Is Family History starting to sour?

[Pinetree]

I don't think family history could ever turn sour for me and on Rootschat there are so many wonderful people prepared to give up their time, experience and even credits to help others even the very occasional negative experience could never outweigh all the positive ones.

A number of my attempts to make contact with other researchers on Ancestry seem to have disappeared into a black hole even though the connection is quite close.  However I have made lots of great contacts over the years and just recently a relative of OH responded to a message I had posted and we have shared certificates, newspaper cuttings and best of all photographs relating to the family.  One contact like that more than makes up for any disappointments  .

Pinetree

[Redroger]

Yes Pinetree, I have had many similar experiences, as I believe I have said before I have made more progress in the 5 months I've been on Rootschat than during the previous 12 years.

[joboy]

Are you able to define the 'object' of your research?
Is it?
(a) Direct Male line Family Research
(b) Paternal and Maternal direct line ancestors
(c) Extended Family Research
(d) Customised Family Research
(e) 'All in' Family Research
(f) One name study
There may be other forms of research that I cant think of which can be added.
When I started I took the 'scattergun' approach which I think a lot of beginners do and after two or three years it become obvious that I needed some discipline and I became quite brutal with all my files and notes and took on Alexander Pope's quotation that  “Order is Heaven's first law.” .... and I think it has worked.
Accepting your particular 'object' of research ... how have you set out to 'maintain the objective' and not get 'sidelined' with costs involved or 'name gatherers' or the 'lack of courtesy' from some people?

As a researcher what is your attitude toward helping others who have kindly had some input to this topic but are having some difficulty with their research? ... such as;
Reply no12 from 'nameless'
Reply no 20 from 'rw mcgowan'
Reply no 51 from 'Kaybron'
Reply no 55 from 'janeyann'
Reply no 58 from 'Barbara348'
Just a few thoughts from
joboy

[Wiggy]

Reply No 58 says it all for me!

As a newly retired pensioner, I am amazed at how quickly the costs add up when doing research - and therefore have been most grateful for the pointers from people on this forum to set me on my way - and for the first class information given when I've hit a wall.   

Thanks all. 

 Re the other question about my object in this research - well finding out the Great . . . . level of family for a start then mainly maternal and paternal direct line beyond that will be a good start..

Wiggy

[BevL]

Hi
Many people come into family history in various ways.  Mine started after my nephew showed me what he and his son had done for a school project of their family history and how it had gotten him interested enough to try to find out more.
Now we both do it and regularly exchange snippets of information we get.
Yes, we are lucky to have the internet to help us out but while I realise a lot of people didn't have that start, it shouldn't make those of us who do use the internet any less captivated by their families than those who had to 'slug' it out with all the parish registers etc. they had to endure.
We all still have to confirm our parentage with birth certificates and the like.
Kind regards
Bev

[BevL]

My apologies - I also forgot to add that of all the other sites I joined in my search, this is now the only site I use as it has everything needed to help out ... kind people!
 
Bev

[Hazel17]

I've been reading this thread with interest over the last few days and it is strange the things that intrigue the most when finding your tree.

I am researching all the direct ancestors of my 4 grandparents - I'm just nosy to want to know everything I can. I try and fill in the bare bones of dates with info from wills, trade directories and all those other sources that fill in the details about people.

