How cross would you be, or am I over reacting?

[SharonK]

Hello all 

I have a tree on GR that I have allow others access to if it turns out we have common ancestors. A while back I had contact with a lady with whom I share ancestors quite a long way back (late 1700s are our common ancestors). I allowed her access to my tree and we swopped a few messages. I used her tree to check what information I had to see if we agreed etc and tweaked a few things because she obviously knew her 'branch' better than I did. I didn't copy any people to my tree further than those directly related to mine and her common ancestors, ie just the next generation down. I don't consider those beyond that to be direct enough relatives especially given the distance back on the tree.

Recently I was searching on ancestry for a totally unconnected surname on my tree from a different branch and was delighted to see that someone had an ancestor of mine so I eagerly clicked on it to see what they knew. I was excited to see it as it was quite a 'close' relative of mine, a great grandparent I think, and I thought I might find a close cousin. I was staggered to see lots and lots of detail both 'down' the tree to my living relatives (uncles) and back as far as I knew for that surname (around 1800). It turns out that this was the SAME person who had seen my tree on GR in connection with another surname! She had copied all the way down from our common ancestors to my father's generation and then back 'up' my paternal grandmothers line back to 1800!!

Firstly I don't 'get' this as they are not her relatives at all and I am rather annoyed that she has copied all this very detailed information to a public site that I have as private on a different website. Whilst I totally understand all these genealogy websites are about sharing and swopping information (and I do - lots!) and we all wouldn't get half as far if we didn't, this was done without asking and without her having any connection to these relatives at all!? If anyone was to contact her about them (like I tried to!) then she wouldn't be able to offer them any help because she doesn't 'know' them IYSWIM. I think she must do this a lot and is a 'name collector' because her tree has nearly 6000 names on it.

I wouldn't have minded at all about her copying down to my grandparents (both decd) on that line but it seems madness to copy my whole tree?!

Does this happen to others and if so how do you feel about it ? Am I wrong to feel a bit cross?
thanks
Sharon

[SooCatt]

Hi
This happened to me a while ago now.  Imagine my surprise when my 'hot matches' showed ME! and a number of other living relatives.  I contacted the person but received no reply so I contacted Genes Reunited and they acted very quickly and all the living relatives were removed.

Soo

[SharonK]

Mmm I think someone else added me and other living relatives to GR so if they will remove I might ask them to. Thanks for that info, its good to know.

The lady who is on GR and Ancestry I have contacted and asked her to remove but I don't think she will. Thankfully there aren't many actual living relatives on there but I'm still annoyed that all my research has been copied and quite unnecessarily really!

Sharon

[johngirl]

Hi Sharon,

Yes it happens to people all the time including me. They have even taken my photo`s and put them on their tree.
I contacted a person about my Isaac line as he seemed to have the same ancestors from the 1500`s up till the early 1800`s. I thought great he must be a long lost very distant cousin and would be able to give me a bit of information on my Isaac ancestors. I gave him my line from the 1500`s which he did have and then gave him more details up till late  1880`s  which he didn`t have. He let me access his tree. It had 23,000 people in it It would not download properly and kept freezing at a certain point .I couldn`t view his tree.  ::)I reckon it was too overloaded with dead rellies most of which I reckon were not even one bit related to him. I went back later onto GR and found that his name was now connected to my ancestors that I had given him in a PM on GR.
I had given him a few more names to add to his collection of names

  Johngirl






  

[Half Pint]

Hi

I was very, very angry when it happened to me but all my husband said was"if you put it into the public domain, what do you expect".  After nearly commiting murder and being in a mood for a few hours, I sat down and rationally thought about what I really want from it being out there.

I now have my tree on Ancestry, Genes and Tribal Pages, but with only their names along with the dates and place of their bmds.  No photo's, sources or notes are attached.  I work on a private database where I include everything and then just export a gedcom over to them every so often, which only takes about 5 minutes in total.  Luckily TMG allows you to choose what you include on the gedcom. 

If genuine people contact me [and a lot have] through these then I am more than happy to share the information they need or want, but I choose who, what and how much I give.

It seems to be, as in a lot of things, the minority spoil it for the majority.

Regards

Half Pint

[Half Pint]

Hi Johngirl

I had one person who opened her tree to me.  She was 17 years old and had over 80,000 names on her tree.  Now I have spent a lot of time working on my tree over the last 10 years and have just under 4,000 names so she must have either inherited the work or is just a number collector!!!!!!!!!!

I didn't open up mine.

Regards

Half Pint

[Les de B]

Yes, Sharon, know how you feel. I actually had an person (not known to me) send me an attachment on my direct relatives including their individuals life stories.  It was fantastic information, as it should have been - it was my own attachment I had sent another researcher several months previously. What irked me was, there was no reference to me having originated this attachment, nor had anyone the decency to amend my original spelling/typing mistakes.

I know the information is open to the public i.e.BDM's, but not in story form, the way I wrote it. At least if I am given some information I retain the facts but change the way it is presented.

I only deal with direct blood ancestors, their siblings, and siblings' immdiate families - that's enough for me.

Les

[Lydart]

I think in these days of easily available information on the net, whether its emails or web-sites, Facebook, blogs ... we need to remember when we press the 'enter' key ... its anyone's information ! 

[mongoose2]

I know this might be shutting the stable door so to speak but I have all living rellies as living, its a tick box on GR. that way should I share info they can only see people who are deceased.

As has been said on similar posts if someone needs some info I ask them for which branch and send me an email and I send them a report in pdf  form and they then get what they want and I safeguard my info


Barry