General Chat

Hello Everyone,
I don't usually use forums but I was just having a look at this one and decided to have a moan.
Yesterday I found that another member of this site had added myself, my children, their spouses and my grandchildren to her tree. My daughter-in-law has an unusual maiden name and I do check now and then to see if anyone has added her and her family to the site. This other member does have access to my tree going back a couple of years and she asked to see it through the standard Genes message. I opened my tree for her and also wrote a friendly message which she did not reply to.
So, yesterday I wrote and asked her to remove us from her tree. I checked today and she has done so but I would have thought a short note of apology would not have hurt her.
I then checked her tree which she has on another site and there we were again. We were listed as "Living **********" but the surnames could be read. I also noticed that I had written to her on that site twice before just to ask about her connections to members of my husbands family in a friendly way but, again, no reply. As I have now asked her to remove us from that tree as well I wonder if I will get a reply this time - I don't think so.
I always reply to anyone that writes to me on either of the sites where I have trees and I am always pleased to hear from anyone inquiring about anyone in my trees and I have corresponded with many really lovely people over the years both via the sites and privately.
But I can't be doing with bad manners and now never open my tree for someone who just sends the basic Genes message. I always acknowledge the message and ask who they are looking for and what is the connection they think they have to my tree but if they don't answer I don't open the tree no matter how many times they ask.
Sorry to rant on but what do other members think?
Regards
To All

I agree with your views entirely Brenda.

Have you been able to ascertain whether or not this other member actually is related to you ?

this was one of the reasons i gave up doing my family tree and left here a while back, i had it happened to me twice and one of them had took the details from my tree and as much as i tried to tell them they had linked the wrong joe bloggs to their tree they werent listening to me it was so frustrating at the time.

Thank you all very much for your supportive replies.

Robin, it is difficult to tell, she is certainly not at all close and she has over 24,900 people in her tree, probably all pinched from other people's trees, so I suppose there is a link somewhere.

Yes, I think we have all had this or similar happen before but it was so annoying that they don't bother to reply and say sorry. After all we can all make mistakes and I always apologize, acknowledge my error and thank anyone for pointing it out. She even had my husband's grandmother dying in Sussex when I know she died in her home town 150 miles away!!

Never mind - I will just keep writing to the 99.9% of nice, well mannered people who use these sites. Perhaps I am just a bit too old fashioned.

Best wishes
To All :-(

Hi Brenda

I don't think that you are old fashioned at all. Or if you are then so am I. I believe that having good manners supercedes a massive dose of qualifications because in one job I did I had to deal with students leaving uni with degrees. I'd guess that 80% minimum didn't have the manners of a wart hog, were rude and arrogant.

My lovely son Andrew has autism and a few other problems but it never stopped him from learning manners.

I've now made contact with a handful of cousins via Genes and I haven't copied one piece of info from any of them. It's not that I don't value the information they have been kind enough to share with me but just adding numbers isn't what it's about. I'm just really glad to have some lovely cousins. Eventually I will transfer what they have shared because I've given them access to my tree to do the same if they want to and if it suits them.

L:ike most things in life, there will always be someone who wants to be bigger and better and I suppose having nearly 25,000 names on her tree boosts her obviously very sad ego. I've seen it in this celebrity culture we have today. And it's like 'I know someone famous so look at how wonderful I am'.

Nah. You stick with us ordinary folks.

xJill

Hello Brenda.......
it is such a shame that this bad mannered person...has changed the way you veiw others,who could be genuine nice people like yourself,and yes it is awful when people copy all of your family into their tree.....she should have made an apology...xx

HIAll, Just to add my pennies worth!!

I dont open my tree on here unless people can give me specific info as my tree holds some sensitive info!!
My tree on ancestry is private but I am in contact with someone on there who is researching the same family as me from way back, I sent him some photos of my ancestors as I thought he might be interested he put them in his tree which is public and now everytime I go on to ancestry it tells me several more people have added my photos to their tree. I must admit that these are people that are long gone for example died in the first world war but they are still MY relatives quite closley connected ie great uncle etc and I get a bit miffed that other people who are barely related except through several marriages just add info as they please, it may sound silly as these are ancestors I have never met as they died before I was born but I still feel very protective towards their information.

