my best contacts have been through searching myself...even down so far as having a "new relation" help me break down a brickwall I'd been stuck on for 3-years recently. So with the bad, there is also good. :)
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When I was new to all of this, I didn't realise that people would copy and paste without verifying details.
I found it confusing when I contacted people because they had nothing else to offer because they were using the information I had put on my Tree...which cost me a fortune to prove. Before this the name was a brickwall to all of them, one even had the cheek to ask me to prove it, in quite a curt way, I felt like saying buy your own cert.
I will always share information I have, to me that's the name of the game . I don't understand though why someone would leave incorrect information on their Tree when you have offered them proof because you bought the Cert and Will, I would be grateful to learn of any mistake I made.....but then they cut off contact with you ???
Thankfully I have had some very nice contacts, and we keep a look out for each others rellies whilst doing our searches.
Ambers
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Unfortunately I think some of you are really missing the point. Everyone has their own reason(s) for engaging in this wonderful hobby. I fully understand those who perceive our researching the lives of relatives that died hundreds of years ago as a pointless exercise. But unless your hobby involves saving lives (ie. Surf lifesaver, volunteer firefighter, etc) most hobbies remain - just an enjoyable way of spending our spare time.
There will always be those who are determined to seek out the smallest details of their ancestors lives; dates will be critical and accuracy an obsession. For others it is just about building the biggest tree possible. Is is not fair to deride them for having a different goal. I guarantee that if you do fall into the "obsessed with accuracy" category you would never accept unsourced information anyhow - it's just not in your nature to do so. All reputable genealogy websites have an administrator, so if you encounter incorrect information, simply notify them and move on.
If you are frustrated by people contacting you continuously with a low or no probability of being related to you or your area of interest, I must ask "why are you limiting access to your research?" Why not make your tree "public access"? Reputable sites protect information related to living people. The person inquiring can see immediately that they are not related and has no need to bother you. The amount we spend on our hobby is irrelevant. We don't own the fact that our parents were married on the 1st December 1951. That just happened to be the day that they chose to celebrate their wedding. It is my experience that sometimes I have overspent because I have been too lazy to do a little more research and narrow down the search criteria.
Finally to those of you who feel so aggrieved that sharing your research efforts is always a one way contribution - I sincerely hope that you have family who share your obsession. Just imagine if all that research was ultimately only valued by the very "thieves" you abhor?
FishMan
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Oh Fishman I think that it is perhaps you that is missing the point made on this thread by many of us.
It is not so much that we don't care for those who's goal is to have the largest possible tree but what we dislike are those folks who do no more than copy data then claim it to be their own research. Yes the information is out there in the public domain for anyone to research if they like but when it comes back to you complete with your own references, spelling mistakes and errors, then it is plagarism pure and simple.
.... And as for site administrators stepping in where others post personal details of me and my living family - well I've tried and I'm still waiting for a response!
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kate*k,
I agree wholeheartedly.
I shared my tree with a handful of cousins out of the goodness of my heart. I started from scratch and worked extremely hard to build this particular tree.
One of those cousins inputted everything into her genealogy program, including my notes, word for word. Then she gave it to a man who, along with his friend, is well known for putting everything into a massive online tree.
A different cousin pointed it out to me. I was so shocked because I didn't remember having sent any data to man #2. I emailed him and he said, no, man #1 gave me a copy of his file.
I contacted man #1 who thought I was a novice inquiring about a relative so he sent me a data file saying, Here's everything I have on your family, please send me info.
I was very upset that, not only did he obviously have my data (and I'm the only cousin who shelled out the money to buy certificates, etc., for every branch of a few different connecting trees, etc.), but he had all of my notes, verbatim. He had my speculation about various people who are deceased but who have living children, and about the scandals they hid in their lives, as well as information on living people. He also had some information that I later disproved.
He later said he had deleted the sensitive information but I don't know for certain that he did it.
This tree was intended for family eyes only and the cousins knew that. The cousin who gave my tree away betrayed my confidence and, in all probability, took credit for my work. I didn't have permission from any of my cousins to put anything about their families online or to distribute it to any Tom, Dick or Harry who asked.
Man #2 has me and my siblings, our recently deceased parents, etc., all in trees that he lets anyone see ONLY if they give him information on living people. (That's what he told me.)
I have information on living people: the family of the cousin who gave away my tree. But I won't do it because then I'd be stooping to her and man #2's level.
Man #2's defence? "It's all in the public domain." Except it wasn't until he put it there.
My problem? It was made public without my knowledge or consent.
Man #2's defence: If you share your tree to anyone else, it is theirs to do with it as they please.
The big picture: the internet. Thanks to the internet, almost everyone wants to put "their" tree online. If we give any information to anyone, it belongs to them. If they do not believe in asking first or, at the very least, giving credit where credit is due, they obviously don't care if we are upset or hurt at what really is plagiarism or, if that word doesn't fit, I think theft will also do nicely.
Man #2's comment: Well, missy, if there are egregious errors in your data and you are upset about them, it is up to you to send me the correct information.
My problem: Huh? I was pointing out the errors because they don't exist in the public domain and they came only from my tree and I'll be ****** if I'm going to feed you more information, you greedy, insensitive so-and-so. (He's not a Rootschatter.)
Public domain? Sure... that plus thousands of dollars and thousands of hours of hard slogging.
This public domain line is an easy cop-out for people who want easy trees and who don't respect the privacy and work of others.
If I choose to put my tree online, then, unfortunately, I have to accept that some people are going to do the copy-and-paste thing. But then it'll be my choice and I will accept that risk. I did have three different trees online a while ago until someone copied and pasted more than 200 names into their private online tree... and most of those people weren't related to him/her.
If someone doesn't understand my point of view or doesn't agree with it, that's fine. The least you can do is respect it. Respect my privacy. Respect my boundaries. Respect my right to have my own opinions about these issues. I'm not interested in arguing about it with someone who thinks it's perfectly alright to take credit for someone else's hard work or who thinks it's acceptable to pretend to be friends with a cousin long enough to get their tree and then never contact them again.
What are those "10 things I learned in kindergarten" again? Be nice, be polite, etc.
Posting someone else's data wholesale without permission is stealing and it's not nice. It's not the same as sharing.
Regards,
Josephine
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I still don't get this concept some seem to have of "selective sharing" and "ownership" of research. Once you "share" you do lose control of your info; there is no world wide web filter for those who will recognise your contribution and those who don't. As for ownership; the information wasn't yours before you uncovered it and it still isn't once you have.
If you enjoy the searching and the challenges in overcoming seemingly insurmountable roadblocks, it should not matter to you that a "thief" simply copies your information to populate their tree. And if you are the new family authority who amazes everyone with the fact that they have found 20,000 relatives in just six months of researching - you must be prepared to admit that you have had enormous contributions from others researching the same name.
Hopefully we can all maintain that attitude we all had when we were just starting out; when we were very humble, polite and appreciative of all the information we received.
FishMan
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The person inquiring can see immediately that they are not related and has no need to bother you.
Which is all well and good if people are researching properly, but there is a worrying voracious minority these days that has a tendency to shoe-horn every and all into their tree irregardless of if any relationship exists. Partly all the recent TV programs are to blame, which leave the impression that you can switch on the PC and have your tree back to Adam in a matter of hours. Combine this with the complete lack of correct citation when mining someone else's work, and you've got a cornucopia of information that can't be verified out there that will mislead researchers for quite literally generations to come (I know that for a fact...some of the ancestors I connect too had trees including them published about a century ago. The published research has since been proved incorrect by countless researchers, but still the falsehood endures).
All this leads to is the degradation of information and the hobby being brought into disrepute. Genealogy is not a hobby based on creativity...it's a hobby based on the interpretation of hard historical fact. This, however, is something that seems to be overlooked far too often and really you can't assume that someone else's research is the absolute truth written in stone.
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... it should not matter to you that a "thief" simply copies your information to populate their tree.
I reiterate Fisherman - it is not that they are using the information to populate their own tree, it is that they then pass it onto others explicitly claiming it as their own research. I have no problem at all with the genuine researchers who "share" or even who "copy" for their own use. My tree is out there on my website for anyone to look at if they so wish.
