A word of warning!!

[klewis]

There is a program called GEDMARK which enables publishers to ensure that their work is permanently and indelibly marked as to its original origins.

I was interested to see how GEDMARK would achieve this, so I visited their website to find out. As I understand it, it works by adding a new source (the publisher of the tree) as a source for all individuals in a GEDCOM file. While this is a useful feature, in that it encourages correct attribution, it isn't actually permanent or indelible. If someone wanted to steal a tree marked with GEDMARK and claim it was their own work, it would be relatively easy to remove the source.

[Treetotal]

I think if you take information from an online source you should have the courtesy to include the source in your tree if you cannot contact them for their permission..I would never claim other peoples' work as my own as I wouldn't like it to be done to me...but we must all be mindful of the fact that if we put it out there...it's open to abuse..a fact we amatuer genealogists have to accept...and if you do put family photos online...just include a thumbnail shot.
Carol

[Sloe Gin]

For the life of me, I can't understand why people are so bothered by this.  Why should it bother you at all what gives genealogical satisfaction to someone else?  If someone enjoys collecting names, so what?

Hear hear.

I am presently communicating with someone about the daughter of my ggg uncle's wife's brother.  She is unrelated to me [biologically speaking] but she is buried in the grave site of my family and so she is someone of interest to me even though she is not a blood relative.  I would like to know how it is that she came to live withh my ggg uncle's wife as an unofficially adopted daughter.

A good example.  And distant family connections can sometimes prove to be valuable clues at some other point in research, so it can be worth keeping notes of them.

[Redroger]

I got GEDMARK from a fairly recent cover disk with Family History Monthly. My understanding was that it protected your work by indelibly adding unremoveable information as to its source.If I am wrong, would it be technically feasible to produce such a program at a reasonable cost?

[Nick29]

I got GEDMARK from a fairly recent cover disk with Family History Monthly. My understanding was that it protected your work by indelibly adding unremoveable information as to its source.If I am wrong, would it be technically feasible to produce such a program at a reasonable cost?

Since a GEDCOM file is a text file, there is nothing you can do to it which can't easily be removed with a "Search and Replace" tool.

Even the authors of the program admit that if you go the forum on their site. 

http://progeny.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=221

[Redroger]

Thanks Nick, so that's it then, really we are legless when it comes to defending ourselves against plagiarism etc.

[pjbuk007]

Surely it is all down to individual risk assessment regarding putting data on the internet?

If it is out there, then people will nick it and possibly use it in ways you do not like.  But really, there is not much to be done about it in many cases.

If you find the thought of other people "adopting" your relatives and their photos etc abhorrent, then just do not put your tree on the internet.

If you think the contacts are worth it the risk, then you have to put up with the data being purloined in ways you cannot control.

I do not have my tree(s) on the web, but might if I ever get them organised enough. But it would be on my own website, not Ancestry or Genes.

The thing that irks me is that newbies start off an Ancestry tree, without realising the full implications.  I did 5 years ago but soon got the online tree offline.

But I am not all that interested in finding long lost cousins, although three have turned up via rootschat and good old snail mail.

[Nick29]

The thing that irks me is that newbies start off an Ancestry tree, without realising the full implications.  I did 5 years ago but soon got the online tree offline.

Ahh, but can I still look at it ?

"The Wayback Machine" 

I've just been looking at RootsChat pages from 2003 !   

[pjbuk007]

Every time I post it seems that Nick (who I often agree with) and one other rooter HAVE to post something to show they  are  better/more net savvy/more generally wonderful  than me.

Yes Nick, I know about that site.  You are much cleverer and more wonderful than I.

Goodbye Rootschat.  For a while, anyway