When you find an error on someone else's tree, do you tell them?

[Viktoria]

`fess up, you `ll feel better and the main thing is your genuine relatives won`t be "lost". The main reasons for doing family history seem to be our own ,natural curiosity about our ancestors but then we want them to be remembered, so it is essential you get it sorted. We all admire someone big enough to admit mistakes and those you made are very common, we`ve all pretty well done that in our eagerness . Cheerio and let us know. Viktoria.

[jbml]

I favour making contact - but NOT telling them that they're wrong (cos it might be that they're not ... and I am!)

My usual message tends to run something like "Hi - I see from your tree on [site] that we're both interested in Nebuchadnezzar Ashbie [or whoever], who was my great x11 grandfather. Most of our research appears to tally, but there are a few places where we have arrived at different conclusions, in particular:

[list of discrepancies]

Would you be interested in exchanging notes on the evidence we have each relied upon, to see if we can get to the bottom of these differences?

Kind regards ..."


I've been ignored more often than not ... but I've never been accused of being rude or unhelpful (yet ...)

I have, however, encountered the "stolen ancestor" phenomenon referred to by the OP. A certain, extensive family tree has appropriated my great uncle Ken, married him off to one of their womefolk, and given him children and (I think) grandchildren.

Same name ... wrong man. My great uncle Ken was a homosexual who moved to America to gain greater acceptance. He never married, never fathered any children, and died in 2002. My great aunt Shirley (who is still alive) scattered his ahes in the potomac. He does NOT belong in this other family tree ... and nor do any of his forebears, all of whom are also my forebears.

I have written and told him this, but to no effect.

And, you know, I feel strangely violated by this. Not, so much, by the fact that they have miappropriated by forebears (whom I share with LOADS of other people ... my grandfather and great uncle Ken had 8 other siblings besides Shirley; their father had seven siblings; his father had 9 siblings; his father had 7 siblings ... yep: there's plenty of other people who share my forebears!) but by the fact that they are wrongly accusing my great uncle Ken of having been a married heterosexual with children. It took a lot of courage in the 1940s and 1950s to be open about one's homosexuality; and somehow their claims that Great Uncle Ken was married with children seem to detract from the courage he showed. That doesn't seem fair to him at all![/list]

[Stuart273]

I have a tree that's grown and grown on the A site, and yes I do check out hints to see what they're like but I don't tend to add them unless I'm reasonably confident of the details. I was contacted about one aunt I'd married off to the wrong person and duly deleted that person (though it took me a while to do so as I took a break from the whole tree thing), thanking the person for the information. If I'm wrong about something then I like to hear about it; bottom line I prefer accuracy over numbers. If I see something on another tree that might be relevant to mine but I'm not sure of I'll politely email the other person and try and get a dialogue going with regard to where/how they got their information. Trouble seems to be that a lot of the people I look at last logged in 6 months or more ago.
What I never do is load personal photos to the tree, nor put others on mine. The only photos I have uploaded are .jpgs of documents, and to be honest I don't mind if people copy those over if it helps them get their facts right.

[Leanne.]

I've often wondered if I should tell people or not. I would want to know if I had made a mistake.
I have contacted a few people in the past when I noticed we had the same people on the tree but different information. I sent them a message and asked them where they got the info so I could double check it against my records to make sure I didn't make a mistake.

Most of the time they never reply.

[Treetotal]

I offer corrections on trees that include my family where I know the information is incorrect...sometimes I get a response but not always as some haven't logged on for some time....I hate to see my family added to the wrong line 
As for photos...I wouldn't mind mine being added to the correct tree but it is only fair that permission should be granted first...Family history is for sharing...unfortunately there are a few who think it is okay to take... without sharing what they have 
If you don't want your photos to be taken by others... then don't put them out there.
Carol

[Leanne.]

I offer corrections on trees that include my family where I know the information is incorrect...sometimes I get a response but not always as some haven't logged on for some time....I hate to see my family added to the wrong line 
As for photos...I wouldn't mind mine being added to the correct tree but it is only fair that permission should be granted first...Family history is for sharing...unfortunately there are a few who think it is okay to take... without sharing what they have 
If you don't want your photos to be taken by others... then don't put them out there.
Carol

I got a few old photos from my grandmother, I scanned them and added them to my tree.
Someone saved a copy to their tree, when I went to look at the tree their tree was private.
I sent a message and asked them what part of the family they were from, and would they like to exchange information. They never replied.

[aghadowey]

I sent a message to someone a week or so ago saying 'you seem to have attached X to your family tree by mistake, his parents were actually...' but probably will never hear from them.

The same day I found what I was sure was a distant relative (same distinctive first and last names, birthdate and place, parents, etc.) and was surprised to see that she had married (family notes say she never married)... and then even more surprised that there was not 1 but 7 husbands, some with children attached (some of the same children attached to more than 1 father even). The supposed husbands and children overlapped and if the tree was accurate then not only was she a bigamist several times over but she managed to produce 3 children in 1 year by different father in 3 different countries. There's obviously no point in telling this person there's a little mistake in their family tree... 

[Leanne.]

I sent a message to someone a week or so ago saying 'you seem to have attached X to your family tree by mistake, his parents were actually...' but probably will never hear from them.

The same day I found what I was sure was a distant relative (same distinctive first and last names, birthdate and place, parents, etc.) and was surprised to see that she had married (family notes say she never married)... and then even more surprised that there was not 1 but 7 husbands, some with children attached (some of the same children attached to more than 1 father even). The supposed husbands and children overlapped and if the tree was accurate then not only was she a bigamist several times over but she managed to produce 3 children in 1 year by different father in 3 different countries. There's obviously no point in telling this person there's a little mistake in their family tree... 

Sometimes it makes you wonder if people ever check their own research.
I found a tree with my family members on it but they had my great grandfather listed as the father for my gggrandfather. They had the birth dates correct for each of them, so I can't work out how they didn't notice that the "son" was born before the "dad" lol
Also they had his sister, listed as his spouse.

[sharonmx5]

A few months ago someone added my father in law to their tree on A.  It was very obviously wrong and I messaged them to tell them so.  They removed him but didn't communicate with me, which was fine by me.

I have disabled hints from other researchers on A.  Whilst they are interesting, I found the number of inaccurate ones alarming and they become a distraction.