And if you are the new family authority who amazes everyone with the fact that they have found 20,000 relatives in just six months of researching - you must be prepared to admit that you have had enormous contributions from others researching the same name.
Well no actually, very many years of research! - and those who have helped me along the way are properly credited.
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As a famous/notorious Australian is reputed (apocryphally?) to have said as he went to the gallows:
"Such is life".
JAP
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Hi All ,To add my twopenneth worth,I will tell you my experience of tree purloining.
I was browsing on Ancestry family tree,s when I came across my fathers name and birth date ,being that I was the only child I wondered who else in the family was researching (his was an uncommon name) the tree.Imagine what I felt when I checked his wife and found not my mother but another person attached,well to cut a long story short ,a bit more delving and I found the lady who this person had joined with my father was born more than a 100 years before my father had married my mother,and the only reason he had joined them up was because his name was similar to the one he was looking for !
Well on to Ancestry I gets and tell them about the mistake and an email to him about his error and what proof did he have that my father born in 1908 had married this lady on his tree 60 years before he was born ,guess what !!!!!!!!
Ancestry tell me to contact the tree contributer and there is nothing they can do ,I have yet to hear from the tree contributer himself or herself, but I don,t hold much hope there ,this happened around eleven months ago.
I have seen many mistakes on these public domain tree,s and am very wary of them to say the least,and as for GR well you get to recognize the genuine from the chance-rs and when you do get a person contact you that has done their homework etc the feeling is it,s all been worthwhile and to heck with the freeloaders.
Cheers Tsumi
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I don't mind people having my tree but I would draw the line with personal notes.
What I don't like is when they change the information to fit with their tree. As I mentioned before one of my ancestors has suddenly aquired 2 more wives and a whole new family in America when this is definately untrue. His date of death is correct on Ancestry but the place has been changed from Norfolk, England to somewhere in America. How will I find new relatives if this particular tree is so blatently wrong. If the tree is in the public domain then it needs a great deal of checking to prove you are a descendant. It's a shame for new researchers.
I don't know how long you have been researching Fishman, (I've been doing it for 20 years) but I hope you don't believe trees you find in the public domain especially if they are American. That would mean you are not a serious researcher
As for GR, I have dropped out. Any information obtained there has to be checked anyway and most people are new to research.
Sylviaann
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i have to admit that i am one of these tree thieves! :-[
i was not aware that i was doing anything wrong as i had contacted the people and confirmed that we were def. connected and then incorporated their trees into mine, i saw it as a way of extending my tree and said to the people concerned that they were more than welcome to use the info. in my tree in the same way.
i began this method after i reached brickwalls and so began looking at siblings of direct relatives and then their respective families.
very sorry if i offended anyone it was all unintentional
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I don't mind people having my tree but I would draw the line with personal notes
Simple answer if you are so terribly concerned. Don't put personal notes in the public domain and don't provide them to anyone :)
What I don't like is when they change the information to fit with their tree. As I mentioned before one of my ancestors has suddenly aquired 2 more wives and a whole new family in America when this is definately untrue. His date of death is correct on Ancestry but the place has been changed from Norfolk, England to somewhere in America. How will I find new relatives if this particular tree is so blatently wrong. If the tree is in the public domain then it needs a great deal of checking to prove you are a descendant. It's a shame for new researchers.
New researchers are in a caveat emptor situation. It will be a good learning situation for them to find out that people have incorrectly acquired more wives or that something is definitely untrue or blatantly wrong!
(Obviously you will realize that I think that accuracy is important :D .)
FishMan, I find your comments very sensible indeed,
JAP
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I made the mistake of having an Ancestry tree when I started, then realised (from discussions similar to this one) what could happen. I also saw how cavalier people are in adding persons to their tree just because they have the same name. One of my ancestors has mistakenly been added to many trees (especially American ones), with bizarre marriage dates which are completely wrong. I researched this and realised how they had become confused due to taking the first name which occurred in Ancestry, when it was obviously someone else who they should have linked to, and who was easily found with an hour or so of effort and a bit of brainwork.
I therefore removed that tree and now do not post anything on the web. I want to be as sure as possible that I have made the correct assumptions. I have been sent sections of related trees from kind contacts from Family History Societies, but would not dream of adding them to my tree until I have replicated their research and fully documented all the sources. Of course their contributions make this much easier.
There are many of you who have a different approach to this hobby, which is fair enough, but not for me. I do think that anything posted on the internet is fair game to be taken/plagiarized/altered and thus if you decide to do this, you have to live with the consequences. I think it is certainly morally wrong to add great chunks of someone else's tree to yours without acknowledgement, and to alter it at will. But morality on the Net is as broadly defined as those who use it.
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Would you show of your new Ferrari claiming it was yours, knowing that you'd just nicked it?..................................Answers on a post card.
Nuff said!!!!!!!!!
Stewart
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Toni, don't worry you haven't done anything wrong and I'm sure you haven't offended anyone.
A huge and enjoyable part of our hobby is to share information.
It becomes a problem when information is just 'copied and pasted' and not backed up with any reliable sources. The incorrect information floats around the Internet and some people who are just name catchers take it as fact, which can cause offense if it involves ancestors who we still remember.
Most serious researchers do have an unwritten code of etiquette and also would not take any info as fact without a reliable source. It's just so annoying when you have put in so much time and money for someone to just put the info on a website and claim the research as their own. Also, a fellow researcher may contact them instead of you, when you are the one with all the sources.
It's an absolute joy to share information, pool resources and research a line together :)
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... I do think that anything posted on the internet is fair game to be taken/plagiarized/altered and thus if you decide to do this, you have to live with the consequences.
Yes indeed, pjbuk007!
I think it is certainly morally wrong to add great chunks of someone else's tree to yours without acknowledgement, and to alter it at will. But morality on the Net is as broadly defined as those who use it.
pjbuk007, How very very well said indeed about morality on the Net!!
Certainly one should post on the Internet (or perhaps - sadly - convey to others) only what one is prepared to have copied or used (or even misused) elsewhere.
And this is surely relevant not just to words but also to photographs and photographic restoration/colouration/prettification/etc (topics of recent threads also) ...
To think otherwise is to be less than realistic.
And anyone who wants to be self-righteous about what happens on the Internet would probably be well-advised to save their breath to cool their porridge. ;D ;D ;D
Such is life ::)
JAP
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It's still that "copy & paste" brigade that are the worst offenders! >:(
If only they checked the info. and were not intent on having the Worlds Biggest Family Tree.
Are they trying to get into the Guiness Book Of Records?
They are also so removed from some branches, that the new relatives they aquire are quite meaningless.
Inchworm
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I agree with the sentiments expressed in this thread. I use GR and only share trees with people who seem to have a genuine interest. When I email a contact I do not tick the box to enable them to see my tree. I wait for a definite contact re the ancestor and then proceed. Never had a problem so far in the last 8 years.
John Rowley
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Certainly one should post on the Internet (or perhaps - sadly - convey to others) only what one is prepared to have copied or used (or even misused) elsewhere.
JAP
Aaah...but what does one do when someone [not remotely related to my family] places my family history on the net - full of copy and paste - errors and all and fails to respond to emails and pm's on rootschat >:(
cando
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Sue their scrawny butts :P :P :P ;D ;D ;D
Sorry, I'm in a stupid mood! ::) ::)
Why on earth would someone want to publish someone elses tree.....I just don't understand what they gain from it. Hope you get it sorted Cando.
Caz
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Hi Caz
I ask the same question ??? ???
My family have told me to ignore it and my 96 yr old dad said those who matter know the correct family history. Wise words.
cando
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pm's on rootschat >:(
I'd be very disappointed in those circumstances. I'd have hoped everyone on here would have a far better concept of the basics of genealogical netiquette than that. :(
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I thought the same thing when I read that yesterday, hard to believe a rootschatter would stoop so low.
