Consious of the fact that I have received much generous help over the years on RootsChat, I try to offer help where I can, which is not often, since I’m not very good at the lateral thinking in family history that many RootsChat helpers are so good at.
Recently, I happened upon a family tree of Ancestry, which looked quite well-researched, and was backed up with documentation and annotations which suggested that its creator was not simply a name collector. I therefore sent them an Ancestry pm:
“Hi -, I came across your family tree containing - - who married - -. You seem to have been misled, as was I, by the records available online on his parentage. I spent ages constructing the wrong tree for him. If you would like me to let you have the correct info, please let me know, and I’d be happy to do so. The info isn’t avaiable online (only in my local record office). I’m only approaching you in this way because the annotations in your tree suggest to me that you take family history seriously, and aren’t just a ‘name collector’.
Regards, Dave”
Subsequently, I supplied images (not simply transcriptions) of the documents I had (following generous help on RC) located in the record office. The tree owner altered their tree accordingly, but has subsequently removed her alterations, and is awaiting further “proof” of my “claims”, (whatever that “proof could be, beyond the pretty-much definitive evidence I have already supplied, it is difficult to know.)
On a separate occasion recently, I contacted a distant cousin I had managed to find. I eventually heard from his sister (he had passed on my message, not himself being interested in FH). She claimed to be interested in FH, and to have a lot of knowledge of her maternal ancestry, but very little of her paternal. We had quite a long and (I thought) interesting conversation, and I offered to let her have the Google Drive link to my pretty comprehensive history pdf of my surname line, which contains her paternal ancestry. However, because she seems to be super-cautious about online security, it seems extremely unlikely that she’ll be taking me up on my offer. It seems a shame, because her branch of the family seems especially interesting, and she knows so little of it.
Why am I having such a job to GIVE my info away? It is frustrating. I have no children to leave any of my FH to, and am only too happy to share what I have with anyone with a genuine interest, and yet I can’t even give the stuff away!
Dave
