Why do my offers of help seem to be rejected?

[Annie65115]

Many people prefer to be wrong than corrected.

Mrs. Zaph

Isn't that the truth!

[sonofthom]

One of my wife's ancestors was a photographer and a collection of his glass plates is held by a museum. However this museum has attributed them to a much younger person. We have given the museum details of our research but they refuse to engage with us. The head of the museum did produce a book of these mis-attributed photos and we strongly suspect that misplaced professional pride (arrogance?) is part of the problem.

[Steve3180]

Many of us have had the same responses as you have Davedrave and it used to bother me but I look at it differently now. This is my thinking now -
There is no such thing as 'proof' in genealogy, just weight of evidence. Collating that evidence and presenting it to a, probably sceptical, third party forces me to re-evaluate that evidence and confirm or otherwise my view. Whether the third party accepts the evidence is their business, some do some don't.
Very occasionaly I get counter-evidence which causes me to change my tree.  This is all worthwhile stuff and makes the process worth it.
However I have also learned to open the conversation with a question 'What leads you to believe that ?' or similar and see where it leads.

[Davedrave]

Thank you for sharing your experiences and wise advice. Clearly, I was rather naive, but once bitten…
In future, I’ll stick to RootsChat, where I know I can rely on people with the best intentions.

Dave

[coombs]

Also do your own research as well.

[Blue70]

Whether to collaborate or not to collaborate? When I was a subscriber of the big sites I was quite proactive when it came to messaging and tree content. I was also very proactive when it came to near and distant relatives when it came to sharing research. There's pluses and minuses to being so open I did get some interesting stuff but I gave a lot more than I received. It did create work for myself and there were some disappointments. I'm glad I did it though but now I'm at the stage where I'm more happy to do my own thing and if other people have it wrong it doesn't bother me so much.

C

[Jebber]

You only have to look at the number of people in a tree to know if the owner is worth contacting or not. When you see many thousands of names you know they are only name collectors and not serious researchers. I find only the latter are worth contacting, even then it is often a waste of time and effort.

[mudmonster]

and when you do share tree's that you know to be right,they change them to whatever fit's theirs /or do not  even say thanks /get back in touch.
Mud

[Erato]

"You only have to look at the number of people in a tree to know if the owner is worth contacting or not."

Hogwash.