Sharing and Caring

[SandySandilands]

Over the 30 odd years I have been researching my family history I have collected any references I have come across to both my own and other branches of the Sandilands family. At one stage, I was considering taken on a one name study.

I have freely shared the mass of information I have gathered and there have been times, as previously discussed on here, when being a serious family historian is frustrating. Especially when you receive an enquiry from someone and take the time to reply and you never hear from them again, or when family trees appear confused and incorrect.

Yesterday however was a new experience for me. Having learned from past mistakes my 200 family trees on Ancestry now remain private and are only shared by invitation.

Imagine my shock when I received two emails from Ancestry advising of a new comment on one of my private trees as well as a message from an Ancestry member. My first thought was that Ancestry had a bug which had made my trees visible to all and sundry. That thought soon went to the back of my mind when I read the comment and message.

Firstly, the comment left on my tree advised people the research contained in it had been taken without permission from the commenter's personal family history website. The message was to inform me the research had clearly been taken from the said website as the sources cited in my tree (census entries) were only available on their personal family website and were subject to copy-write. I was advised that I should attribute credit to them at all times!

Horrified, I added a comment rebuffing the claims made and asking the commenter to remove their ill-informed comment from my private tree. I also messaged them and informed them that I had been researching for over 30 years and the tree was as a result of my own research.

Once that task was done I tried to work out how the heck this person had been able to comment and add a link to their website on my private tree. Only two people had been invited to view the tree. I then went through my pages of Ancestry messages and low and behold I found a message from the commenter quite some time ago and my reply inviting them to view this particular tree! There were also a couple of other emails in which we shared information about our respective families.

I sent another message to the commenter advising that not only had I shared my tree and research with them they had also thanked me for my kindness at the time. I have yet to hear further from them.

The whole incident has thrown me and left me feeling dreadful. I was wondering if anyone else here has had a similar experience?

[trish1]

Hi Sandy

It is sad when people act this way - and who would ever know why - I doubt you will hear from this person in reply to your queries. I have a very small part of my tree online - about 20 names from one branch - but needless to say - a relative - with whom I corresponded - has pasted word documents and family pictures - with much of my research and intimate family details - on ancestry - without my permission. The documents have my name incorporated in the footers - and I NEVER post anything online which includes my full name and other personal details. These documents have, of course, been copied to other ancestry trees - so are forever on the web for all to see. I have learned to remove any identification from any genealogy I share with others.

I have another distant relative with whom I have also corresponded who has put her family tree online, but my personal narratives and discussions have NOT been posted as part of her tree. She has created her own stories woven around the history - and avoided any identification of living family. So one does it the right way & one does not - I have no idea how to discover in advance who will fit into which pattern.

I have rarely traced family through online genealogy trees - for the most part I have found them through my own research or message boards such as TS - consequently I see no reason to post my trees online - and certainly would never trust ancestry to keep things "private".

Trish

[ninatoo]

I've had a similar experience Trish. A distant relative posted private photos from a tree on Tribalpages which I had stupidly shared with her. Not only that, but when she copied information, she had several things incorrect and despite my letting her know, she never changed it. And of course I too am seeing these incorrect things pop up on other people's trees. NEVER again!

Sandy, I wonder if her comments are bordering on infringement of Ancestry.com's rules regarding harassment and privacy. If you think so, you could perhaps remind her of that and then ask her to remove the comment before you 'have' to report it to Ancestry.com. That is what I did regarding my family photos mentioned above, and it was removed quick smart (as nobody can post photos without the owner's permission - it's in their rules).

Good luck!

Nina

[SandySandilands]

Thanks for the support trish1 and ninatoo - appreciated