Caz
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Yes the person occasionally uses this website :o
Did not get a response when she asked about my family - and has not placed any more requests - just copies responses to my requests from this and other family history forums. I say no more.....I have decided to move on...but do feel better for the rant. ;D
Onwards and upwards :) :D ;D
cando
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At least the satisfaction is all yours Cando, not to mention the thrill of the hunt, something this person is missing out on.
Caz
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At least the satisfaction is all yours Cando, not to mention the thrill of the hunt, something this person is missing out on.
Caz
and all the wonderful info and photos that have come my way in recent times.
Cheers
Cando
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It is a hobby of a lot of people simply to collect the largest number of names into THEIR
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One person who was descended from the sibling of my GGG grandmother sibling's husband/wife. (Note: not a blood relative at all). I wouldn't have minded if they just took a few details that were needed, but instead they copied the ENTIRE tree. Including things like my parents' wedding date. I don't just mean the descendants of the line either. They went down from my GGG Grandmother, to her daughter, to her daughter, to her son, to his wife, to her mother, to her mother, to her mother, and to her mother, along with all the siblings too and every single detail.
The two reasons I hate it are because:
1. The information is often about living people, and for someone you don't know to have all that information about you, is extremely creepy.
2. Anyone wishing to find a link to my tree might find theirs first, and contact them instead of me. They must get tons of emails.
I now search quite regularly for living family members to see if anyone has stolen my tree.
Andrew
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Sorry this posting messed up and only put part of my input. full comment reposted below.
It is a hobby of a lot of people simply to collect the largest number of names into THEIR trees. It need not be their proven tree just a single surname will do.
These people are not doing genealogy they are simply name collectors at best. They invariably do not even know their own gt grandparents, nor source of entry into whichever country they live in. The do not have any documents to verify matters. A famous name or person will do just as well for them.
They don't join FHS's nor do they go to libraries or Records Offices, why should they when they can sit around bob into forums and websites every so often and find what they want to add.
I know its me being cynical but this is exactly what happens. Either don't put full information on line, or limit access to it.
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cassandra123
You are so right!
Nothing goes in my tree unless I have the verification myself.
These people are playing some game other than family history or genealogy. Name collectors indeed. Fine if that is their bag, if rather sad and pointless. It is just SO annoying when they pretend to be family historians, and muddy the waters for those of us who are quite serious about this hobby.
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You will find so many of these collectors as to be pathetic to my mind to say the least.
I had what I will call a "run-in" with a person
who claimed in open room that he was descended from King Durham of England.
Of course I said there was no such person and all hell let loose because of my comment.
This man didn't even know his grandparents. and presumed that there was a King Durham of England because that was his surname.
I was told I was out of order for picking on him and that he was correct anyway.
Tough luck still incorrect.
Then there was another one, who came into the same open room and stated that he had been in UK on a University Course (which by the way lasted a matter of weeks) and that he was a chaplain who had given The Queen Holy Communion each Sunday in Westminster Cathedral, which was most certainly untrue as Westminster Cathedral is the Roman Catholic Cathedral and even so the Queen does not attend even Westminster Abbey each Sunday. She spends the weekend at Windsor where she has her private chapel and clergy.
Then he came up with that the Queen had told him that if he renounced his allegience to the United States of America then she personally would make him a Baron.
Now I find all this so sad, so silly and so unnecessary, you are what you are, not what you state to people and especially if you are going to tell a lie make it a good one and don't tell people who can confirm it is untrue.
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Someone that I know said last week that she was " doing her family history". "Great", I said. She then told me that she had got it all for nothing on Genes Reunited. I asked if she had checked out all the info through census returns etc.. "Why would I want to do that ?", she replied.
Says it all really.
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A lot of people just expect that everything is right, and it's not just for genealogy - it's for pretty much everything. People read things in newspapers like "scientists discover x does y" and assume that it is now absolute fact, whereas what the newspaper will be commenting on is the release of a new scientific paper, giving just evidence for it. A lot of people just don't seem to grasp the concept that everything is not always black of white, and in genealogy that's especially false. There are a lot of grey areas. Some branches on my tree are for people that I suspect to be my ancestors. I know which ones are dubious but others don't, so I try not to share them. People just seem to assume that everything they're told is correct and it's completely wrong, especially when it's told from someone you don't know ie. someone off Genes Reunited. For all they know, the person they got the information from may not know any more about genealogy than they do. I can't believe how easy people can think some things are. It's never as simple as going online and printing off your family tree, but I don't understand why some people think it is.
Andrew
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You are right Alan.
It's the nature of the beast.
If you put the info out into the public domain, then it's the property of the public.
I don't think it's ethical but it happens all the same :-\
What seems to be being missed is that publishing information on a website does not put that information in the public domain.
Here in the UK one has to specifically put refute copyright for any work not to be protected by copyright.
I would also add before some start on about facts not being copyright in Europe they are covered by Database Right for 15 years.
Having said that I cannot understand people who put their trees on closed sites, if you are going to share then share on an open web site for all to see, if not why bother?
Cheers
Guy
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Having said that I cannot understand people who put their trees on closed sites, if you are going to share then share on an open web site for all to see, if not why bother?
Cheers
Guy
I have a site set up for the family to view, and only family can access the tree. I can also put more details on there than on GR, like living relatives (who would otherwise have to be blanked out, or simply not included on the GR tree). I don't want the details of living people available for anyone to see, or even grandparents who have passed away. I don't mind adding their details if they're on the census but if they're not then I'd prefer to leave them off because it just seems a little close to home for me.
Andrew
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What about this then >:( >:( :o.
Have you heard of the Cosford database???
a brilliant site for parts of suffolk England, I have had lots of info from this site and it has helped me enormously.
Well, one village on this site has been taken off because someone took the info and used it as their own. No acknowledgement to the rightful "owners".
Downright despicable, so the help I received is not so freely available to help others. It only takes one to spoil things for others. >:( Feel better now for getting that off my chest :)
Coppernob
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I had someone bully me unmercifully for my family tree although he was not related to me in anyway - It was later found out that he was collecting anyones trees and advertising them for sale on EBay.
Needless to say he did not get my tree.
I was rather miffed to say the least that he was making money from other peoples work.
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I had someone bully me unmercifully for my family tree although he was not related to me in anyway - It was later found out that he was collecting anyones trees and advertising them for sale on EBay.
Needless to say he did not get my tree.
I was rather miffed to say the least that he was making money from other peoples work.
Were you able to report him to the people who own the website?
Andrew
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:o :o :o That is unbelieveable Cassandra, the things people do to make a quick dollar. Have to give him an A for ingenuinity and F for scruples!!!! >:(
Caz
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Here is an adaptation from another post I have made, and let it be a lesson to me...
Most of our family info/tree is eventually being shared with family in the form of a booklet, once it is done - not much is online, but a lot of it won't be, not now - I'm afraid we've been stung.
One little **** (supply your own noun) posted up all we'd sent him (a) without asking (b) without informing us (c) put up references to living relatives, on our side and in the USA (d) posted up a personal letter from someone else in the USA, which insulted one of the others over there and probably caused a family rift (implying someone else is a bit dim isn't exactly going to endear you, but the poor man never expected to see it online, I'm certain) (e) in spite of having been asked to stop at gt gt grandparents if anything ever did go up, put up my husband's parents, grandparents and any siblings of either generation he'd been given, luckily the damage wasn't as bad as it could have been - husband's surviving uncle could have taken a very dim view indeed. I guess your man thought the others were fair game because they were dead, but he did know in advance he'd been asked not to do it, so he ignored us.
We discovered it by accident when we found it all on Ancestry Trees.
Not only that, we also discovered that he had found out a lot more on the USA connections since he heard from us last, and hadn't even bothered to e-mail us to let us know - he stopped responding to our messages.
All the offending material has now been removed, but so have all the attributions - everything we gave him backwards of the 1880 USA Census, the last time I looked, was up there as "Xxx's Research", i.e. his own.
Thanks, mate - you had damn all but guesses back beyond 1880, until we came along...
