Genealogy Chat

Hi Janet, I have only added the names of living relatives who have given me permission but as GR states we are not allowed to add names of living without their permission then it means people must have permission from each of my living relatives to add their names and not just add them because I shared my tree otherwise GR would say you may not add names of living people without their permission unless someone else shared them with you. My Children are aged between 20yrs and 8mths and whilst they have been added to my tree they are just on there as Mr, Miss, Master etc. Except for one of my daughters who sadly passed away, her name is on my tree. When my eldest child turned 18 I asked him about changing his Master to his name and he said he would rather I didn't but could I change him to Mr....lol My next son is also 18 but as he has so many problems I don't feel he understands enough to grant me permission so have just changed his name to Mr. Shaz

Just a thought - when I joined GR, I understood that it was inadvisable to add living relatives without their permission-which would mean they would need to agree to their details being shared, and would also presuppose they would be old enough to grant that permission. As a result, I didn't add anyone alive to my tree. Surely, if you DO choose to add someone living to your tree, especially if that relative is a minor, you have to accept a measure of personal responsibility if another member chooses to to access that information which you have freely chosen to give ?

Although I posted earlier on this thread I will post again... If I have offended anyone by using the term rellies I apologise but have to say get over it... it doesn't make me any less a researcher and I mean no disrespect to anyone's ancestors when I use the term. I have also stated time and time again that I don't mind anyone with a link taking info from my tree, as a matter of fact I am usually the first to offer copies of certs, census pages, newspaper articles, will, etc etc. I don't mind how distant the link is. I tend to go off on a tangent researching the siblings of my GGG Grandparents and their offspring so I often end up with people contacting me because they are interested in a certain Jane Bloggs who was the sister of their Great Great Grandmother and in these cases I cannot help them go any further back but can sometimes help them come forward. I have old newspaper cuttings that contain articles on some of my ancestors and if any other names are mentioned on the article I do name searches on here and contact others to see if the other person may be their relation and again I share. However the fact that someone may want to take my own step fathers name and add it to their tree when he isn't even genetically linked to me in anyway (never mind them) seems a bit pointless and then to take my fathers step father and stick that on their tree too when the only link we have is a distant one through my mother in my opinion is just plain stupid. Every ancestor in my tree is either genetically linked to me or was married to someone linked to me and fathered/bore their children. Also I don't check what people have done with info... but when your hot matches come through and you see that a person has now added half of your living family its pretty obvious. Shaz

OC, I too have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours researching, I cant hope to get anywhere near the thousands of hours you have spent but I do like to think that what I have is my own work and not just lifted from someone else. I think at the end of the day, we should do what we feel comfortable with. If you are not comfortable with someone copying your entire tree, then don't let them have sight in the first place. I have now been in touch which just about everyone on this site who hase interest in the names in my tree. Only a very small few have chosen to use anything but a small amout of my information in their tree, and then only those bits which ther relate to directly. I am quite happy researching other peoples lines as well, provided they have some sort of connection to my own research. Just this week I did some work for a couple in Australia where the wife is descended from a well known Liverpool name who we have close connections by marriage. It turns out that theirs is a different line to ours - at least so far - but this makes it no less interesting. I have just emailed them a tree and report with some twenty additional family covering the 1800's They have asked to see my tree on here, but there is no point, as we have no connection.

I'm sure we all have horror stories about sharing experiences. One of my techniques is to ask detailed questions about someone's sources. Anyone with a serious interest will say, without quibble, that they found their information in such and such a place, or perhaps that they were given the info. by a 3rd party and haven't time to verify it personally. It doesn't really matter what they say, but the fact that probably two-thirds of the people who have contacted me casually never get back in touch once I ask them something, makes me glad that I had not shared very much with them in the first place.

It seems like they are grabbing your info to make them sound VERY CLEVER. I have met several rellies on GR and we have exchanged info, in fact when I get a new bit I contact them to ask their opinion as to its credibility. Like several other people on this site, I feed only bits of info that seem relevant to them. This is a very hard but rewarding hobby and the absolute thrill you get when you have solved a problem that has been bugging you for ages, is worth it. Kathlyn

No, indeed, Clive, it would be very difficult to prove that someone had stolen my intellectual property. But a clue that this had happened, would be in the fact that I opened my tree to you and two days later all my research appeared on your tree on this site. My tree, which has taken thousands of hours to research and compile, could not have been assembled by you, completely independantly of my research, in a matter of day or even months. You of course, if challenged, could say that you HAD done the work yourself and had chosen that very moment to upload 40 years of work onto your tree. So, nothing I can do about that. Which is why I don't open my tree to anyone. I give them dribs and drabs, and depending on their continuing interest, will give them more. A recent example - someone on here had a common ancestor with me in 1643. I was able to tell him that this ancestor was not a man, but a woman! I supplied the evidence (she married and had children) and I told him that I had more forward info if he wanted it. Apparently he didnt. I am glad I did not open my tree. OC

I can just about accept that there may be aspects of one's research that could constitute intellectual property, OC, but the 'in theory' caveat is very important. If we were related somehow and I had seen your tree, and I then made the correct connections from one person to the next, you could never proved that I had copied your work unless you had access to some unique source that was necessary to the connections. Personal memories of living relatives, or the recollections of those now passed on is an obviously unique source, but much of the information that we gather is older than that, and oftern it is the 'name collecting' that is objected to, not the personal knowledge about a person. The names and their vital dates are a matter of historical record, and a trained monkey could assemble a family tree (in theory). That said, it is difficult to understand why there is so much inaccurate and just plain daft data out there.

