Mean spiritedness

[Asa]

Shona's thread has made me realise how mean spirited I've become about my trees. All of them are now not only private but hidden and I've even tried to avoid posting details of anything online so as not to be contacted by people who find my research through google.

When I first started using the Internet I was very naive and some of my research is found copied and shared in public trees with errors no respect for the hours and hours I've dedicated to this passion. Even in the last couple of years a cousin of mine copied reams of work to his public tree without a care as to whether the info was true or about any detail other than names and dates.

In the last month or so I have made so much progress on one particular family - including finding the gravestone of my 6 x great grandfather this morning! - because I have spent many happy hours and a fortune on researching after new records became available online. But I'm so cautious about discussing or sharing the info online because it so quickly becomes belittled by other people.

Is there any way back for me?

[Margaret in Burton]

I feel the same way as you Asa. Quite a few years ago a distant cousin contacted me and I sent a paper tree as I didn't have it online at the time. He not only copied it out and changed the way I'd done it his brother then knocked at my door once and asked me if I'd seen the huge tree that 'our Dave' had researched and written out in great detail. He was told in no uncertain terms that it was MY work and I wanted no more contact with him or his brother.
Another contact on my husbands side added all of my side onto her tree as well and refused to delete it.
I've had a few make their tree public when mine is private and all of the info is what I gave them. Just laziness and no thought for others research. Most of these people have spent next to nothing on research whereas I don't want to know how much I've spent in about 25 years.

[Olde Crone]

There is a middle way, I think.

I too have been badly burned by sharing my work and seeing it treated like rubbish. I now NEVER open my tree to anyone at all, but my TP tree is searchable by name, so people can contact me if they think there is a match.

I then grill them as to the integrity of their own research, lol and if I am satisfied there really is a connection, I give them chapter and verse, but a bit at a time, to see how interested they really are. I never give info about living people and in fact only give them info about their bit of the tree.

OC

[Phoenix]

I too sit on the curmudgeon's bench. It is a shame, because I have been helped enromously in the past by people who willingly shared their trees with me. In fact, I have been playing on Ancestry with a particular branch whose details I was given a very long time ago: my version of it is dated 1988. I am extremely confident that the original version was immaculate research, and clearly the many body of trees does follow this, but some of the accretions are dubious, to say the least.

I am particularly cynical about my Norfolk families. Most of the information is out there, courtesy of Family Search's browsable records, but none of my distant kith and kin have followed up the tell-tales clues of exact baptism dates.

I agree with OC's principle, but I just haven't found anyone asking the questions. (Except for the poor man who I promised a marriage certificate three years ago. When I lay my hands on it, he can have a copy!)

[WendyPusey]

I feel the same Asa.

I have found a lot of info on one of my brick walls, but those I previously shared some of this info with just take and give nothing back. Some have even put the wrong info onto public trees.

I have spent countless hours and money finding this info and I am very reluctant to share this with these people now.

If anyone sees my tree on TP and asks a question, then I will give them some info, but not the whole tree!

[vallee]

I recently had somebody contact me and she gave me access to her tree without me even asking ,but when I looked she had a lot less info than me ,she had no dates or anything and against Death she just had DEAD ? she then asked as she had given me access to hers would I do the same ? must admit I wasn't happy, and wasn't sure how to tell her that it wasn't worth looking at, so I did give permission.

[Durham Lady]

I think most of us have ben in the same position Asa until we learnt better. I know I have been. My cousin's son's, now ex, father in law added all my mother's side of my family. Aparently he's related to my maternal family because his son in law's grandather is my dad's brother :d

[Asa]

You've all made me feel much less horrible, thank you:)

I know this is a frequently recurring problem and I think we all need to let off steam about it sometimes. I think as people have said, we spend our passion, time and a fortune so when that doesn't get respected it can hit hard.

I might try going back to my names being available on Ancestry which I think works the same way as TP. Maybe...

[tenterfieldjulie]

I agree about getting angry with people misusing your research and adding it to their trees which are utterly stupid. It makes me wonder if they are either very young, or very stupid, or both. On the other hand I have been helped enormously over a 30 year period by other people who have done an enormous amount research pre internet and it was a very expensive process. These people were so pleased that someone else was interested and going to keep records of what they had researched, that it wasn't going to be burnt or put in the garbage. While I know that you get cranky with people for misusing your research, the trade off is, who is going to perpetuate your research. If you don't make it available to other people, is it going to be lost? Knowing how long and hard it is to unravel our ancestors lives, isn't it with the wish that these records will be perpetuated. What is the reason why we do research? Julie

[Guinevere]

My tree isn't online anywhere, just a few generations of direct ancestors on GR to pick up matches.