We had the proof that some people basically don't bother with the DIY route on a trip we made to a Records Office at which we are regulars. We spent the whole week in the same room listening to a couple of people who talked incessantly at a high rate of knots and decibels, and on the last day, when the archivist was looking somewhat peed off, we mentioned these two to him. His response was "They've got 300 years' worth of ancestors between them, and this is the first time they've ever set foot in a Records Office".
They were looking for the rich and famous, from what we could hear (and we could hear! believe me). Only problem is, for every belted earl or Norman lordling, there's going to be 50,000 scrofulous peasants - and as great as it would be to have Lord Edmund Blackadder on your tree, likelihood is you'll end up with Baldrick... ;D
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Hi Inchworm
One of the incentives for a public tree domains is to ( I imagine ) provide and receive information, but thievery is a moral issue belonging to those so inclined and not likely to change so I guess making the tree private, and the owner of the tree sets the terms on how information is exchanged/given maybe the answer? It is just courtesy to ask to copy information from someone else's tree.
As far as I'm aware my tree ( on Ancestory ) hasn't been replicated but I have had a couple of instances of people who have wanted further information which I'm happy to provide ( always refraining from giving one vital piece of information, per query, just to see how genuine the person is ) disappointedly I've never heard back from any of these people even though they've been given additional information.
It seems that people although hunting for more information, upon obtaining it might like to remember that those they receive their information from may also be anticipating a connection and even if the information provided is not a lead it would be nice to know either way.
I can see how annoying it is for you, having put in the hard yards to establish and the ongoing update of additional information to your tree to have it ripped off by someone else but as a small consolation, feel rest assured that this person/s will not have the sense of achievement that you do, the thrill of finding the answers after a long search, and it always comes back and bites them in the b*tt.
cheers
lil
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Hello Lil :),
Yes, the public tree domains are for sharing information and I have made contact with some very nice people through it. Yes, we have exchanged information, checked out each others and both benefitted.
What we have not done is copy & paste each others trees into our own and then re-used them on every family history site across the globe.
Surely, isn't it polite to ask the owner first if they wouldn't mind their family being added to a larger tree ?
I guess it's all down to manners versus greed.
Regards,
Inchworm
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Well said Inchwom
Manners go a long way.
cheers
lil
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This sort of tree thief behaviour rather reminds me (I'm showing my age again...) of the "rock chicks" in the 1970s who used to "collect" lead guitarists in heavy metal bands - in much the same way as 9 year olds used to collect stamps before the advent of Bratz dolls.
How about we coin a new name, and call these people "surname groupies" - that's about what it amounts to in many cases. I came across a site the other day that was so huge it would barely load (yeah, OK, on dial-up) and it was just a list of names - at least 1500 of them. I don't think the site authors give the proverbial about the lives or the history of the people on their massive lists - they're worse than train-spotters. :P
I'd be interested to see any other suggestions you can come up with to give a tag to these hangers-on - BMD Bandits, GEDCOM Grabbers or PAF-File Parasites were other thoughts I had in mind. I could think of a few more, but as we're online, we'll have to keep it clean...! ;D
...any more ideas?
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This thread continues to amaze me, how is it possible for someone to commit a theft of an on line tree?
The is to deprive someone of the use of something (depending on the locality either temporarily or permanently).
From what has been written in the thread so far nobody has been deprived of the use of their tree therefore no theft has been committed.
What this thread is really about is either plagiarism or breach of copyright, not theft.
If ones tree is copied one does not suddenly lose the memories of the joy and trails of gaining the information nothing is actually lost, so why worry?
If one is worried about inaccurate links being made to ones collected data put a rider on your website that only the information on this site has been verified by you.
One of the joys of family history is sharing information with others, there can be no joy if worries over plagiarism cloud the issue.
Don't worry about it do your own thing and let the others worry about how they came about the data they hold.
You have had the joy and experience of finding the information that cannot be taken from you.
Cheers
Guy
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Sorry but this thread isn't getting anywhere.
I think what is behind peoples concerns is (a) the fear that somebody else will take the credit for their work and that they will be "cut out of the loop" (b) that suspect data will become so deeply ingrained in published trees that it will be very difficult for future researchers to make headway
To move forward I suggest we establish and promote informal guidelines for the circumstances under which it is (a) OK to copy a published tree (b) re-publish it
I offer the following for starters
(1) If you really don't want it copied, dont publish it in the first place. (But nobody gets anywhere then.)
(2) A copier should have legitimate reason for copying a tree or part of a tree; a family link, a potential link (e.g. common surname and town), academic interest or compilation of a reference source (e.g seeking to exhaustively catalogue a village), ...
(3) a copier should not seek to gain financial advantage from material offered free of charge.
(4) It is only polite to ask if a tree can be copied.
(5) It is wise to ask; at least you might be notified if the originator subsequently discovers errors
(6) Acknowledge the source; if Y copies from X's GR tree then Y should list it as "secondary evidence from X" or similar; If Y checks it with a census or another primary source and quote that, then that takes precedence.
If that is done, a third person Z can see whether he should try to contact X for first-hand data; If asked, Y should direct Z to X.
Thus X's information is spread (which must be what was intended when it was published) Y can have the data, and Z can get to the originator and knows the provenance of the data
(7) do not reproduce living relatives (say b after 1920) in public forum even if present in the original, unless independently researched and permission granted.
(8) If no source is given for data then it is unwise to believe it, never mind reproduce it.
(9)We do NOT want copyright lawyers making money out of family history researchers. There's too much of that already.
G
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Actually there is a piece in this month's family tree magazine about copyright and, yes, you do own the copyright and no-one is allowed to copy the whole of it without permission though I doubt if anyone will be suing anyone else about this.
It's just more annoying to those of us who didn't put it on the net in the first place. I only sent it to a relative
Sylviaann
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I know this stuff happens but I'm very curious.
Why would someone want to steal someone's tree and what would they gain from it?
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Hi Zeb,
I think it's some sort of bizarre competition between those of a certain type of genealogical "researchers" to see who can gather up the greatest number of relatives to put on their tree - I've never been able to see the point of it either. As I said in an earlier post, it's a bit like train-spotting - see who can cop the most ancestors. Bit sad, really...
...and Guy is quite right, it's not actually theft in the true sense of the word, it's plagiarism. I have never posted an online tree; any info. I send anyone is following personal contact, and most of those to whom I have sent material follow the unwritten code of not posting it on the 'net without asking - it's just when you suddenly discover that someone has put something up without asking you or even bothering to tell you so you can see it for yourself... or worse, when they were specifically asked to stop at a certain level and not to get into the realms of one's parents or grandparents. It can come as a rather nasty surprise when you stumble across it by accident, all stuck up on a distant relative's online tree.
I am a good deal more wary these days than I was when I began - I will only give details of anything below 1901 if I am confident there is mutual trust and respect.
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I have been watching this thread with interest. I shared some information with someone on Genes. She posted some of that info that I given her about my close family. When I asked her to take it off this is her reply:-
"Sorry but I don't' think you have any right to ask this. You are not
the only person who is doing research on the XXXX family. I have
had contact from loads of people who are doing research and it is not
all connected to you. All the other people I have had contact with
have all been really nice and courteous and quite happy to share
information. I have even shared info with you that you didn't know
about, including the illegitimate daughter.
I won't be contacting you again as I thought tracing my family tree
would be a pleasurable experience but unfortunately you don't seem to
see it that way.
Thanks for your original help. "
So you can't win them all
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Unless you are only children of only children of only children.... etc, how is a tree "yours" alone anyway? My ancestors are their ancestors, I can't lay claim to them. How can you be possessive over people who are also their grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. I dont understand how someone can own the copyright to a tree, when there are probably thousands of descendants with exactly the same ancestors. Surely only the format can be "yours", how you choose to present it? Baffled ???
Had I been possesive over sharing "my" tree, I would not have nearly three pages of cousins on GR, and many photos/wills/family stories/Christening & marriage records of my family. I am quite happy to share with my cousins even though occasionally I get little in return as I may be further on than them. (Who knows what they may find in the future and then share with me) If there is personal information/written accounts done by yourself, that you do not want publishing, you just do not pass on that particular information surely......
