Ancestry trees

[jettejjane]

 All I can say to all your comments is that everything I have told you is true. I am not lying and yes I am incredibly lucky. Before you scorn my findings you need to know my family and what I know. How dare anyone in here suggest I do not know what I know without seeing what I have.

Now the gloves are off and I am annoyed. Some comments sound like sour grapes or a touch of the green eye.

[StevieSteve]

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick there, Jane

You ARE blessed that you have so much information. Others don't - that's why they have more potential to make mistakes

At least, that's my interpretation of everything

[Clogs]

But it's a hobby and people take from it what they will....if no harm is being done...what does it matter. As long as you do the research and make sure your tree is accurate and has supporting evidence then what is the problem?
Some people will always take their hobby more seriously than others....and...there are many housebound and lonely people out there and building bushes, trees or forests are what fills their lives.
Just live and let live...you're a long time dead 

Carol

Yes got it in one Carol but enroute to enlightenment I found myself getting a tad more than mildly annoyed by someone's efforts. I finally put it all to bed by deciding that I was being too judgemental and that for all I knew the other person was struggling with ADHD or a disorder of a similar nature though they would probably bite my head off for being condescending if they ever caught up with me 

While the trigger for my angst was the amount of time I had spent researching in order to prove or disprove relationship theories while they breezed in some 20 years later and blindly accepted all namesake hints. With Ancestry using census records to "prove" a namesake connection while overlooking mis-spellings I went into self righteous over drive. It was momentarily satisfying but far too draining as I could envisage it as a constantly repeating exercise.

[suek2075]

All I can say to all your comments is that everything I have told you is true. I am not lying and yes I am incredibly lucky. Before you scorn my findings you need to know my family and what I know. How dare anyone in here suggest I do not know what I know without seeing what I have.

Now the gloves are off and I am annoyed. Some comments sound like sour grapes or a touch of the green eye.

I'm sorry if anything I said annoyed you - it wasn't meant to, I seriously am envious of anyone having so much documentation about their family. I know others on here have also, and I don't think it's that common to have so much.

I certainly didn't intent any slight.

[JenB]

All I can say to all your comments is that everything I have told you is true. I am not lying and yes I am incredibly lucky. Before you scorn my findings you need to know my family and what I know. How dare anyone in here suggest I do not know what I know without seeing what I have.

Now the gloves are off and I am annoyed. Some comments sound like sour grapes or a touch of the green eye.

I for one am not scorning your findings nor do I have 'a touch of the green eye'. No one has said you are lying.

All I was pointing out, based on my own experience, is that stories should not necessarily be relied on.

[jettejjane]

Guys pax. It was what Erato said that got my dander up.Not the rest of you. She is always spikey and opinionated with me. Perhaps we too alike!!!
I should not rise to it but it pees me off that others get away with murder and I get my wrists slapped occasionally.

I give up I certainly don't fit in here. But I do love Rootschat and will carry on getting it wrong-not intentionally.

[Erato]

How so?  I said that all family stories are authentic stories.  They are 'authentic' because someone in the family told them.  But they aren't all necessarily true [e.g., Beulah and the cannibals - and that was a published story].  A lot of family stories may be true but are no longer possible to verify.  There is no way now to know whether the first proto-barbed wire fencing that my grandfather ever saw was on the farm of Colonel Merritt, but that's what he said.  It is an authentic story.

[Josephine]

I wonder if it's down to people using online genealogy sites differently than they might have done originally.

For example, 10 or more years ago, someone seriously into family history might have only posted a tree that had been proven to whatever level of satisfaction fulfilled his or her purpose.

Genealogy used to be more costly, more difficult and more time-consuming, perhaps thereby limiting its attractiveness to some. Remember how patient you used to have to be if you were writing letters and waiting for replies from other countries?

But now the vast amount of information available online, and the ease with which it can be added to one's tree, has perhaps contributed to lowering the former standards of proof while at the same time making it much easier to engage in the hobby.

In addition, people use the internet now as their storage and back-up for working documents, photos, etc., so it probably makes sense to many to also use the internet for their trees, whether they are works in progress or as complete as they can be. I have a cousin whose tree exists only on Ancestry; I'd be surprised if she has any kind of genealogy software or data stored on her computer's hard drive. She keeps hers private but others obviously don't.

In the end, it doesn't matter. I agree that it can be annoying or downright ridiculous, but not everyone is a stickler for detail like me, and so I just shrug my shoulders and scroll on.

On the other hand, I am extremely grateful to the individuals who are meticulous and who go to the trouble of attaching source documents or links to back up their data. Yes, it can be a pain in the butt to scroll through the 17 (or 37) trees whose owners have merely copied and pasted some or all of the meticulous person's tree, but there's a definite pay-off if I can make my way to the original, well-sourced tree (when one actually exists).

On the lighter side, I recently started updating one of my family binders, with the intention of creating one for my brother and his children. Well, that got me back to researching that line, I've found a ton of new info, and am still in the process of gathering and synthesizing it all. So the binders are on hold again. 

Josephine

Topic Continued here: http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=726756.0