The same has happened to me as happened to others so I'm very wary about sharing information these days. Like Marg, I need to be sure the people who contact me have done some work for themselves.

There is only one person I share everything with and he is the husband of my Dad's second cousin who sent me lots when I was just starting out and we always share everything. I don't even check his stuff now, unless he asks me to, he's a far better resercher than I am.

[Asa]

Gwynne, I do share my Ancestry tree with 2 researchers both of whom I know are like-minded. I think I only have my tree on there now but I ought to check....

Julie, that's a very good point. And it's sort of why I'm feeling unhappy about it all - as I've said I have achieved such a lot lately on one particular family and it's the one that came up for take two 5 x grandparents this week. Part of me wants to say "Look what I've found!" but the other part of me doesn't want to see all my efforts diluted to someone else's badly researched tree in six months time. I *still* see my (living) parents and late grandmother's info on the net from time to time, usually with the details wrong.

[Margaret in Burton]

My elder daughter has just started getting interested at last. She asked me a few days ago if the tree was online anywhere so she could look. I gave her access to my Ancestry tree which is private.
She then said she'd started her own as she wanted to put her OH's side on . Firstly I told her to check she'd done it as private, she hadn't so soon changed that. Then I told her about name collectors who just tag stuff onto their trees just to make a bigger tree and people adding on stuff that are only connected by numerous marriages and not blood related at all.
Her reaction? "Well that's just plain daft".

I've put FTM on her laptop and transferred our tree to it, I'd done a small amount of research of her OH's side a few years ago so we transferred that too and merged the two making her the home person instead of me. Told her to do her OH's side as really ours is done with one notable exception ( Peter Henry Harrison lol)
It's early days and I sent her 1911 and 1901 census images last night and she's confused but I'll go and explain things to her.

She won't fall for the things I did in the early days of sharing your whole tree with folks, I only give a small amount to people these days that is connected to them via email, now I know the pitfalls I'm warning her in advance.

[Olde Crone]

Julie

I once posted on GR that I had an overwhelming urge to say to some people "You are too stupid to do family history". So far I have managed to resist.......

OC

[Phoenix]

Isn't that the whole problem with family history? That you cannot say that? Nobody can be denied trying to find out more about their grandparents. It's just unfortunate that some wouldn't recognise them if they bumped into them in the street, and others claim kinship with complete strangers.

I've been on help desks for beginners many times. and I have to say that I get a huge buzz when we do find granny in the census. But I know that quite a few will never find great granny.

[Phoenix]

I have to say too that while it took me years, pound notes & shoe leather to find my ancestors, someone starting today could polish off all my ancestors to 1841 in a fortnight or so and make very good inroads in my Norfolk and Dorset ancestors.

When it was difficult, there was a lot of fuss about "reinventing the wheel". Today, I would prefer new researchers to plough their own furrow, ideas untainted by what I have found.

I can remember once, in the pre-computer days, suggesting that there was always a possibility that some of my conclusions were wrong. And I remember the look of withering contempt I was given. But I was far more likely to have leapt to conclusions then, simply because I did not know that two babies were born with the same name within a couple of miles of each other. I have made a couple of complete howlers in my time and I don't doubt I will continue to make some more.

[Olde Crone]

Oh, how I agree, Phoenix! My pre internet work was riddled with mistakes, not necessarily because I was careless, but more because it was so difficult and time-consuming to find even one tiny fact and it had to be done physically, which meant a narrow focus mostly.

Thanks to the internet, I have discovered that baptisms which "ought" to have taken place in Lancashire, in fact took place in Cumberland. Pre-internet, if something didn't happen where you thought it should have happened, then you were stumped, because there was no fast way of researching in other areas of the country short of going there and no clue as to where "there" would turn out to be!

OC

[tenterfieldjulie]

I am very fortunate that distant relations, about 30 years ago, in many branches of my family, were interested in their family history. Lots of stories were wrong, because you didn't travel to the other side of the world leaving your family behind, not to do everything to give your children better opportunities for self advancement than you had. If they had stayed in UK/Ireland/Germany they might have had a good life, but obviously at the time they didn't think so. Unfortunately, Australia is a big place and families scattered, so some members of my family travelled all over Australia to UK and Germany and also paid researchers to try to unearth the facts. They very happily shared what they found. When they printed books you paid for them, but not anywhere near what it cost. So many family members aren't interested, but I just hope in a few hundred years time, that if the world is still going, that someone will be happy to know where our ancestors came from. I plan to have (if I live long enough) my research in hard copy in a number of places, not just online. I've had so much help from so many people I like to think that I may help others .. even if it is b.......... frustrating to see others nab your research and don't acknowledge it and then put it the wrong place.. I just think these people aren't serious researchers and will get bored with it. Unless you are a complete newby or i d j e t .. you must know to take people's trees as a starter, that need to be checked surely!!! Julie

