Hi there Maria,
May I please take up some minutes of your time, and ask you to consider the following:
I am one of those who encouraged Matt back in 2008. I notice you joined RChat back in 2014. It is a great place for family history buffs to help each other, and to share. It is also a great place because it is easily found via google searchings with key words. And it is a great place because it has rules about how we need to refrain from identifying living people.
May I mention that I have quickly checked, via RChat’s own search options, and I can see where Matt R definitely informs us that he has received information from his relatives. But as a sensible RChatter, he respected the privacy of those living people and he does not identify them. Here is the live link to a thread where, back in August 2006, Matt asks for some help with his family history research. Notice that in his opening post he writes “Relatives tell me that my g g granny Mary Ann OWENS …..”
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=179853.0 I haven’t looked further, but I am sure that it is most likely there's many other occasions that Matt R asked for assistance here at RChat either on the written boards, or more likely in the chatroom. I well remember him in the chatroom, helping newbies with quality tips on how to research, what to look for, how to protect the privacy of the living, how not to cause offense, how to respect other opinions and how to validate your own research. I don’t spend time in the chatroom, as I spend more time on the boards, particularly the Australia board.
I am sure that there’s nothing in Matt’s words that identifies yourself, just as I am sure that he has been particularly careful in how he introduced anyone born later than 1900 in his 2008 posts.
Maria, I am sorry that you have felt we were being dramatic or that Matt was writing a Soap Opera. Matt’s writing is actually following a format/style/structure that is easy and interesting to read, and is familiar to many readers of 19th century local family history. I do disagree with your comment about copyright. I am in Australia, so I am not familiar with UK copyright laws. But I do know that copyright is the legal right of the originator of the script of the story. It is not a right over the story of Mary Ann, but it is a legal right in this instance given to the writer (the author) , to control the use of his own words in an original work that he has made. So it protects Matt’s original expression of the story about his gg granny, Mary Ann, but it is not a claim by Matt to own the facts about Mary Ann’s life. In Australia an author’s copyright exists for a set amount of time. I am not sure if that applies in the UK.
Maria, please reassure your Mum that we have not been disrespectful towards Matt and your family, and that we wish you well. I too have g granny named Mary Ann, also born in a land far far away, back in the middle of the 19th Century. She too struggled, and faced many hurdles. I believe that many many many women faced hurdles and that us women in the 21st century are most fortunate for quite a number of those hurdles no longer exist.
Cheers from New South Wales, Australia, and again, I am sorry that you and your mother are upset after reading the thread.
JM