And surely you verify exactly how a person is related before passing on "your" tree anyway, thus avoiding the name collectors and profiteers right from the beginning....
Running and hiding now, ready to get my head chewed off :)
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Hi all
Just curious. Would it be correct protocol to add living persons on an on line tree and in regards to those that add that information to their own on line tree.
I can understand if a person was upset about their immediate families details that are posted on someone else's on line tree and especially if they are living ( a sensitive issue ) and yes although ones ancestors maybe the same they are not necessarily known to them. People are entitled to feel how they feel and say what they wish to say, learn by mistakes if any are made ( providing information )
I guess a person feels a Tree is theirs because they built it and since our perceptions differ were all going to have an opinion about it.
cheers
lil
PS you can come out now CatOne
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Cat One
I couldn't agree with you more! I too fail to see how anyone can 'own' a tree.
Personally I do not give anyone details of my immmediate family, however well I have got to know them on the internet. If someone puts stuff I know to be wrong on the net, I would tell them, but not get my kn****rs in a twist ;D. It is their loss after all and I know the true facts - but of course I could be wrong ;)!
Guy Etchells I agree wholeheartedly with you too ;D
Helen
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I don't think an individual holds the copyright over the tree and the ancestors themselves, but rather that it's the research that individual has done and the presentation thereof. The researcher cannot claim to own the data from which their research is based, but very often the statement that Uncle Fred is the great-grandson of Grandpa Joe is something that has been worked out by the individual. Taking that research then without going to the effort of verifying it yourself and without acknowledging the original researcher is plagiarism, and if this were academia doing exactly that would (depending on the institution you study at) result is the years work being voided or complete dismissal from the course being studied. While the amateur genealogist should not be bound by the same restrictions as the academic, it is at least only polite to acknowledge that you've referenced someone else's work in your own. I mean, if you got a piece of information from the census or a certificate you'd state that's where you got it from surely...so why should it be any different when it's an actual human being who's spent years working on it who's provided the information?
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Well here is the first paragraph of the full page article in Family Tree Magazine
Sylviaann
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I had someone bully me unmercifully for my family tree although he was not related to me in anyway - It was later found out that he was collecting anyones trees and advertising them for sale on EBay.
Needless to say he did not get my tree.
I was rather miffed to say the least that he was making money from other peoples work.
Just to go back to this subject for a moment - I wonder how many people in this world are daft enough to buy a family tree from EBay? with no guarantee of accuracy, and possibly no quoted sources into the bargain? I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole - if the seller has trawled the 'net to get his material, so can anyone else - all you need is Google, access to the free sites, and a sub. to Ancestry or GR. Maybe that's the answer - he's copied the trees from Ancestry and GR and is trying to sell them to people without subs, so he can pay for his own...!
If anyone started bullying me, I'd not only tell 'em to s*d off, I'd "out" them on the message boards, in a manner that wouldn't attract reprisals. You've got to watch out for libel, so it might be safer to give as much detail as you can bar their actual name, then anyone else who has been approached will know who it is - chances are if he's too idle to do any research himself, he's too idle to send anything other than a standard letter, which will be recognisable from its construction and tone.
How about you post up what he sent you, Cassandra - so we can all see the text (asterisk out any identifying family info) so if any of us receive a similar effort from some chancer, we'll know who we're dealing with...
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I've read this thread with a mixture of shock and interest tbh - and think I might have been a victim of this type of scam thing.
A while ago I had contact on GR from an Australian lady who wanted to know about a particular surname on my tree - so we exchanged mails for a bit and I gave her access to my tree, when I looked at hers a few days later she'd copied everything off my tree and there was absolutely no connection between my tree and her tree.
Then she started to pester me to buy BMD Certificates for my tree and send them over to her in Oz!!
She also got one of her friends over here to hassle me via e-mail too.
Needless to say I blocked her e-mail address and her rights to view my tree - she tried a few times to pester me since, but I haven't given in.
It just beggars beliefe that people will behave in this way just to get as many rellies on their tree as possible .
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Know just how you feel Cavegirl. A few years ago someone I'd met briefly once asked to borrow all my records (yes, all my files, etc.) so she could copy them and put them on her website. Haven't heard from her again since I declined to hand over years of research but have seen what she's posted on the internet- full of mistakes, including 'transcription' of marriages from one church with the title of another church!
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Perhaps we could put a fictitious relative on our trees like the A to Z street index company does with a street. That way we will know who had cloned it
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Perhaps we could put a fictitious relative on our trees like the A to Z street index company does with a street. That way we will know who had cloned it
Then there is no point in doing your family history.
If it is so important not to let others use your work don't share it keep it hidden away in the closet and only gloat over it behind locked doors. ;)
Really folks stop being so precious, family history is for sharing, upload your trees to open sites and share with the world. You lose nothing if others copy your work and will gain many fold.
The same goes for living people, in England there is nothing to prevent one adding the details of living people to a website.
They are part of family history and for a tree to be complete need to be there.
Etiquette dictates that no personal details are added so don't add such things as medical conditions or wages.
It is perfectly acceptable to add such things as date of birth, marriage and death as these are public records open to anyone in the world.
It is sheer hypocrisy to prevent such details being added to family history websites when television and newspapers exist and are allowed to report details of people such as the rich and famous.
Cheers
Guy
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I do agree with you Guy. If people want to put their trees in the internet then go for it. I personally don't put any of mine on, but I do share it with others who are related and enjoy doing so. I make most of my contacts by posting messages on various forums.
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While I'd be happy to post my tree, I certainly wouldn't post information regarding living people, purely for security reasons. It's bad enough they can find out the colour of your underwear on the net without me making it easier for the nasties out there.
Caz
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I'm a bit late coming in here in this thread but I can understand what is being said and about GR. What I dont understand is that GR allows the tree holder to give permission to someone to "view" their tree. Although GR states it is bad practice to take a tree without express permission, it does nothing to enforce its own code of practice.
Taking a tree without asking first is tantamount to stealing personal property. Consider the care that we take in making sure we have source information to establish a relationship, before we add it to our trees. There seems to be no spirit of camaraderie.
The problem I have is the willingness in some people to take a tree to make theirs bigger and save themselves from what I see is the whole purpose of genealogy, and that is, the satisfaction of knowing they have quality information and have checked the source information for every entry. There is no sense of achievement otherwise.
Unless one checks each name, that cannot be said.
Where there are so many Genes Reunited subscribers with sorry tales to tell of a similar nature, how do they know that the tree they have taken as their own really is quality information, and not put together by people who occasionally tell us they put the names together for the fun of it. Really :o
Could it also be that a subscriber to GR who has got caught the way that some in this thread have, might have retaliated, taken down their tree and put bogus names into it? Its quite possible.
So what does it need? In my opinion it needs a code of camaraderie, an unwritten law that all amateur genealogists follow.
What is the use of passing trees around whilst we are alive and not keeping in touch with those who can establish a common ancestry, in knowing who else is related? If we dont agree to share our living "cousins" with all living who share a relationship, if, when we pass on, our successors have more searching to do all over again that we could have saved them from having to do?.
My suggestion would be that it should be agreed that where a tree is shared, if the person who takes it and adds it to their own, having proved a common ancestry with the tree holder, they should agree to make it known to the original tree holder when they find someone else who can legitimately say, and prove that they are an ancestor.
Wouldnt it be right for someone to willingly prove by some means, their ancestry by giving source information before a tree is shared? Those who have a genuine purpose in having accurate family trees and ancestral records, cannot fail to agree.
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Really folks stop being so precious, family history is for sharing...
Amen... :)
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Really folks stop being so precious, family history is for sharing...
Amen... :)
And a big 'me too' from me too (sounds a bit like the Two Ronnies!) ;D
No way would I want to stomp off in a sulk taking my ball with me ;)
Let's remember that at least if we get in the way of the proverbial bus our info will still be there available to persons who might be interested in it - especially if it's on an ongoing site (not just our own site) and even if it's flawed (after all, those who come after can do their own verification).
Wouldn't you want that for others of your larger family?
Or - especially - if you were the one looking for the info?
I regret that I haven't put the information which I have up on the Web.
