Ancestry - Public Tree Members being trawled by Private Tree Members

[suek2075]

I don't know how true this is but I was told that anything you put into Ancestry becomes the property of Ancestry, which is why you can't delete old trees. This may be incorrect, but as I was told the same about Facebook I think it may be true.

Therefore even if you keep your trees private the information is available to Ancestry to share.

Happy to stand corrected if anyone knows different.

Sue

[100%Gog]

my tree is private but not because I wont share Iin fact most of my photos etc are available on public trees because I have shared them ...........I usually talk to owner before copying to see what relation we are and then I can share info...................what you have to remember is that when you have a public tree on Ancestry if there is a connection even to a private tree it will come up in the Hints and so it isn't that the person with the private tree has just taken your photos etc but been offered them by Ancestry themselves.

To be honest my gripe is not so much the photos are copied its that I receive no acknowledgement or interaction from these people. I think its more of a courtesy thing really.

Private it is then!

Thanks

[100%Gog]

I don't know how true this is but I was told that anything you put into Ancestry becomes the property of Ancestry, which is why you can't delete old trees. This may be incorrect, but as I was told the same about Facebook I think it may be true.

Therefore even if you keep your trees private the information is available to Ancestry to share.

Happy to stand corrected if anyone knows different.

Sue

I read something about that in the links Sandra's sent earlier.

The strange thing is though in this day and age, we get told to protect our personal information and identities yet we all present to the world and his mate up to 300 years or more of our family history

[Jool]

100%Gog, if you choose to go private you could always put a comment on your profile page stating that you are happy to share with people who make contact with you.

[msr]

I'm not sure about this so am asking. How do you know that you're being 'trawled' by private tree owners? 
Is it a case of being notified that X has added an image to their tree?  But how many offenders have there been, and have you corresponded with any of them to your satisfaction? 

I would never dream of copying a photo or any certificates uploaded to someone's tree.   If I thought there may be a connection to my ancestors, or to me, I would send a message.  Sometimes messages are responded to, other times not, but I always answer those sent to me.

[pinefamily]

As shown in the links above, this topic rears its head periodically on Rootschat. Ancestry, as well as many other family history sites (paid or free), are prone to being used by "name collectors", or by people too lazy to do their own research.
Just as several others have said, I do not put my data up (any more) for public view. Many years ago, I submitted a tree on Rootsweb; this info has now found its way into a myriad of other trees, and when I have tried to contact these people to find connections, I have received no response.
I do have a tree online, but on a site with a password protection.

[Finley 1]

I sent for a cert for who I had hoped was a member of my lot... But it wasn't, it was his very distant distant cousin.. So I filed it -- Then trawled the trees on Ancestry to see if anyone was researching him.....  Found someone who was and offered to send them a copy or even the original if they wanted..  GUESS WHAT that was over 2 months ago and NO response.

you can but try 

xin

[Finley 1]

In the early days (definitely NOT now) Didn't GR have a better way of dealing with Contacting other members and viewing their trees...
Whereby you made contact with a member and they actually gave you permission to view their tree.

They did RESPOND -then though, maybe people are wiser and less quick to respond these days - after having been caught out by nasty little hidden spiders in the web.

xin

[Rena]

If anyone tries to contact me via my tree I'm afraid they won't get an answer as I haven't been able to access it myself for several years since A--y changed the format.  I probably could if I'd paid subscriptions but as I'd more or less finished researching my English branches and their records weren't what I needed, I decided not to.

I also had my Scottish branch on gencircles which was free to see for anyone who needed the information but since that website was taken over the tree is not accessible to the public and I've lost track of it, thus won't be able to answer anyone who tries to make contact.   However, I saw somebody on geni had started on one of my Scottish Clan lines that I hadn't published so I specially joined to contact her and now her tree has the additional info plus images as backup due to there not being any official bmd's

As for my tree on GR I always respond to people who request information but I can't accept their invitations to view their trees because I'm not now a paid up member.