Peter The work contained in your tree is your 'intellectual property' and in THEORY, there is a breach of copyright if I take it and use it without asking you. OC

I sometimes feel that there are Researchers who feel that their work is somehow devalued when others help themselves to it. I think we need to decide whether we want to unite our Trees or not. As far as I am concerned, if someone contacts me about a name in my Tree, and they show enough evidence that they have done some research in that area (which, by the way, does not prove that they ARE related, just that they have a reason for asking), I am happy to share what I have. It would be great if we could rely on all GR members to have been as diligent as we are, but c'est la vie. I am sure that eventually there will indeed be a World Tree, as accurate and complete as it can be. I doubt that I will still be around to see it, but it is nice to feel that I am in some way contributing to its formation.

I tend to agree with Clive on this one. Like it or not, if you give someone access then unless they use the information in your tree for unlawful purposes, they are doing nothing wrong. However, I agree that it would be courteous to ask before copying something. GR's rule about the living giving permisssion is more to avoid any conflict with the Data Protection Acts, than about protecting the individials identity. If an idividual gives permision for their data to be used for a particular purpose, then the DPA is not rellevant, but conversely even where permission has not been given, this does not mean the law has been broken either.

I agree with you entirely. If I do take research that someone else has chosen to share with me (and that includes the crafty use of the search facility to reconstruct elements of a tree that no one has shared), then I will only take the data as a starting point. I will verify and cross check wherever I can: I want to add references and sources to all my research. Ultimately, if I use someone else's tree, I am not taking anything original - the facts and vital dates (if they are recorded at all) are there for the taking. Time (and sometimes money) is what it takes. If someone before me has made the right connections first, then I may find retracing their steps easier than working from scratch. Another aspect of this is that it soon becomes impossible to verify everything in a large tree. The fact that you have taken successive census data, backed up by finding probable matches for BMD in the GRO indices and perhaps IGI, gives you fairly accurate, but not necessarily complete, data for most of the nineteenth century. At the end of the day, if I have made the odd slip up with a fifth cousin twice removed, I am not going to lose much sleep over it. But if another member contacts me to offer additional information or to correct an error, then if I am satisfied that they are reliable and can improve what I already have, I am delighted to be able to amend my own tree. I have relied on other members' material for more than half of my tree. Some of it came to me so fast when I first joined, that I have yet to go back, and flesh out the skeleton of bare names and probable dates. Some of it I may never return to. But it is a work-in-progress. I don't own the vital facts that connect the persons in my tree, although I may have spent good money to verify some of the difficult or obscure connections. Anyone could reproduce what I have done, if they choose to spend the thousands of hours that I have expended. There is no magic or mystery. Just hard work and, sometimes, luck. I can keep it to myself, or I can be ready to share. What could I gain from the former?

Hi clive i understand fully where you are coming from but don't you think it is lack of respect to other members just to copy their tree that they have spent time and money on. How do they know that all the information is correct? If my people are removed from the tree then i will be checking ever so often to check that he does not have them again and if so i will remind them that they don't have the permission from a living relative to add them to their tree. Jen

I don't think that there is any way to be a member of this site (and maintain a family tree on it) and have that information private. If you know that someone may have a connection with you, it is easy to search for names that you know you will share that reveal their names as possible contacts. (And if you have already been in contact with them, it is even easier, because the search results will tell you that this is the 'John' or 'Mary' that you have already been in contact with before). If you think that they might have earlier generations, it is easy enough to search again, perhaps on just a surname with suitable dates, and see whether their name comes up again on a match: if it does, you've found the parents. It's a basic use of the tools of this site, but if you don't want to share your assembled view of the connections between your ancestors, don't upload a tree to a public site. This is so simple a concept, that I wonder that anyone has any problem with it.

Just a word of warning - I have been trying to find a thread posted by Smiley Sam to nudge up - but I cant find it. Sam pointed out that even if you tick the 'hide living relations' option anyone you share your tree with can see details of all your relatives - by clicking on view their relatives - and will be presented with an alphabetised list of ALL the names in your tree - 'hidden' or otherwise. Just so you are aware that hiding living relatives does not make that information secure Helenx x x

i think 3 days sounds good Julie as i suppose a lot of trees could be copied in 10 days and even if they are on holiday etc then GR should be able to do something about them. Right go it in my diary for 3 days as of yesterday. Jen

hiya jen now i think you are being too easy on this person, if it were me, i would send a PM, stating unless they remove XYZ, from thier tree,and give them a deadline of say 3 days, then you will take actions against them, i dont think this is being harsh, you are just protecting your childs identity,( as any mother would) hth sorry if you think i'm rambling julie

Jennifer, Yes you dont know how many people have got access to thier tree - its like chinese whispers! Sometimes I feel spitefull not opening my tree but I have been caught out like this. Now I share my information on a particular person, it is nice to have your tree on here just to make contacts. Regards Sara

No i have just checked the names have not been removed. I will give them 10 days to remove them before i get in touch with GR i don't mind some of them being left on i have sent a message with the names that i wish to be removed. It worries me as well that if he gets a connection from other people on here saying hey i have Joe Bloggs in my tree and then they let them copy there tree there are going to be so many mistakes as my tree hasn't even been copied with the correct dates. Oh well at least i know that the information on my tree is right. Jen

Jennifer, Has the person concerned now removed the names? I wonder if they read this thread last night? Regards Sara