General Chat

I have recently found out that people who I have opened my tree for are just lifting all of my information and posting it on their own site.

No matter how you look at it this is theft. In particular, it was a distant connection through my husband that was the common denominator, and yet all of my family (who is not connected) was put on their sites. I am disgusted, hurt and very sorry I even joined this site.

THis actually happened to me when I first joined three years ago, GR would not do anything about it and that person who did it will not reply to any messages from me. I let it go, but now it has happened two more times and I want to vent and warn others that this is happening.

Be very careful who you open your tree to and maybe just put on it, basic descent (which is what I did) but it was still stolen. Contact can be made privately if their is a genuine connection.

lori, this happened to me a few months ago..someone who shared both our trees, told me that this other person had copied my tree right down to my grandchildren(at that time i did not hide living relatives,i do now), so i asked her to remove us , she wouldn't, what she did was change the names of my o.h and children (trying to hide what she had done). so i got in touch with genes and told them i wanted the names removed, they were off within a day.why dont you try genes again ,see if they can help you, good luck ,iris

dont open your tree,,just say you can /will send information and exhange that way,,that way your stuff stays safe,,,,,,if they are living relatives then GR can remove them,,but if they have made written notes then it defeats GR removing them,,,,,,,,

Lor
I am sorry you have been upset but this same sort of message appears nearly every week.

I am going to be a bit of a Devil's advocate here.

This site is called Genesreunited. We are able to open our trees and show other people what we have found. You can choose not to let other people see your tree and only send them snippets of information.

You said in your posting that they have lifted all your information. I know from seeing some other people's trees on GR that there are members who appear to be using this site as their main tree and are adding all sorts of detailed stuff on here. This really surprises me.
My own GR tree has basic information ie place of birth and year. That's it. I have added no pictures, no information about people's occupations, no sensitive information. Above all no-one on my tree is shown as living and all my living cousins and my sibling are missed off completely.
Whatever is on my GR tree could be found in public records if someone had time and energy to look.

When someone does have a connection with my tree and they are someone I let see mine then I say in a message beforehand that they are welcome to use any relevant information about shared ancestors. If someone were to take information about my husband's side of the family as well as mine then I would be a bit surprised but no harm whatsoever would be done. They would simply end up getting a lot of unrelated Hot Matches.

So this is what I say to anyone who is worried about this.
Remove all living people who don't need to be on your GR tree and disguise the names of any (like yourself and spouses) who might need to be.
Keep information on the site to the absolute minimum. If a long lost cousin turns up you can always send them details later by e-mail or PM.
Only open your tree to proven relations and then remind them when you send them a message that you are only happy to share people who are joint ancestors.
Or never open your tree but simply send contacts details of relevant bits.

If your GR tree is simply bare branches then no-one has stolen anything. You've still got all the information which proves it all yourself. You will have all the details on your computer or on paper at home. No-one is getting census or certificate information or photos unless you give them to them.

Sue
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If someone has your living relatives in their tree, contact GR and they will remove them They won't do anything about dead people but will remove living ones.

Sam x

Lorri unfortunately if you open your tree to anyone you are giving the the right to copy the lot! It's in the T & C's

"Please note that, if you make your tree available to other Members, they may take entries from your tree and put them into their tree (even if you do not wish them to). Genes Reunited does not have any liability in this event. However, you must always have permission to include any living individual’s details in your tree."

I don't agree with copying so I rarely open my tree but send the person info from my FTM.

Why are people putting their children on their GR tree?

This site is for making contacts not for creating and storing a full tree.

Get a decent tree program and make your proper full tree offline and saved on your computer with backup discs or paper files.

This GR tree is supposed to be for finding relations and sharing information.

If you open your tree on here then people will rightly assume that you are happy to share whatever you have showed them.

If you keep living people off GR then no-one gets hurt. You may be surprised if your own grandparent turns up on someone else's tree but if your granny is someone's third cousin three times removed then they can add said dead granny if they wish.

Sue

I'm with Sue from Somerset on this one.

If you have ten people researching the same family then you can get ten times as much research and verification by pooling data than by each doing it on their own.

I have spent hundreds of hours and hundreds of pounds gathering my own original data, but I am just pleased if that gives others a head start.

I have just sent a message (not the first) to GR requesting that they make some simple changes.

I've asked that it is no longer default for trees to be open to new contacts and that perhaps a warning comes up if you do click for tree access allowed. Something like "Do you really want to let this person see your tree?"

I have also requested that they make it even clearer to new members that this site is for sharing information and making contacts and not for saving every detail of your family history including all your living relations.

Can I suggest that a lot of us now contact the GR staff and bombard them with similar suggestions. Maybe they will make useful changes to everyone's advantage rather than tinkering with things that don't need altering!

Sue
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Looks like I have been a bit naughty .Did not know I should of asked permission first .Thought that was the idea of sharing.So to all appolagies