(I did start in a very small way but then changed providers ...)
My information includes not only my own tree and the huge amount of peripheral information that I have (I do tend to follow all my branches and twigs and twiglets not to mention those of persons who have come from other trees and have married into a branch, twig or twiglet of my tree). And it includes what have turned, for me, into one or two one-name studies.
I really should do so - otherwise it will be lost (unless - unlikely - someone in my immediate family starts to take an interest). Of course, that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. It has been enormous (albeit expensive!) fun for me but it would be nice if others could have the benefit of it too. And if I'd followed any other rather expensive hobby such as reading or mountaineering/bushwalking or music or theatre or bird-watching or wine or dining or travelling or whatever, there'd be nothing to leave behind. Hang on a minute - aren't those my hobbies too ::)
Just to balance things, from rather sad experience I am very careful about publicizing information about living people. I've been very surprised that even fairly close rells haven't accepted that such info is not to be passed on (e.g. my children's info which is not for me to publicize). And saddened when older rells (yes, I do still have one or two older rells :D - OK, I cannot tell a lie, they are persons in their 90s! ) have been upset at their info being publicized and have assumed (wrongly) that it came from me - not knowing that all anyone had to do at the time was go down to the public library and look at their records on microfiche (now I can just look at them on my home computer on CD!).
JAP
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Here's an idea that might calm us all down and prevent the worst excesses of what a few of us feel is "borrowing" (to put it politely) someone else's hard-won and in many cases, expensive research.
If we don't want our long years of toil to go to waste but by the same token still have it preserved for future generations, and at the same time we don't want to see our stuff splattered all over the 'net without even a passing reference to our own hard work, the best ways are this (a) leave it in your Will to all your peer group relatives and their descendants so if you go under a bus tomorrow, no-one has to try and pick up the bits (metaphorically, not literally - yuk) (b) lodge it with the Society of Genealogists in London.
They have nothing online bar their publication catalogue - if you want access to any other data you either have to go to London and look it up yourself or pay to have the material copied and sent to you. Thus, only the serious researcher is going to do it - any freeloaders looking to create a surname list that is bigger than anyone else's won't bother.
Judging from the general tone of this thread, and my own previous comments, it seems that what's causing the most resentment is the time and money put into a piece of work that is then spread about like so much strawberry jam by someone who either wishes to claim it as their own research and/or has made no input whatsoever into the creation of it; and whilst we are all interested in sharing info with people whom we feel are genuinely interested and have a genuine link to the family, this surname-harvesting lark is a pain in the bum, quite frankly.
As for trying to sell our research and trees on EBay, what can I say - if this isn't a cynical and parasitical method of making a living for doing absolutely nothing whatsoever towards the end product, I don't know what is. Lesson here is if you don't want to be taken advantage of, don't post it on the 'net.
My problem was that I didn't post anything online - a genuine relative with whom there was actually a common proveable link received my work via e-mail and took the liberty of putting it up without even bothering to inform me, let alone ask, and upset a good few people along the way including me because he was told where he needed to stop, and took no notice. As a few people have said, you can't prevent people looking up stuff and posting it - but as I knew there was no way he'd have got some of the detail without a visit to the UK or getting it from me, I knew I'd been sucked dry, and when the point came that it was apparent more info was available at his end but that I had not been contacted, merely left to find out by chance, I knew I'd been had. This does rather negate the concept of sharing, if one party gives everything and the other decides to start holding out on you - when it ceases to be reciprocal, you know you've got the losing hand.
As for being precious about it - if anyone feels I need to get over myself, I'd just like to point out that an expenditure of over £700 on certificates alone to get the true picture of the family as it was at any given point between 1837 and 1910 when a trip to the Records Offices was not possible is not small beer - any more than one could say that of the hours and days spent in the Records Office at times when it actually was possible - sorting out the Land Tax, Poor Rate, Tithe Apportionment, Bastardy, Settlement and Removal orders, Churchwarden's Accounts, Manor Court Rolls, Copyholds and Leaseholds, Wills and Probate, Parish Registers, old newspapers and so on.
I like to think I'm an historian as well as a genealogist, albeit an amateur - I don't care a twopenny damn about how many people are on my tree as long as I know something about how those that are there lived, where they lived, how they made their living and so forth - otherwise it really would be just a list of meaningless names to no good purpose.
I'm probably about to join CatOne on the parapet, but at the opposite end of the barbed wire...! ;D (should I duck now?!)
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I agree with you Brambletye. That's what happened to me. I went to the LDS for two hours a week for 10 years, passed on the tree to a relative who put it on the net as his work, with mistakes I might add.
My tree seems to have been taken over by an American who has added his own family to it and made it completely wrong. Very sad
I'm logging out of this subject now. Seems to be the older ones against the newer boys.
Sylviaann
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Clearly there are people with valid issues. I dont think this thread should be ended.
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I can see both sides of this issue......although I tend to lean with the "it's all out there anyway" point of view.
I certainly don't feel as though I own my tree....even though I have done much leg work over the past 10-12 years and spent much moolah. ......at least 80 certificates...and yearly subs to Ancestry for the past 5 years.......lots of downloads from Scotlands People ....etc.etc.
And not counting the trips to Birmingham Central Library and Reg office every couple of years.......I live in California!!
But I do have a problem with a rellie who has really got things messed up. I made contact with her via a web site...not this one. Her grandfather is my grandmother's brother...so we are close relatives and we were both excited to find each other. She asked for all the details of my grandmother's marriage, children and grandchildren, etc. I obliged and included living people......big mistake!
Well, she has posted her/our tree on her web site and ....she has my HUSBAND married to my SISTER........!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My husband is not amused! LOL
I suppose that worse things have happened at sea! ;D ;D ;D ;D
Indi......who can't get too excited about stuff! ;D ;D ;D
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Seems to be the older ones against the newer boys.
Sylviaann
Not quite sure what you mean there Sylviaann, I have had an interest in family history and been researching my tree all my life, I started as a small child.
In the past family historians shared by either transcribing their records to other interested parties or later photocopied their records and sent them through the post. There was no expectation that a tree or research would be sent back in return, we shared for the joy of sharing.
This cost time and money yet it still went on.
The advent of the internet has allowed us to share the information freely with little extra effort.
In addition it has never been cheaper to access records, many are available free of charge others may be posted for a modest sum when compared to the past alternative of having to travel to view the record.
However the costs are really a red herring those costs were paid to allow oneself to gain the knowledge and were paid whether results were shared or not.
I have had not only my own lineage on a web site for many years but transcripts of records. I have no way of knowing who views the records or even who downloads the records. A few of the visitors contact me but most do not. That does not matter what does count is when perhaps 5 years after adding records online I suddenly get an email telling me my website has allowed an 80 year old the chance to see the grave (and feel close to the grave they have never had the chance to see) of their mother.
Or a simple thank you for sharing the information online.
Emails like that tell me that it is worth sharing the information, it doesn't matter if individuals make out the research I have done is their research, I know the truth and they know the truth.
Share for the joy of sharing not for what one gets in return.
Cheers
Guy
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I have just had another e-mail that makes me cringe.
I have, for the last few days, been in (rather cautious) correspondence with someone who has a clearly defined family connection going back to the early 1800s. She has just e-mailed me with a partial tree concerning my lot rather than hers, and I was assured that the sender "got most of the info. from census, church records, IGI and BMD".
Sadly, it is not true - most of the info has clearly been trawled straight off the Ancestry tree of the person who originally abused my willingness to share, and the data has now been fed back to me by my corresepondent - who, given the sources she has quoted above, seems to be claiming she has done the work herself
Most of it is even in the same format as it appears online, I am amazed she might think I haven't seen it; a few things have been changed on her part, which now makes the content of e-mail I got even less accurate than the stuff that's up on Ancestry. I take it this was a feeble attempt to throw me off the scent, because the genuine dates are there for all to see. I think I am now expected to correct it - maybe she's testing me? or what, exactly?
So, it seems the biter has now been bit - "his" research, i.e. mine, is now being passed off by this third party as hers - and has now been sent back to me, the original source! so we have come full circle, but sadly, the data has become corrupted along the way.
