Author Topic: Fed Up With Genealogy Tree Thieves  (Read 28238 times)

Offline coppernob

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Re: Fed Up With Genealogy Tree Thieves
« Reply #81 on: Sunday 10 June 07 20:47 BST (UK) »
What about this then >:( >:( :o.

Have you heard of the Cosford database???

a brilliant site for parts of suffolk England, I have had lots of info from this site and it has helped me enormously.

Well, one village on this site has been taken off because someone took the info and used it as their own. No acknowledgement to the rightful "owners".

Downright despicable, so the help I received is not so freely available to help others. It only takes one to spoil things for others. >:(   Feel better now for getting that off my chest :)

Coppernob
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Offline cassandra123

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Re: Fed Up With Genealogy Tree Thieves
« Reply #82 on: Monday 11 June 07 19:21 BST (UK) »
I had someone bully me unmercifully for my family tree although he was not related to me in anyway -  It was later found out that he was collecting anyones trees and advertising them for sale on EBay.

Needless to say  he did not get my tree.

I was rather miffed to say the least that he was making money from other peoples work.

"This sad little lizard told me that he was a brontosaurus on his mother's side.   I did not laugh.
People who boast of ancestry often have little else to sustain them.......

By Robert A Heinlein

Offline Comosus

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Re: Fed Up With Genealogy Tree Thieves
« Reply #83 on: Monday 11 June 07 19:44 BST (UK) »
I had someone bully me unmercifully for my family tree although he was not related to me in anyway -  It was later found out that he was collecting anyones trees and advertising them for sale on EBay.

Needless to say  he did not get my tree.

I was rather miffed to say the least that he was making money from other peoples work.


Were you able to report him to the people who own the website?

Andrew

Offline cazza59

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Re: Fed Up With Genealogy Tree Thieves
« Reply #84 on: Tuesday 12 June 07 00:22 BST (UK) »
 :o :o :o That is unbelieveable Cassandra, the things people do to make a quick dollar.  Have to give him an A for ingenuinity and F for scruples!!!!  >:(

Caz
Wilkinson - Shropshire;  Jones - Hereford; Mitchell - Brighton; Emery - Brighton; Hall - Brighton Christopher - Dorset; Bussell - Dorset; <br /><br /><br />This information Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk<br /><]


Offline Brambletye

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Re: Fed Up With Genealogy Tree Thieves
« Reply #85 on: Sunday 24 June 07 21:30 BST (UK) »
Here is an adaptation from another post I have made, and let it be a lesson to me...

Most of our family info/tree is eventually being shared with family in the form of a booklet, once it is done - not much is online, but a lot of it won't be, not now - I'm afraid we've been stung.

One little **** (supply your own noun) posted up all we'd sent him (a) without asking (b) without informing us (c) put up references to living relatives, on our side and in the USA (d) posted up a personal letter from someone else in the USA, which insulted one of the others over there and probably caused a family rift (implying someone else is a bit dim isn't exactly going to endear you, but the poor man never expected to see it online, I'm certain) (e) in spite of having been asked to stop at gt gt grandparents if anything ever did go up, put up my husband's parents, grandparents and any siblings of either generation he'd been given, luckily the damage wasn't as bad as it could have been - husband's surviving uncle could have taken a very dim view indeed. I guess your man thought the others were fair game because they were dead, but he did know in advance he'd been asked not to do it, so he ignored us.

We discovered it by accident when we found it all on Ancestry Trees.
Not only that, we also discovered that he had found out a lot more on the USA connections since he heard from us last, and hadn't even bothered to e-mail us to let us know - he stopped responding to our messages.

All the offending material has now been removed, but so have all the attributions - everything we gave him backwards of the 1880 USA Census, the last time I looked, was up there as "Xxx's Research", i.e. his own.

Thanks, mate - you had damn all but guesses back beyond 1880, until we came along...