Julia (in Cambs)

Oh blast I have just deleted instead of edited. The jist of it was. I have added photographs to my tree from others but on Ancestry the original poster is noted. I did not think this was inappropriate especially as I had the person/s on my tree and therefore would be fairly close ancestors. I do love the photos as they add so much more to the bald facts and I would hope my tree is factually correct. If not I would be happy to be enlightened.

I have allowed people access to my tree and only once did I become annoyed when someone added details on living people. Although I asked them to remove the info they said it was alright because no-one else could access it. Not sure if that was right. I suppose if we give access to our tree we have to expect people will do things we may not like. Its breyond our control unless we refuse access and that seems a little mean.

However, there is no excuse for someone not responding when making a request but that sadly is a way of the world today especially as they can remain anonymous.

Vera

I agree Sandie - my son is a Uni student and he is a kind, well mannered young man. I can't imagine him being rude to anyone.

Sue

I can support this my children are well mannered, my youngest so much so that even before she got to Tertiary education she was already credited with being well mannered. When she was at high school one of the other students asked how come my daughter was allowed to use the staff phone and two teachers looked at each other. They both said that they could not possibly refuse someone as polite and well mannered as she was. I met her friends when she was doing her degree and they were all well mannered and polite, and I would go as far as suggest that the 80/20 principle was completely the other way around. 80 percent polite etc and 20 percent not. It is the 20 percent of bad behaviour that stands out and thus gives a bad image.

Persie :-)

Hello again Everyone,

Many thanks for your replies and stories. How nice it is to know that there are still so many people who feel the same as I do.

I have checked "my friend's" tree on the other site and she has done as requested and removed the living people. I have also had a good look through her trees and I still can't find a connection but the trees are so large it is difficult to see everyone. But there must be a distant connection somewhere.

However, as my husband's direct connection to this name only goes back to c1765 I decided to do some research on the supposedly previous ancestors to my last person in her tree. Well, I don't know where she got it all from but I can't make any connections to my person at all. I don't doubt that all her people did live at the dates and places listed but it does not match mine. I think I will write and ask her where she got it from and if it is correct and see what happens next.

I have, of course, stopped her access to my tree and will not open it for anyone unless they give accurate YoB's, PoB's and parents names if possible.

I don't research people born after c1900 as I have no interest in the 20th century other than my direct lines but I do like to go back as far as I can and sideways accurately - much more fun and interesting as you never know what or who will turn up. My own tree has over 9,000 entries but everyone has been individually researched and if I can't find someone I don't add them to my tree. I do admit that I use the trees that other people have very kindly opened for me as an aid to my research but I never, ever copy from them to me and I always try to add something extra to each entry such as a marriage, death or Christening date and place if the other person has not added them. Then they will know if they look at mine that I have done the job respectfully.

Anyway, sorry to ramble on.

Best wishes

Good afternoon everyone.
I am new to this part of the site. I have never engaged on line in a forum like this before. In fact I have never even opened up the 'community' part of the site before but I certainly wish I had done.
The content has enlightened me greatly as to what could be described as 'Best Practice'.
I have a fairly small tree of about 600 relatives on another site in which I have facts/photographs and interact on the site with a small group of family members who regularly contribute.
I basically joined this site to see what, if any, the difference was and / or advantage of being in this site would bring in respect of tracing my ancesters and distant relations.
What I have now learned today is why some people have not answered my requests to view their trees.
I opened my tree up to everyone of whom I asked to view theirs.
Initially I always sent a personal message, naming the person I was researching and indeed asking If I was on the right track in wanting to see their tree. Very few actually answered my requests, which were always polite and gave as much detail I could of the individual I was 'tracing'.
I had believed that the unopened envelopes were a result of the individuals no longer being active in their trees.
Eventually, as a result of the lack response from members I started to just send the automatic message.
I have found that some members have taken information from my tree after I had opened it to them and they had responded by opening the tree but making no comment.
I have, in effect, used this site/tree as a form of corroboration for my other 'main' tree in respect of certain ancesters.
It appears that some people are just taking what they can from other people's trees without doing any work themselves.
This is obviously frustrating but surely the whole idea of the site is to swap information and assist each other in tracing our ancesters.