"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!"
"...but when we've practised for a while, how vastly we improve our style..."
People who are going to blag your data and pass it off as their own hard work really need to have the original source reference to hand, and preferably not repeat the mistakes made by the person who got it from you - especially if they can't spell, and are quoting data you know they can't have got in the US or OZ...!
She is of course unaware I was the original source for her source, so she's in for a major shock when I tell her I'm onto it... the dead giveaway is that nobody in the UK refers to anywhere as "Xxxxxxx Co. or County" - that's an Americanism, so I can spot her source at ten paces.
I know for a fact this is going on because there is one significant aspect regarding a certain relative that no-one else apart from myself could possibly know about unless they had seen the microfilm of the old newspapers in the local Studies Library or been told about it by me. Both the other two parties live thousands of miles away; and the recent contact has fed me back my own data less than a fortnight into the exercise, having not even had any previous knowledge of the marriage of one of my lot to one of hers, so I don't think she's made a quick trip to do the look-ups.
I smell a major rat here...but the pity of it is, the more this sort of thing happens, the more the data on various sites will be so inaccurate that future generations will be at a total loss and in many cases, may have to start again.
The only cure I can see for this is to post my work up myself, quote all the sources with attached images as proof, and hope people are discerning enough to see the difference; but what is to stop someone downloading it, posting it up later as their own work, and filling it full of so many factual and typographical errors and sweeping assumptions of their own that my efforts become negated? or else, as one other poster has said, trying to flog it on EBay...
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The only cure I can see for this is to post my work up myself, quote all the sources with attached images as proof, and hope people are discerning enough to see the difference; but what is to stop someone downloading it, posting it up later as their own work, and filling it full of so many factual and typographical errors and sweeping assumptions of their own that my efforts become negated? or else, as one other poster has said, trying to flog it on EBay...
I don't understand!
If you are so worried about people nicking your work....why do you post it at all?
Indi....thick as a brick!...as me old Ma used to say!
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I have just read the whole of this thread, and I must say that Indi summed it up for me:
If you are so worried about people nicking your work....why do you post it at all?
Well said Indi ;) :)
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I agree that if we dont want our work corrupted along the way we shouldnt share it. How sad is that when clearly there are many out there doing genealogy work with a thorough approach.
GR's Conditions state that grabbing records is not the thing to do but it doesnt enforce it. Genes Reunited's "View" permission is half way there. It wouldnt be difficult for them to prevent someone from taking records, just as some websites wont allow anyone to copy from them. For that reason GR could add a "Permit" button. I think its common courtesy to ask first before extracting someone's records.
I wouldnt dream of taking someone's advice about a name or records without checking it before I insert them into my GEDCOM. If I cant verify the details they dont go into my GEDCOM.
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I've read this thread with interest, and it made me (temporarily) a bit anxious about sharing my tree! I've got over it now though.
As a matter of interest, does anyone have any actual evidence about family trees for sale on ebay? As part of my temporary anxiety I searched for family trees on both ebay.co.uk and ebay.com. The only trees I found were in old notebooks, clearly not modern day. There were a few people offering genealogical research quite cheaply. Could the sale of trees on ebay be an urban myth in the making?
Anne
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I full expect there are some people who've tried to sell trees on eBay (I'd be surprised if there's anything they haven't tried to sell on there...one person even tried to sell their virginity on there! :o), but I doubt it happens every day. Really I can't see there being an awfully large market for other people's research...data collectors can get plenty for free elsewhere so won't pay, and there won't be many genuine researcher for it to raise a price high enough for most unscrupulous people to bother trying.
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Yes exactly. So it would seem a very laborious and unprofitable exercise to "steal" other peoples research in order to sell trees on ebay!
Anne
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I also made contact with a person from Genes Reunited gave them info. re our family conection plus three other families connected, when I ask for assistance re our family connection as they lived in London and could easily get to Westminster the answer was too busy, so now I do NOT wish to know people from Genes Reunited. Rootschat have been extemely helpful I have not had any problems, everybody has gone "out of there way" to help me, so I do recommend them to friends.
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...one person even tried to sell their virginity on there! :o),
I must have missed that one...
How much did it go for? ;)
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;D ;D ;D ;D
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The only cure I can see for this is to post my work up myself, quote all the sources with attached images as proof, and hope people are discerning enough to see the difference; but what is to stop someone downloading it, posting it up later as their own work, and filling it full of so many factual and typographical errors and sweeping assumptions of their own that my efforts become negated? or else, as one other poster has said, trying to flog it on EBay...
I don't understand!
If you are so worried about people nicking your work....why do you post it at all?
Indi....thick as a brick!...as me old Ma used to say!
I don't think my point has quite been taken on board here - I don't post it, and never have. Some other little toad has done it for me, without my prior knowledge, and previous to his latest pangs of conscience/fear of reprisals which I suspect he has had fron his family in the US of A or whatever, certain parts of it went up without my consent. I am merely postulating the theory in my quote above that the only way to correct inaccurate data online is to say that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em - neither of which I find a particularly aytractive prospect.
Frankly, I have no desire to post anything on the 'Net, in the light of past and recent developments - I don't post it anywhere, never have, and anyone having read my previous posts thoroughly would realise that.
However - as info. regarding family has been posted up by people to whom I supplied it by e-mail - supplied over two years ago I might add, in the days when I still felt there was a certain code of conduct in operation with conditions attached to the supply of said data (albeit unenforceable, but one can hope people might do the decent thing - ignored at one point) - and as it now looks as though this situation may be perpetuated by someone else who has altered the data she downloaded from the person to whom I supplied it herself to make it significantly less accurate, there is a problem here that can clearly only be resolved by the original researcher, i.e. me.
Obviously I have a choice - do what I do not wish to do, and correct the material by posting it up myself in its original and accurate form, or let everyone else get on with it and disseminate flawed data on the 'net.
Frankly, I'm bored to death with the whole wretched issue - as long as the borrowers of my material don't later backtrack and suddenly decide they are finally going to start attributing parts of their trees to me because they realise they've got it wrong and need a scapegoat on whom to blame it, that's fine. Get on with it, guys...do your little thing, but don't expect my sanction or future co-operation.
Brambletye
Not thick as a brick, Indi, funnily enough - I got my qualifications back in the days when they weren't being handed out like sweets. I was just rather too trusting in the past regarding people who turned out to be quite happy to take what ever I had to offer and started shutting down the contact when I'd obviously served my purpose. I think my worst sin here was to be naive enough to believe my views and requests would actually be honoured.
Tempus meum tero...
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Excuse me.
The "Thick as a brick" reference was to myself.....as I said....I don't understand all the whinging.....all of the details of your family ree are available to anyone who has the time and inclination to dig.......
And for those who are lazy and help themselves to the info without doing the work....Oh well. Surely there are better things to be upset over!
Indi.....even thicker than before
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Sorry Indi, clearly I misunderstood - but re the tree thing, all the details are now only going to be available to anyone if they are prepared to spend mega-money buying the GRO certs, go the the Records Office and visit the Local Studies Library, because they ain't going to get it from me - at least, not now that they have posted up all my hard work on Ancestry and passed it off as their own efforts.
You must be remarkably tolerant - would it really not offend you that you had done all that work and spent all that money, for years and years, to then have someone else put it up on line as "So-and-So's (i.e. his own) Data" when you knew very well he'd hardly done a damn thing towards it prior to 1875 and that most of it before that was yours? maybe I should be more laid-back, but frankly, I think this is really taking the p***...at least he could acknowledge the fact that he had some assistance along the way.
I don't particularly want my name in lights, otherwise I'd not be calling myself Brambletye here, I'd be out of the closet and spreading my name around for all to see - but surely a passing acknowledgement to the fact that most of this character's data was actually gleaned from elsewhere could receive some kind of mention...? it all begins to look like one huge ego trip otherwise, doesn't it. "Look at all the work I've done, all by myself! am I not a clever little boy!!"
Yeah, right....
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I personally think that this topic has run it's course. There will always be disagreements, and I appreciate that some people are more sensitive about "tree thieves" than others are.
