The past couple of days I've been thinking about this thread and comments on and contemplating if I need to give up my hobby and just delete my tree. I know everyone will find this hard to beleive but it really distresses me when I upset people and I never set out to upset people. It pains me that I manage to do so so often.
So keeping a private tree isn't an option as it has become apparent that this not just upsets people but makes them very angry. However just changing it to public isn't really an option either as that would upset the people I refer to in my post from a couple of days ago. These are people whom I know personally, some my whole life.
I haven't done it yet because I am selfish and it is my only hobby, I don't really go out unless it's for work, school run or messages. I hope people appreciate how difficult it is to scrub 20 years of work.
I'd like to put forward one piece of defence, not to try and convince people I shouldn't delete my tree but maybe diffuse some of the ire towards me. I can honestly say that of all my sources not oe of them is another ancestry tree. All my documents I have fall into one of the following categories: They were in my possession before I started researching, they were given to me (orscans of same) were given to me by people with whom I am in contact and who knew they'd be used for my tree or I sourced them myself from the local archives/GRO/GROS/NAS/TNA etc. I have given copies of the documents and photos in my possession to family, have sourced documents for non-related people who live far fromthe archives I was visiting and I have taught others how to use the archives I am familiar with.
My sources are:
birth, death and marriage certificates. I have been lucky in many ways that a significant proportion of my family are Scottish so I have easy access to these via NRH and they format makes cross referencing easier ie birth certs have parents date and place of marriage if applicable, marriage certs have mothers and fathers names and death certificates have spouse(s)where applicable aswell as both parents names.
parish records baptism, marriage and burial Scotland's People, NRH
census returns again many accessed via NRH
newspaper BDM announcements accessed via clippings already in possession, local archives and British Newspaper archive
newspapers articles that reference ancestors or events they were involved in acessed as above
probate calender entries Ancestry records collection not trees
wills mixture of Ancestry records collection and Scotland's People New Register house
monumental inscriptions and memorial plaques from visiting cemeteries, churches and Find a Grave.
Family bible in family possession
family letters in family possession and TNA
University records matricualtion and graduation, dissertations from individual University archives
HEIC staff records TNA
Burke's and debretts the local library
bookseg have an ancestor referred to in a book about Robert Burns referenced Harvard style in tree.Books about local history eg another ancestor was victim of a mining disaster
CWGC entries on their own site
WW1 medal cards and pension records accessed via Ancestry records collection
I think I may have missed something but hopefully it gives you the idea.