[Margaret in Burton]

Trouble is Julie is that people don't check it. They assume its correct, they don't even read it. Someone allowed me access to their tree, either Ancestry or GR, can't remember which, and it was riddled with errors like people hopping back and forth across the Atlantic to have children baptised etc. thinking about it, probably Ancestry, those damn ancestry hints.
I pointed out the errors and they admitted they'd got it from someone else and hadn't checked it.
Even if the person gets bored the trouble with an online tree is that it's there forever and keeps getting repeated by people copying and of course the more people who have the same information even if its wrong then people believe that to be the correct one as its on the Internet.

[tenterfieldjulie]

I think that lots of the advertising that is out there doesn't help one bit .. it's like telling kids to go into a sweet shop and help themself, or finding family is like going to a free supermarket where you just grab what you can find. Very rarely, unless you have expert help like on here, are family easy to find. I think unless you are very experienced and usually after you have followed the wrong line, which makes you much more wary, can you really be confident that you are on the right track and you still make mistakes. Right from the begining people should be advised to read FH books and talk to people experienced in FHG. These people will usually tell you to confirm your sources, and hopefully if you find it in 3 different places, you have the right person. So I don't really blame a lot of people who are just starting out, as they are not being advised that by Television programmes etc .. unless I am not looking at the right TV or Research Venues? Julie

[Margaret in Burton]

Television ads for genealogy sites don't help one bit. They give the impression that a few clicks of the mouse and your whole family tree magically appears.


Hence people says when you mention how many years you've been doing it, " haven't you finished it yet?".

[tenterfieldjulie]

Absolutely .. utter nonsense ..

[HarrysMum]

The number of trees that still have William Ketley, who died aged 9 months, as my great grandfather....lol

[Margaret in Burton]

The number of trees that still have William Ketley, who died aged 9 months, as my great grandfather....lol

No Libby, it must be right cos it's on the the Internet.

[tenterfieldjulie]

Amazing isn't it .. It's like saying it's got to be right it's on a certificate or in an obit ....
then when you show them they contradict each other .. and both are possibly wrong!! wowee
Some people still insist that their name can only be spelt one way !!! Hellooo .. their marriage cert was signed with a cross .. How would they know how it was spelt lol Laugh or cry ..

[Asa]

That was one of the things that made me go private in the first place - the dozens of trees of people who are descended from an ancestor's sibling when I know he died as an infant - they're actually descended from the father's second marriage but after showing several people the evidence and not being believed you do think why bother

[Olde Crone]

I had a good snigger this morning at Heir Hunters. He said "The trouble with internet trees is that sometimes there can be inputting errors".

I thought that was extremely tactful of him because the name of the supposed bride bore no resemblance to the truth and could not possibly have been down to an inputting error!

OC

[tenterfieldjulie]

"Inputting error" ......... "Inputting!!!!"
I remember a critique of how badly English is written now, by supposedly educated people, which said that lots of words are used to confuse and make out the writer knows what they are talking about .. hmmh
(PS I mangle it but I am not educated lol) Julie

[Shona]

My new contact has been very careful. She is descended from my great-great grandfather's first wife and I'm descended from his second wife. Before we exchanged information, she said she felt reassured giving me access because as I don't have a tree on Ancestry. Like many of you, she is uncomfortable with her research being there for all to see - which is why her tree is private. We are now exchanging into by email and have been helping each other fill in the gaps.

[Nell]

Asa

No one who knows you could possibly think you are mean-spirited! You've been a great help to me in my research. I think its foolish to let anyone have info they don't value. My tree is private on Ancestry but I will share with people who can show a genuine interest. I tend to give guarded responses at first to ensure I'm not just going to have my tree copied wholesale.

But generally speaking, most people are fine with allowing access to their info or acknowledging help I've given.

[tenterfieldjulie]

I've got to say that I'm happy to share, if a person contacts me, but that I have never made my tree available online and I have had a number of versions of FTM. In saying that, I've got to admit that I am now looking at trees on Ancestry to give me guides. Especially when I am looking for a person who I have not researched before. When I can see obvious mistakes on a tree, then I am very suspicious of the information. It can however guide me in the right or wrong direction. I am not confident unless I have checked the info as far as poss. I was amused the other day to see where a person had attached a number of census to their tree as proof of names. It included about 12 children, but when I looked at the children's names on the tree, they only had three, so they had the information there, but hadn't put it on their tree. Julie

[Asa]

Thank you Nell :-)