General Chat

This topic comes up at least once a fortnight

Basically, if you are concerned about other people getting their hands on what you consider to be information that is personal to you or your family, then don't publish it on the internet. Once you have passed it on, whether it is by allowing someone to see your tree, or by sending them an email with the information, then you have lost control of it.

Whilst I agree entirely it is couteous to ask before using information you have been given access too, it is by no means that common. It is also wrong to assume that there is an ulterior motive - once when I questioned someone they were very appologetic and genuinely had not realised they had acted in a way that might offend.

GR do warn you to beware than anything you put on the site may be accessible to others.

A lot of members follow the approach of sending information via personal email, which allow you to be selective as to what you disclose.

But even that isn't without its problems. Downside is that you have to give out your personal email adress too - I have occasionally received bulk broadcast messages (which of course gives every Tom,Dick or Harry on the list your email details) from people I have been in contact with on this basis, and am certain that this can give rise to an increase in spam messages.

I also find it a bit odd that some members go to extraordinary lengths to manually change the names of their living persons on GR to sometrhing unrecognisable. Why not just leave them off in the first place?

There is no need to be paranoid, I have willingly shared my tree with many members, but do make sure you have your eyes open to the pitfalls.

some people want as many names they can get just to make the tree look big weather or not theres a real connection,someone only had thier parents names and just nicked all mine.Ive also recently found someone has put my mothers birth and death on the mormon site along with her parents names and year of marriage i was quite upset really she died in 2005,and i dont think any body has the right to put something so recent on any website unless its a close relative .

Hi all,

I don't want to be controvercial here but I have had folks moaning at me because I have 'their' grandad or uncle or who ever on my tree. Well guess what? If they wern't related to me then they would be o9n my tree would they? Derrrr. Personally i don't add random unrelated names to my tree and I suspect that I am not alone. It would be interesting to discover how many members here do so.

If the person is still alive then they show as just 'living' if not then the name appears together with any other public domain information that I can find. That is the rub that many newbies fail to understand. It is PUBLIC information. Birth dates, marriage dates, death dates, census info and the contentents of a will are all out their for anyone to discover.

If you don't want folks to use the info that you have on your tree then do not open your tree to other researchers, but don't ask anyone to open theirs for you either.

Sorry but this hobby works by shareing information. I am always happy to share my tree and it has 35 years worth of research on it.
Happy hunting
Lord Martyn

I have this trouble, but Ancestry find relatives and tell you, and sometimes they are not the correct people, I had my great great grandad being married twice, and the first wife, he would have only been eight years old when he married.
I pointed this out to this person, but I see they have never removed the error.
Also some who are related by marriage way way back.
Think some people just like having a lot of ancestors on their tree.
But I have had some laughs at some of the ancestors that have been put on. One had the whole of our Royal Family on, and I never did find out the connection.

I thought Ancestry trees automatically removed names and details of living - unless you upload a gedcom and use the option to keep the name but remove dates and places.

I've calmed down now but at half past 8 I saw red.

Taff, yes they are related to me but our connection is way up a few generations high. So my Nana or Grandad aren't their relation as such.

Reading everyone elses experience mine pails into insignificance. I best be grateful they do have a surname which is in my tree. Wish I could get them on copyright but I can't. And can only get names removed if still living. They aren't.

I don't mind sharing information but isn't it so frustrating?

Never mind, down to experience.

Janet

IF they are living persons/people contact Ancestry they can remove them......
If they are not then there is nothing you can do.

Mine too. Also on Mormon site, I let someone on this site look at my tree, have my husbands tree connected to mine and he had a definate contact on that, he pinched everything, including my tree. Put it everywhere but the details are wrong on my tree on the Mormon site.. So annoying but as they are dead not alot I can do about it. I had to get Genes to take off some of mine, on here as he would.nt respond to me,even though I had'nt put alot of details about the living on my tree. Had to put it down to experience.
Hilary x

Janet, are they related to your g/parents?

Someone on here has posted my Grandparents on Ancestry as part of their family tree. What can I do about this? I did not give permission for them to do this and I am not very happy.
I know I know, I've heard it before it's my fault for letting them have access to my tree on here and ok maybe they copied but to put this info on Ancestry really takes the biscuit.

Rant over for now.

Janet