I will in future always send personal message when requesting to view a tree.

I will also send my grandchildren to University and tell them to be well mannered once they leave and go into the big bad world !

:-)

Stuart, we must be related. ;)

I too had been a member for two years before having a clue what this "Community" business was, and I too lighted on a thread about this very thing when I first took a look.

And I too used to open my tree to anyone I sent a message to about a possible connection, kind of puppy-dog like, just so excited to think I had found family in the mother country I'd never known of.

Then in one case, I did a search a year after sending one such message, and found that the person did indeed still have these shared ancestors and others in their tree ... and also had my grandmother, my mother and myself. The person had simply appropriated my bit of the tree into his, and not so much as replied to me.

When I enquired again about the relationship, I did get a reply -- that the person couldn't be bothered figuring out how we were related, but I could look at his tree. I figured out that his wife and I share grx2 grandparents, not so very distant a relationship. Anyhow, I insisted that my immediate family info be removed, and he removed it.

I don't open my tree to anyone now ... not that anyone ever asks ... ;)

If I initiate the contact, I outline my connection with the name in the tree, without giving living generation info. Then if either of us has info the other doesn't have, or we want to pursue the conversation by way of getting to know each other, we move on to that. No need for tree opening, or for either of us to vacuum up unrelated families from each other's trees and put them into our own.

Hi Janey, I understand your frustration. I have gone back into the mid 1600's on my tree. I contacted an individual re a much more recent 'branch' and on a later visit to their tree found he had added a few generations from mine to his. How did I feel ? Well to be honest I am not sure. In my other 'main tree' I have a similar system to this site's Hot Matches whereby I am alerted to other tree holders in the same manner and I have ended up 'talking' to distant relations accross the world, Canada, USA and Australia mainly and have added their branches to my tree. None of them took me back any distance, more a sideways type of branch but I have benefitted from other people's research and work, so should I keep mine to myself.
I have a new found relation in Canada who I met through a Surname internet connection site. She had no trees as such in any sites like this but had paperwork with dozensof names and details which she gladly provided me with enlightening me as to a whole 'lost' generation of my family who had emigrated in the 1800's.
I invited her onto my tree and she has contributed greatly with stories, photos etc and she can see no reason why genealogists should not share whatever they have. Some people cannot afford to do the research whilst others can but as in all walks of life there are givers and takers and people who abuse the good will of others. I am still unsure whether I will renew my subscription to this site. As i said yesterday I do not have a large tree and I am more enthusiastic about getting as far back as I can than just adding names. Perhaps I am being niave in thinking that the majority of members are lkie minded souls who want to help each other. What is the point of joining a site like this and not opening your tree. I'm sure there are plenty of sites where you can 'lock' the information and no-one has access but what is the point ? Please do not take this the wrong way, I am just frustrated The whole selling profile of the site in my belief is that you can swap information. You get Hot Matches etc and people do not answer. I give up.

Heh, we must be related indeed. I have only a shrub here at GR; all my info is in collected emails to myself and to/from other people in the Gmail account I used to store all that stuff. I share it with relations I find, in prose form rather than by accessing trees.

And my family is the lost generations -- mother's parents immigrated to Canada as children around 1909, father's parents immigrated later as a married couple. The English cousins I first contacted here at GR, after finding grx2 grparent matches in their trees, sent back replies like Um, no, I don't think so ... even in one case when other family were known to have come to Canada!

I don't open my tree mainly because of the experience I've had of having info taken from it and used elsewhere without so much as a by your leave, let alone a thank you.

