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

[mofid42]

I'm just curious to know how many of you take the time to point out errors that others have made with their research, especially when they have wrongly added your ancestors to their tree, or do you just ignore it?

I ask because a very good cyber friend of mine is having problems with someone at the moment who has wrongly added her ancestors to their tree and regularly copies photos and documents that my friend adds to her tree. But no matter how many times my cyber friend has sent polite messages to the other tree owner trying to explain their error its just not penetrating. All she gets in return are messages telling her she is being rude and mean and the whole point of family history is to share information. Understandably my friend is getting quite upset, confused and frustrated.

My friend purposefully keeps her tree public because she is more than happy to share and doesn't mind others copying items or information, but this person really is beginning to bother her!!

[giraffe]

My first instinct is to say "Yes", but of course we have no control over what others do. I do sympathise with your friend, the same thing has happened to me (and no doubt to many others), but I have ony had polite replies and messages of thanks for identifying their error.
I think it is their loss, not your friend's, as they do not want to know that they are entering incorrect lineage in their tree.
It is possible that somewhere along the line someone else, distantly connected, will point out their errors. Then they will have the problem of amending their tree, which could be really traumatic for them (serves them right!).
Please send my condolences to your friend, and suggest that she simply ignores this nuisance person.
giragffe

[adeline B]

Hi mofid42,

I recently contacted the owner of a tree on ancestry because they had my 3x great grandparents on his tree, he replied me back saying they were not connected to his tree so I replied back that he should remove them I find this to be a common problem. I would not put anyone on my tree without proper documents to prove they are in my tree line.I feel for your friend also.

adeline b

[Craclyn]

If it is a serious researcher who has made a mistake I would contact them. If it is clearly a work of fiction I stay well away from them so they nare not tempted to copy more of my genuine info. I have an American fiction artist who has one of my Northumbrian relatives who died in WW1 in her tree with US parents and birthplace. I know he is mine and he is English. He was born in Amble, has a headstone there and I have his widow's penny in my cupboard. Not planning to tell the plagiarist that though.

[mofid42]

Thank you all for your replies, I will pass on your sympathies to my friend as I know she is feeling very fed up at the moment.

I do understand what my friend is going through as its happened to me too. Someone has wrongly added dozens of my paternal ancestors to her tree. I've tried pointing out her mistake via messages and even left comments on her tree but nothing made any difference, instead she just carried on adding more and more including photos that she took from my cousins public tree.

In the end I got so frustrated I decided to research her true ancestors for her! I built a tree which I left public hoping one day she will find it and realise her mistake....don't know if she has spotted it yet, possibly not as she hasn't changed her tree although she's obviously signed in many times since I built the tree.

Actually I quite enjoyed doing her tree as there was some interesting characters including the career criminal who was a right rogue!!!

[mofid42]

I passed on all your sympathies to my friend and she has just messaged me back to say thank you

[HannahB]

So on another genealogy site there is a group being very helpful to someone in looking for her mother.  However  one of the surnames is one of my surnames and one of the posts contains conjectures about my grandmother which are scurrilous, untrue and I suppose if Granny were alive would be libellous.  Sometime ago I wrote and told the poster she was very much mistaken but have been completely ignored.  I really do not like this being out there but is there anything else I can do about it?  Hannah

[mofid42]

That is awful HannahB, you must be really upset.

I just cannot understand this growing phenomenon of people who are Ancestor Stealer's. Surely the whole point of researching your family history is to make sure its accurate and it is YOUR ancestors you are adding to your tree.

Yet nine times of ten when you contact these people who have wrongly added your ancestors to their tree to inform them of their error, ask politely for them to remove the information and any photos and documents they have copied, they either ignore you or if they do reply simply accuse you of  being rude and selfish before carrying on as if nothing has been said. Never once do they query why you think they have made an error.

And sadly there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it.

There is a public tree on a well known genealogy website that has my grandfather, his siblings, parents, aunts and uncles,grandparents and their photos all attached to the wrong family. If it wasn't for the fact the website hides information about living people I may well have found myself attached to the tree too!!!....and did the tree owner care when I pointed out their error....not one bit as it wasn't even their family tree, they were doing it for someone else!!.

[Plummiegirl]

Much as I sympathise, having had my tree scrumped in the past.  Now private.

There is the 'problem' with Ancestry whereby you get 'hints' for family members, now I have found that many people just add these hints to people in their trees without actually checking to see if the hint refers to the same person. 

This happened recently with my g/grandfather who had a very unusual middle name and I found him listed with sons & daughters married to some strange woman in someone elses tree.

I contacted this person, informed them that they had the wrong man, explained I had documentary evidence & photographs to back up all I had told them. 

They came back thanked me and said they would amend their tree which they have.

But I still have a family member on an Australian Tree, she never left the country, never married the man in their tree, again I have this time provided copies of the documents, but although they accept that they are in the wrong, they have not amended their tree.

Their loss.   If you do not make your tree private, I would suggest that you add 1 fictitious person, with a sufficiently unusual name and then see how many scrumpers pinch this name.