Is it just me

[hg]

or am I being unreasonable. I have a public tree on Ancestry.com which I have put a lot of research and hard work into then, others come along and upload my info on to their tree without even contacting me. How rude!!!! Maybe I will change it to private!

Helen

[Muriel]

My tree is private for that very reason. I'm happy to share with valid researchers. One of my friends has 2 trees; they are both private but one is for people she really trusts & has the photos etc & the other is for people she's not sure about & is much more basic.

Muriel

[Russell]

Hi Helen
We (my wife and I !) learned fairly early on that any public posting of a tree inevitably led to wholescale 'lifting' of information without any check being made on its reliability.This happens if you have an unusual name in your tree. Mine was my Oman ancestors. everyone with Oman ancestry tried to link into my information - which is thoroughly researched of course ! The alternate situation is when you have the most common names like Reid or Smith particularly if they came from huge families which then spread across the globe. Lots of names in common to pick from. We had contacts from Canada and USA desperate to show a link to our Reids since there was a Rev. Reid who happened to name every one of his children using the same names and in virtually the same order as our Reids who lived in the same area.
We took down every bit of information other than a skeletal outline on Genes Re-united (it was too much work to slowly delete them all) and now tend to initiate contact with only those who have clear cut links.
Some folk just want an easy route to a well populated tree. Best not to give them the opportunity. Make your entries private then you have control over the access to that info.

Russell

[hg]

Thanks both. Seems I've learned the hard way.

all the best

Helen

[Russell]

Happens to us all Helen

Just put it down to learning the difference between family name collectors and Genealogists.


All of us have had to learn about some of the pitfalls along the way. Just wait till you suddenly realise that one branch of your tree doesn't actually belong to you at all and you have wasted the past six months and probably lots of credits because you assumed that John Smith born in Ecclefechan was YOUR John Smith when, in reality he was your John Smith's cousin

Been there, done that and have several T-shirts to prove it.

Russell

[hg]

Hi Russell,

I have seen this tree before but just noticed a specific detail that could have only been uploaded from my tree. I have contacted them today. While I can see that they probably do share ancestry with me, I am miffed that they have 'stolen' this particular bit of information. And, another thing, some of this particular line on their tree makes no sense. Not sure how much detail I can put on here so I'd better not say any more.


all the best

Helen

[Russell]

Hi helen
A bit of tact is a good thing. When you contact them expect either a warm, appreciative response or the opposite - a blunt 'I know best' reply. Another possibility is to freeze you out and make no reply at all. It's too late to withdraw data already in the public domain so I hope you are warmly welcomed but don't get hot under the collar if they reply any other way. It's their loss.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed (not a good thing for an Admin person to do. Messes up the typing terribly )

Russell

[SandySandilands]

I empathise.

Struggled with this myself and all my research on Ancestry is now private.

I've experienced the person who attached the photo I shared to the wrong person in their tree. I contacted them and politely mentioned that the photo was of the son not the father. I received a rude reply saying that I was wrong.

Then the was the self-appointed family expert who posted everything I shared with them on a forum as their own research. I was really shocked because one of the things I had shared was not something that could have been discovered by research.

There was the family member I updated with regards to my latest findings and they came back to me about a theory they had about another line of the family. Funny thing was I shared that theory with them a couple of years earlier. I had to laugh.

The classic is the email out of the blue to which you reply willingly and then.... nothing... ever... again.

The problem is I have over 30 years of research into my family name and literally thousands of records. I want whatever I have to be of use to those who are interested, just detest the idea of it being reproduced with errors that will make it harder for those whose interests peaks later.

I don't know what the answer is.

[trish1]

I've only ever put about 20 ancestors on Ancestry - perhaps enough so that anyone interested could contact me. Sadly that doesn't stop folks. A relative of one of my distant cousins (who I had found and contacted & had a wonderful exchange of information with) - put a tree on ancestry (which was his right) but he included photos, research & whatever else I had exchanged with his family member - some of which I have always kept to "family only" because it relates to living folks. It was an "attachment to a person" which has now been copied by many other people on ancestry - so asking him to take it down is a rather pointless exercise. It has my name/date & all sorts of private stuff all over it. It also contains photographs from other relatives who didn't give me permission to plaster them all over the internet. I ALWAYS explain when I exchange my research with living relatives that I don't want it on the internet.

If you share your research with anyone - sooner or later - it will freely available on the net with both positive and negative impact.

In terms of asking folks to change the nonsense - I've had people agree/disagree that their information was incorrect - but even those who agreed have never changed it.

I use ancestry for my research - have for years. I have "met" probably 4-5 people who have been very helpful to my research - guess one takes the 'bad with the good'

Trish

[Ann In the UK]

Hi Helen,

Nope, it's not just you. Me too. And I learned the hard way too, when I first started my research and began adding all the exciting and mundane stuff I found or had to my then public tree. It's not public any more. Fortunately, I learned quickly that some people just aren't intersted in accuracy, or in actual research, or in finding cold hard facts that prove conclusively that 2x great aunt Sally once had a secret love child with her married neighbour, which was then raised by her parents as her own sibling. In fact, they're not interested in the slightest in the people they're adding at all. They just want numbers. Or interesting/odd anecdotes they can brag about to their family or friends at Christmas - Did you know I'm directly connected to so and so? Did you know I've got back to Adam? They're not intrerested in individual leaves, only in branches - lot's of them, spreading as far back and out as they can, as quickly as they can, with no regard whatsoever for proving for themselves or anyone else whether or not those they're adding really are related to them or those they're supposedly researching.

From experience, my advice is:
- (sadly) yes, do make your tree private. And also be very careful who you invite to it afterward - when you contact someone with a potiential connection, or they contact you, always ask enough questions to be sure the potential connection is actually there before you invite them, cause it's too late afterward. (I usually try to get them to expain their supposed connection to someone first, rather than furnish them with information about mine!).

- don't put everything you find or have on your Ancestry tree. Keep a bit back - particularly those precious photo's, anecdodes or personal information/documents about an indivitual that you just can't find anywhere else, or without doing the legwork. You can always share these once you've become comfortable that the person you're sharing them with will not make them available to all and sundry, and way beyond your control.

- don't make this bad experience cloud your view of all researchers. These name grabbers are in the minority. The rest of us love doing the legwork, love tramping around farflung libraries, archives and graveyards in the rain looking for the tiniest morsel about 2x great uncle Albert, even if does take 20 years! And we are the ones who will appreciate your reluctance to share what you have until our potential connection to said 2x great uncle Albert is clear - and the ones who will also appreciative your desire to protect what you have about him so it doesn't get exploited or corrupted by someone who isn't connected to him at all. So don't feel bad about making it private, you're doing us a favour!

Regards
Ann


Edit: Just another suggestion that I know some have done. Have two trees going simultaneously on there - one a public access one with the bare bones of what you know, the other a private one for yourself, your family and those you invite to it, with whatever you like on it. Just make sure that it is totally private before you make it live!