I also see no reason for my family history to be incorporated into trees that are only extremely peripherally connected. An example is that I was misled here, early on, when I found someone who had a grx2 grandfather whom I had only just discovered in the censuses in their tree. In that tree I found his wife's name, and merrily added it to mine. Except that on looking into that couple I found the whole thing made no sense.

It turned out that this individual had simply plucked the handiest "John Smith and Mary" couple from the GRO index and assigned them as parents to my gr-grfather. Total nonsense. Took me a year to get that corrected at that person's various sites on the internet. And that person was only related by the most tenuous thread -- my gr-grfather's sister had married someone name "Jones", who was related by marriage to someone in that person's tree ... So there's no need for that person to have the benefit of my research for her tree, as I see it. All she needs to do is not put false information in it. ;)

There's just too big an opening for false info about one's ancestors to get into other people's trees when they get too much info about really unrelated people. If someone distantly related to my father put my mother in their tree and then started adding her ancestors, they would end up with a total dog's breakfast, because of the fact that my mother's father's birth was registered under a fake surname, just for starters. And just look what happened in a single generation wtih that tree on my father's side -- the person knew who the husband of her distant cousin by marriage was, and it took only one generation back for her tree to be full of nonsense about that family. I don't need to increase the likelihood of these atrocities getting spread around! ;)

So I swap information -- that is relevant. Someone who shares descent from my father's father's father just doesn't need to have my mother's entire family in their tree, or even my mother.

Now, if someone has done all the research themself, more power to them. I sent a message to someone here a few years back who had my grx3 grmother in Cornwall in their tree. It turned out they had, yes, 20,000 names, and wasn't quite sure how my ancestor came into it without checking -- she would have been distantly related by marriage(s). The person had just uploaded the tree to GR and had received a couple of hundred enquiries -- and was answering all of them personally and giving tree access.

That person really had researched all those records themself. It was what they enjoyed doing, and what they did. That's cool. I didn't actually copy anything because I'm just not particularly interested in all the collateral relations (and I had done some of the parish records part myself for what I was interested in), but it was fun to see.

I also do regard some of my tree as my intellectual work, long and hard work some of it has been, and my intellectual property. I'm happy to share with immediate relations. I have no intention of passing it on to people with no direct interest in the families just so they can plump up their trees with my work.

Opening one's tree isn't the same as sharing information!

Certainly renew your sub -- at least the cheapo standard one I have. You can amuse yourself for hours joining in the Find Ancestor hunts for other people's rellies, if nothing else. ;)

Hello All,

Thank you for all your additions to this thread I have read them all with great interest. But one thing is sure we all have the respect for our trees and the trees of other people and dislike those that don't.

As for myself, I am quite happy for others to use my tree for their research but I always ask them to research it again for themselves as I may have made a mistake somewhere and to let me know if I have. I always ask if I may use theirs for my research and, again, I always research them for myself as I find so many mistakes in their trees its not true. Its only good manners anyway.

I rarely add anyone born after 1900 unless they finish a family started in around 1890. I have only added my own direct line from my grandparents and not my uncles and aunts, 1st cousins or their families. I really don't research the 20th century at all as I have lived most of my life in it and find it too boring.

I admit my tree is fairly large with lots of sideways moves and many outer twigs but I have found some very interesting people that way, made many contacts with some really lovely people and found some extra "cousins" I didn't know existed. Great stuff!! To me that's what it is all about.

I always treat any info that I receive from others with respect as it probably refers to their close relatives not mine. I have no objection to people seeing who I am on my tree and being able to trace back from me to their family as I feel it is all part of the fun and it must be fun - not taken too seriously.

But as I said in my first post I do object to bad manners and will not tolerate them. The person I first wrote about has still not answered me either on this site or elsewhere where I also wrote to her to ask her to remove living people, including myself from her trees. I also wrote telling her I had done some research on her earlier ancestors, pointing out that her research did not make sense and ask where she got it from. Still no answer!! Bet she didn't like that. I know that she has read my polite messages as she has done as I asked and removed all the living people.

Again, thank you and best wishes to all.