So if I understand correctly, Dave, you would accept something from someone's private tree and then publish it on your own public tree? I know in this case you will argue that it is a public document, but would you also do the same with any other information you were given from a private tree ie photos, family stories? This is the very reason that so many of us keep our trees private. If I share photos I always ask that they are kept private and are not added to a public tree. I hope that the person I am sharing with will have the decency to respect my wishes.
To go back to the point about being ignored - has the person in question responded at all? If not, how do you know that she has seen your requests? She may not be working on her tree at the moment and so is not using Ancestry, she may be ill or have even died. A good friend of mine, the mother on law of a second cousin, has 4 private trees on Ancestry, all highly sourced. However, she sadly died two years ago. As the trees remain there for all to see, anyone asking for details will not get a reply.
Groom, forgive me, but I'm feeling pretty sensitive and annoyed about this, and fancy there's something judgmental going on here about me and my motives. If I'm wrong, then I apologise.
No, I would
not publish documents or photos obtained in good faith and confidentially from a private tree, without first obtaining prior permission of the owner, so please let me make that perfectly clear. I do not like any inference that I might do otherwise, or the calling into question of what I might or might not do.
The document referred to here is one that has, until recently, been in the public domain. It is one that I could have obtained myself, had I known Medway Cityark were going to start limiting parish register scans available for public viewing and downloading.
The person in question, a private tree owner, has responded, yes, and you'd need to view my earlier posts to see exactly what happened. To summarise for you, I'd asked politely for a copy of the image concerned (of the parish scan of a marriage ceremony), explaining why I wanted it, and telling her a little of myself. The reply I received was simply, "This lady was my aunt". Later webmailed correspondences yielded similar, short, irrelevant answers. At no point has the woman said why she won't send me the image, and I've found it very frustrating - and very rude of her. I'm not about to crawl. At the very least, she could have said she wasn't willing to provide me with a copy, but she hasn't even done that. She's been active regularly on Ancestry, as reported by that website.
FIN.
