Genealogy Chat

As I have already said, I have only sent for one birth cert to confirm that mum in law has another sister. I do not feel the need to buy cert for everybody and am happy that the info I can get from all family history sites is sufficient for what I need.

I am a passport officer so appreciate that a person identity is precious. I wish there were more restrictions on buying certs without proof that you are close family. It is all to easy to make a false identity and we should be aware of this. A birth cert is essential to get a passport for the first time and if anyone can get anyone birth cert, then surely that is wrong.
Who needs fake documents when you can just pay £9.25 for an official copy.

I know some people like to get them all, but is there really any need.
Back to original subject, I too have sent emails to members who I think is a close match. Not everyone replies and it is dissapointing, but thats life and I don't think any less of them. It is their choice and maybe they are not doing much research anymore.

I put my father's second marriage and his three children on my tree and someone copied them. I quickly pointed out to him that I was uncomfortable with this as I had never met them or even knew of their existence till I started researching my family. He politely removed them. Perhaps I should not have put them on my tree, but I felt I had a need to do it as they were my half siblings
Jill

Whilst I tend to read messages within a day or so, it isn't always possible to reply straight away, especially if there is a connection. Sometimes it is necessary to do some research first, you might want to ascertain who the other person actually is, if you don't know them, then there is the question of deciding what it is you are going to say. Non-connections are easier in a way - and usually get a reply by return.

I spent most of last Friday replying to people who had contacted me both through GR and Ancestry. The earliest was from February (an oversight on my part) but most were within the last month.

On the question of who puts what on their tree - there are no laws - people can do what they like, although I would hope that common courtesy and sense are applied by most. GR have an internal rule re living persons, but this is only invoked if there is a complaint. The Data Protection Act is not applicable either.

The most common form of identity theft is not someone trying to apply for a passport in another's name, although of course it happens and tends to make headlines when a scam is uncovered. No, it is more likely to be someone using your credit card after they have managed to obtain your details and pin, often after sending a phishing email which the person falls for. There was an example of just that on here a week or so ago.

Michael,
I would give the person a bit more time to reply to you as a week is not very long, they may be on holiday or have commitments or as someone has suggested be busily checking their data before they get back to you .It would be reaonable then to send a follow up enquiring how they are connected to you and requesting a reply.
Last year I contacted a GR member about someone I thought we may have in common but although the message had been read I heard nothing; then out of the blue they contacted me after six months apologising that they had had lots of calls on their time and had not had time to go on to GR after reading my message. It turns out we are indeed related ( 2nd cousins)and have managed to exchange lots of family photographs and have be able between us fill in some blanks in our tree and exchange certificates.
She lives at the other end of the country from me but we now catch up on family news by phone and email.
Sorcha

You'd think if they added the family on the tree they must be a relation somehow, however distant. Otherwise, why bother? Personally I love finding second cousins, third cousins etc and making contact- I find it fascinating. One distant cousin who has an ancestor who was a sister to my great great Grandmother is in regular contact now. She is a lovely person, lives thousands of miles away, but we would never have found each other were it not for genealogy.

hi
Sorry to but in ive got this problem as well
nicky thats a good idea just putting male and female for the living i have two relatives with my living family on there tree they have never helped me at all they just want to increase there tree ive asked them to delete them but they havent read my message G.R. said if i tell them the names dates etc they would write to these relations for me

i saw someones tree the other day she has over 4,000 names

Joyce

4,000 names is nothing. I have access to around 20 trees on this site with in excess of 10,000 names, one member has almost 40,000.

My daughter contributes to The Latter-day Saints world tree.
I will have to ask how big the tree is.
I do know that she has added my current total.

I think I should comment it was not the fact that my deceased father or brother appearing in someone elses tree that disturbed me. I have made the point several times that people are entitled to add deceased persons to their tree. Nor is it the size of their tree. I simply have no idea how big it is. My original point is the person never replied to the simple question of what their relationship to my family is.

I do know very large trees are often created not through direct research but by simply continuously adding Gedcom files. It is very simple to swiftly create a large tree in this manner but with warts and all. Any mistakes get copied into trees in this manner and a tree rapidly becomes meaningless through would I would describe as a sideways lateral drift in relationships.

When you think about it, all of us are connected in some way even if we have to trace our nearest ancestors back to Adam and Eve.

I suspect I will not get a reply from the person to my original question, probably because they do not know what the relationship is or where we are linked if at all.

Michael

Reading back a bit it would appear that we are talking about a week with no reply. Is that correct?

As I said earlier, it is not always easy to reply immediately to every single message by return.

If I am really keen I wait at least a month then send a polite follow up, hoping that they had the time to look at my original message and wondering if they were in a position to reply, as I would be delighted if they did.