Bu it is my maternal grandfather's father's line that intrigues me the most (my great-grandfather). I started researching when the 1901 census came online. I don't know whether my great grandfather's line intrigues me most as he was the person I first looked for on the census (my mum saying let's find my grandfather when we first logged on) or whether it was the fact that when his son (my grandfather) died he left a collection of memorial cards form funerals that took place 1900-1930. Some names we knew, others we knew must be related by their surname so I wanted to know who they were. I also discovered that even though we knew his place of birth we couldn't find him using that to search but typing in Essex as the place of birth found the entry. So I started enjoying the hunt ofsearching then.
The thing is my great-grandfather's line come from the tiny village he was born in back to when the PR's begin there in the 1680s. They are all as far as I have found ag labs. No scandals or anything  curious. The odd illegitimate baby but nothing remarkable but this is the line that still intrigues me the most. I have other more interesting lines, especially in my father's side of the family who move around a lot but I still feel a pull to my great grandfather's side. I visited the little village he came from last year and it felt like 'home'. I am now trying to do a mini one name study on his surname linking all the people with that surname in that parish.
Sometimes I google for that name and parish and I have come across more trees that link to this line done by other people than any other branch of my family. Some are collections of names that make no sense but some are well researched tress that I have made contact with the owners. So is there something in shared DNA that make some branches of a family more interested in family history than others? Some names in my family only show my own posts on here when I google their names and but this line appears in so many links even though it links back to a small hamlet.
I have done all my research myself with the net, reading books , ordering certs, an FindMyPast sub, going to archives until I joined a message board last year. Now I am on the brickwalls bit of my tree.
I am quite happy to help others but sometimes I wish people would look a little more on all the links that are stickies at the top of  boards and read what they can find before asking questions.
However, sometimes 2 heads are better than 1 as they say and sometimes someone will suggest somewhere new to look and I will go off and search there and find new information.
So no I dont think fh will ever sour for me.

[IgorStrav]

When I started researching my family history, I had my tree on Genes, and incautiously opened it to someone who may possibly be related to me - we haven't proved it yet. 

I am absolutely fine with sharing all my research with anyone who is connected to me - indeed I go out looking to find them! -  but when I call this person a "name gatherer" I mean that he put on his tree absolutely all my details, all living family members, including my partner's family which is not connected in any way to him.  And what interest can it be to him, in any case?

So I left my very inaccurate tree on Genes, don't release it to anyone, and started my research on Ancestry.  Recently I saved my Ancestry tree and uploaded it on Genes and have now an explosion of new hot matches, some of which are really interesting - and people are evidently very surprised to have me pop up in their own matches with a lot of relevant names.

But I do think it depends how serious you are.  I try to have all my research backed up with census and birth refs, but I am constantly finding inaccurate stuff I put on in my enthusiasm some years back (I had the embarrassing discovery that a name on my tree - a Genes hot match - seems totally unrelated to anyone, I can't find how it links in at all  although it must have done at some point) and am now thinking I need a very organised edit of the tree.

But there is always so much to do on the tree, whether it's entering all the details from the census like precise address and occupation, and tripping over names on the same page which relate to the family, or looking up the history of the time, or speculating exactly how two of the ancestors met and married......

Let alone the ambition which is I am sure shared by many others that I will, one day, put it all down in a book.  For the family, of course.

[Framesmiths1816]

When I first started family history research ( about two years ago) it would have been fair to call me one of those 'name gatherers'. When I came across information I had this belief that I needed to record everything because I did not know when it might be useful or if I would loose the source. However, as I began to understand the process and become familiar with the methods and sources this became less important. The importance and necessity of accuracy and correct attribution started to grow. However I did not and would not copy anyone else's research wholesale or without asking their permittion first and granting my permission to copy what I had if it was useful to them. I have also become more reserved about opening my tree and prefer to establish a clear connecting first.

If I have one gripe it is the two or three word requests for information with no attempt to be either polite or helpful by even telling me the dates for the person(s) they are interested in.

These days I follow key names/lines in my family and try not to get distracted by very distant connections unless it proves to be particularly interesting or someone needs some help.

On balance, I think that more people doing family history and putting information out there is a good thing because you never know what a connection, however distant, might bring up. So maybe we have to put up with the name gatherers and apparently ungrateful people but surely this is an opportunity to educate them, as the people who helped me also educated me.

I try to do what I can for people on rootschat if I think I can add something to a thread and now I am an RAOGK volunteer.  This wouldn't have happened if a lot of people hadn't been kind enough to be patient with me and give me a great deal of help.

FS