I'm afraid that I'm with Indi on this one, and really wouldn't get upset if someone pinched my work. Afterall, there are far more important things to worry/get upset about in this lifetime. Maybe it's my near-death last year that has changed my views, but I do know that life is too short and very precious.
And just one last point, the World Wide Web (WWW) is as the name suggests, world and very wide, for everyone to see (and download/copy for free ;) ;)).
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I'm with Brambletype as it happened to me too.
I still don't think you understand that we DID NOT put the info on the web and the info from my tree is not available on the web for free(not on the IGI) except what someone has taken and altered and made a mess of.
Has anyone taken your tree and altered it I wonder?
Sylviaann
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OK.....
I have never put my tree on the web....I have sent information to people who seem to be related to me in one way or another......I have sent birth/marriage/death cert and census images to Ireland and Canada and Australia and back home to my cousins in England.
Some of these people have taken the information that I have given ....I mean given ...them and put it on the web.....and sometimes that have messed it all up!
Do I care?........NO
My hubby ain't pleased that in cyberspace he is now married to my sister.....but other than that.......No big deal.
And, yes...I am a very tolerant person...and I thought that the point of family tree was to all get joined together?........I am sure that at some point, someone will give me oodles of good family tree stuff.
End of subject.
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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??? hmm it doesn't really worry me if someone steals my tree...I would even send them certificates if they asked...as long as they dont steal my ID or my credit card I am happy, I like sharing what I have and if it makes them happy to tack on complete strangers 8) well my dear old mum used to say there is nowt so strange as folk...I once had a guy insisting that we were related I couldnt see it but he wanted to tack me on....dont know if he did because when I went to check his tree to see if we were related it had so many thousands on it that it took to long to download and I couldnt be bothered waiting I had to laugh...wonder if I will get a christmas card ;D
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I have to say sometimes it pays to take a risk. I found a Cousin (or rather he found me) on rootschat a few months back. Since then we've exchanged information, photos and I've even sent :P him treking around the countryside for me, it's absolutely fantastic and there is a very good chance we will meet in October.
Sometimes you get lucky! ;)
Caz
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:o HEY indiapaleale
I can just imagine some future family member looking back trying to find his roots and coming across your hubby being married to two sisters at the same time 8) they will think he was leading a double life :D
no what worries me is where someone takes your photos and uses them on an online dating board pretending to be you...it happens all the time I am told ;)
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Still this subject rumbles on,
Surely it only helps people grow there trees by putting your tree in the public domain and sharing information.
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Still this subject rumbles on,
Surely it only helps people grow there trees by putting your tree in the public domain and sharing information.
Well, yes, it does. I think it needs reading the stories in this thread. They suggest that people are not doing it carefully, or courteously, displaying it as all their own work, and all manner of things we wouldnt contemplate. Some will not do their own research, they dont know how or where and what is available, picking the willing brains of those prepared to help and then not bothering to keep in touch with the original tree holder.
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Thanks cilvrnum !
An excellent summary of the story so far!
Diana
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Still this subject rumbles on,
Surely it only helps people grow there trees by putting your tree in the public domain and sharing information.
Well, yes, it does. I think it needs reading the stories in this thread. .
i have read the stories in the thread i contributed earlier on, the only way forward i see is if people don't want to let other people use the info. they have found then not to put it in the public domian i.e the internet
lots of people do research the same families.
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I've been approached by someone who has seen some of my posts from a Google search. He's searching the same name and has asked for information. He told me his partner was related to the same name, and gave one in a line of ten children but no parents, though, from what he said it looks as though he does have more information but was not disclosing it.
In my usual fashion I have produced a great deal more information than I have received, as yet; I probably have more to give, it is true to say.
Like a lot of us here, I've paid but not only that, have records that a relative born in the mid to 1800s wrote up. A lot of it is probably not to be found on the internet.
What would you do. Would you hand the lot over to a stranger. Would you wait to receive information before doing so. How would you answer questions.
I think this might cause some interest.
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I always ask for inforamtion from them first. Get them to send you detailed information. Say that you want to check your relationship (say 5th cousins or whatever) by putting theirs onto your data base. If they are willing to do this then they could be genuine
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Good grief!
It almost defies belief that this thread is still going on - and is still rehearsing the same tired old arguments ;)
My thoughts:
1. If you have done your research for love (or an enjoyable hobby or whatever) and you wish as many people as possible to have the benefit of it (and don't want it to die with you :) ) then put it out in the public domain and forget about how people might use it.
2. If you feel in any way differently from the above, then don't put your research in the public domain. And don't convey it to others (or only do so after applying whatever strict provisos will suit you personally). And watermark your photos ::)
Simple!
And stop expecting the world to be fair 8) That way lies certain disappointment!
JAP
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Good grief!
It almost defies belief that this thread is still going on - and is still rehearsing the same tired old arguments ;)
I'm sorry if its annoying to some that it still goes on. I wasnt in at the beginning.
:-\
Its probably an anno domini issue - I'm probably older that some if not most - or could it be in a lot of us, that there's a need to pass on accurate records and have them that way for ever.
I dont consider one enquirer and those with whom we find some friendship in groups and lists and forum to be "the public domain". Not everyone wants to make it absolutely public on a website; I certainly wouldnt. I agree, that's inviting careless hands.
I've done my research to pursue family anecdote and those in my family who thought some of it was just romantic notion. We've got our share of changing social stigma, shame, adventure, and characters who one cant help but admire, who enjoyed life rather fuller than most. I've a note on an envelope that states the contents are not to be shared for they would "do no one any good" but to remain theirs. I searched for the truth and I suppose I feel torn between loyalty and allowing it to become history for the benefit of others. Some of the truth is still hiding. ;)
We've had two lines of so called "cousins" with some history, for whom - over a period of 90 years - my family couldnt find a common ancestor. I did that two or three days ago, though there is still an ultimate find to be had, or not. It's that line that is finding some interest now.
Moderator comment: quote modified
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Hi cilvrnum,
Moderator comment: quote above modified, as requested
... Its probably an anno domini issue ...
It's not just in genealogical research that it's a good idea never to make assumptions ;)
And do be aware that anything you post on genealogical threads on RootsChat and similar groups, lists and forums is, incontrovertibly, in the public domain.
JAP
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And do be aware that
Very, very, aware. ;)
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Thanks Moderator for amending cilvrnum's post.
Of course I'm pleased that it now doesn't appear that I expressed what were actually cilvrnum's views ;D
But ... You've also removed that part of my post which tried to explain about modifying a post, about where the 'end of quote' should come, and about checking in preview before posting or saving in order to see whether or not the modification has worked :'(
As I said elsewhere today, I'm a great believer in the old adage that if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
So I always try to do this - whether it's something as trivial as how to quote, or how to shrink long URLs or something more important like summarizing all information available when posing a query and providing links to other relevant posts or something absolutely fundamental like where to search for information which is wanted.
Best regards,
JAP
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I didnt think I had quoted all of JAP's post, but if I did, it wasnt intentional. I couldnt remember. I do normally Preview before posting.
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Hi cilvrnum,
It's not just in genealogical research that it's a good idea never to make assumptions ;)
And do be aware that anything you post on genealogical threads on RootsChat and similar groups, lists and forums is, incontrovertibly, in the public domain.
JAP
No it is not everything that appears on the various mailings lists and forums is still the copyright of the author in most countries including the UK.
Just because the public have access to material it does not make it "in the public domain" as far as copyright is concerned.
Cheers
Guy
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Hi Guy,
Did I mention copyright ;D I think not! Not only am I far too much of a pedant but I wouldn't be game to ::)
Cheers 8)
JAP
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Just because the public have access to material it does not make it "in the public domain" as far as copyright is concerned.
It brings us back to the fact that a lot feel aggrieved, and with good reason, when their data is used by others without their asking and without their giving credit to its originator. [Not wishing to get embroiled in Copyright law, of course] :-X
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OK enough!
We have done this many time, all ways up, copyright, pinching trees, round and round.
Locking this topic now before we all come to blows...
;)