We had the proof that some people basically don't bother with the DIY route on a trip we made to a Records Office at which we are regulars. We spent the whole week in the same room listening to a couple of people who talked incessantly at a high rate of knots and decibels, and on the last day, when the archivist was looking somewhat peed off, we mentioned these two to him. His response was "They've got 300 years' worth of ancestors between them, and this is the first time they've ever set foot in a Records Office".

They were looking for the rich and famous, from what we could hear (and we could hear! believe me). Only problem is, for every belted earl or Norman lordling, there's going to be 50,000 scrofulous peasants - and as great as it would be to have Lord Edmund Blackadder on your tree, likelihood is you'll end up with Baldrick... ;D
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Offline lil growler

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Re: Fed Up With Genealogy Tree Thieves
« Reply #86 on: Tuesday 26 June 07 01:24 BST (UK) »
Hi Inchworm

One of the incentives for a public tree domains is to ( I imagine ) provide and receive information, but thievery is a moral issue belonging to those so inclined and not likely to change so I guess making the tree private, and the owner of the tree sets the terms on how information is exchanged/given maybe the answer? It is just courtesy to ask to copy information from someone else's tree.

As far as I'm aware my tree ( on Ancestory ) hasn't been replicated but I have had a couple of instances of people who have wanted further information which I'm happy to provide ( always refraining from giving one vital piece of information, per query, just to see how genuine the person is ) disappointedly I've never heard back from any of these people even though they've been given additional information.

It seems that people although hunting for more information, upon obtaining it might like to remember that those they receive their information from may also be anticipating a connection and even if the information provided is not a lead it would be nice to know either way.

I can see how annoying it is for you, having put in the hard yards to establish and the ongoing update of additional information to your tree to have it ripped off by someone else but as a small consolation, feel rest assured that this person/s will not have the sense of achievement that you do, the thrill of finding the answers after a long search, and it always comes back and bites them in the b*tt.

cheers

lil
 
Ireland, Scotland , England, America, Australia, New Zealand

Offline Inchworm

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Re: Fed Up With Genealogy Tree Thieves
« Reply #87 on: Tuesday 26 June 07 19:18 BST (UK) »
Hello Lil  :),
Yes, the public tree domains are for sharing information and I have made contact with some very nice people through it. Yes, we have exchanged information, checked out each others and both benefitted.
What we have not done is copy & paste each others trees into our own and then re-used them on every family history site across the globe.
Surely, isn't it polite to ask the owner first if they wouldn't mind their family being added to a larger tree ?
I guess it's all down to manners versus greed. 
 
Regards,
Inchworm
Census information is Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

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Offline lil growler

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Re: Fed Up With Genealogy Tree Thieves
« Reply #88 on: Tuesday 26 June 07 22:44 BST (UK) »
Well said Inchwom

Manners go a long way.

cheers

lil
Ireland, Scotland , England, America, Australia, New Zealand

Offline Brambletye

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Re: Fed Up With Genealogy Tree Thieves
« Reply #89 on: Monday 09 July 07 21:21 BST (UK) »
This sort of tree thief behaviour rather reminds me (I'm showing my age again...) of the "rock chicks" in the 1970s who used to "collect" lead guitarists in heavy metal bands -  in much the same way as 9 year olds used to collect stamps before the advent of Bratz dolls.

How about we coin a new name, and call these people "surname groupies" - that's about what it amounts to in many cases. I came across a site the other day that was so huge it would barely load (yeah, OK, on dial-up) and it was just a list of names - at least 1500 of them. I don't think the site authors give the proverbial about the lives or the history of the people on their massive lists - they're worse than train-spotters. :P

I'd be interested to see any other suggestions you can come up with to give a tag to these hangers-on - BMD Bandits, GEDCOM Grabbers or PAF-File Parasites were other thoughts I had in mind. I could think of a few more, but as we're online, we'll have to keep it clean...!  ;D

...any more ideas? 
Census information is Crown Copyright, from www.nationalarchives.gov.uk.