Genealogy Chat

Hi Christine

For that reason i don't open mine...and i have also been ripped to shreds on here cos i choose not to

Julie

You can't say the info was 'stolen'...you gave the person access.

This topic has been raised on here regularly over the years.............you have been a member for a considerable time, so should have been aware of the way things are..............

To steal is to permanently deprive the rightful owner of something. Your tree has been copied, not stolen.

This topic comes up about once a fortnight.

Like it or not, as soon as you allow someone to see your tree, they are within their rights to copy as much or as little as they wish to. Personally I don't have a problem with this, but if you feel strongly, then the only way is not to let people see your tree.

The only proviso is with living relatives, for which permission of the person concerned must be granted for their names to appear. If the member has copied details of living persons, then ask to remove them.

I'll bump up the "Tree Bandits" thread which has some interesting opinions on the subject.

I had contact on this site from a descendent of a distant relative. We swapped information to ascertain that we were related, I gave the person permission to see my tree. Silly me! Why was I silly you say. The person put all the information from my very detailed tree, including my mothers side, onto Ancestry. If I had wanted every Tom, Dick and Harry to have access I would have done it my self. I do not mind sharing the information with relatives, no matter how distant, but I was so annoyed to find all my hard work was "Stolen," I use that word because the person didn't ask my permission and used my tree as their own. The person has been denied any further access, anything I put on in the future they cannot see.
Take this as a friendly warning.