Genealogy Chat

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Hi Michael,

Maybe they have read your message but are checking facts etc before they get back to you.

I think maybe a lot of people on GR jump to conclusions, that if someone has not responded to a message straight away, that they must not care, or be a bit dodgy. The fact is that for everyone I would guess searching family history has a different priority. Just because you want to know what their connection is, they may not see the need to respond.

I'm not sure what you feel they have done wrong? Fair enough they have added your immediate family members who may be related to them, I am sure a lot of people here add on cousins etc to build up a bigger picture. It does not seem that they are doing anything they shouldn't with the information, that as you said can be easily found if people know where to search.

Perhaps they are a bit shy or reluctant to contact you? Maybe they misinterpreted your wording on your request..could be any number of reasons.

Unfortunately rightly or wrongly this is the age of the internet, and no real privacy measures exist across the broad spectrum world wide.

I hope you resolve this and get to make contact and that all ends well.

Michael,

I find it strange that the member has your father and brother on their tree and not you. I don't agree with the fact that because your father and brother are deceased then it's open slather for their names to appear on anyone's tree given that there is obviously living son and possible siblings. (I know others on here will disagree with me).

So I hope at some point your name appears on their tree so then you can contact GR and have it removed.

Gai

With living relatives - I agree that they should not be made public , particularly if the originator has them hidden themselves. I should point out, though, that there are a number of other online tree sites as well as ancestry.co and it would be hard to monitor them all. I know what you mean, though, having come across a picture of my mother on someone's tree ( we were the only ones who had that picture) without permission. It is a little scary and thoughts of identity theft arise.

When I started this thread it was not because to members of my immediate family who who are deceased , appeared in a public family tree, (people are entitled to add deceased persons to public trees). It was because the person who did so has not bothered to respond to my request to advise me of their connection. This person is completley unknown to me and when you think about, I would have exactly the same relationship as both my deceased father and brother.

The question of living persons being on public trees without their permission has also arisen during the debate. It a required condition of this site that a permission of living persons be sought in advance before they can be added to a public tree. If requests to have such information to be removed are ignored the I think GR will remove it on request. It might also be an infringement of privacy regulations to have living persons on a public tree without their permission.

I have found out from my own research it is not neccessary to obtain a birth certificate to work out living descendants of almost everyone. Simply by cross referencing BMD's which go up to 2005 it is quite easy to work this out. This is one reason I have found out I do not really need the 1911 census. Any such information pieced together in this way is certainly not for publishing in a public tree.

Michael

Cheryl. That's wonderful for your family and I have heard a story on another site where someone bought the birth And marriage certs of their cousins who had been separated as children after the death of their mother and been brought up in care. They were then able to reunite their cousins after 60 years and this too is a wonderful event. I just worry that someone with bad intent also has access to these records and can put them the information online without reprisal and without the person's knowledge or permission.

I think restrictions need to be put in place so that an individual has some control over the information about themselves is put into the public domain.

Birth certs are not proof of identity but are used to set up accepable forms of identity like passports and drivers licences. For me it raises issues of identity theft and personal security.

I also think we need to protect the vulnerable.

Tootyfruity - thanks for your advice. I will try that.

On the issue of obtaining birth certs. I only have the family ones that have been passed down through the family. Apart from one that is. This year I found out that my mum in law had a sister that she was not aware of. Her mum had been married when she walked out on the man and the 18 month old daughter. She had 3 children with my mum in laws dad and then walked out on them too. The sister I found, only lived 2 miles away and by pure fluke her daughter was best friends with mum in laws other sisters daughter. They had been friends for 40 years, unaware that they were cousins. I had to check my findings before I told mum in law so I got a copy of the sisters birth cert. They have since met for coffee and mum in law received her first birthday card from her big sister only last week.

I felt really guilty and have not told the sister that I did this as she may not be happy.
We are so pleased that it all turned out ok. mum in law is 68 and her sister is 72, so they still have a few years to get to know each other.

Cheryl

I would ask her to remove my families information and inform her that if she does not do it with immediate effect you will be contacting Ancestry and asking them to do so.

If she doesn't contact Ancestry and say you have contacted her and wish that any information pertaining to you and your family be removed from all trees on Ancestry apart from your own as no one has sort or been given permission.

I don't hide any living relatives I keep their details off line.

It frightens me how many UK records are online pertaining to the living and how easy it is buy certificates of the living. I know a lot disagree with me when I say that these records should be restricted as they feel it will hinder their research but I think that this hobby is not a good enough reason to be able to access personal information.

It's sadly a problem that we can't really resolve - so much is available on the internet and there is nothing to stop anyone from adding it to their trees, however irrelevant it might seem to be to others. Yes, some people's aim is to build an enormous tree (though quite what they are going to do with it, I can't imagine), and whilst it is rude to ignore an email from a direct relative, well some people just do their own thing and go hang anyone else's feelings. Selfish of them. Bet they don't have many friends.

Tootyfruiti and Nicky. I am glad you agree with me. I thought it was me being paranoid. My genes tree hides living relatives so I know she has got all this info herself. I have looked through her shoebox items and seen all the stuff she has saved.
My husbands ex remarried in approx 1990 but she has 2 daughters by her second husband before they married. She even has their details attatched to her tree, assuming they are my husband children as she registered their births using her married name from when she was married to my husband.
She also has an email from someone saying she has a member of their family in her tree who is not related. The person asked her to remove them. She has not done so, neither has she removed them.

I am so glad I never passed on any personal info to her.

Cheryl thats terrible to have your childrens details on a Public tree.....when you think of the lengths we as parents go to to protect our children from the dangers of the outside world, its terrible that a stranger would put all their details on show for anyone to see.

As Tootyfruity pointed out,she shouldn`t have details of any living people on her tree without their express permission, and if its not law then it should be, especially when the information is about anyone under 18 years of age.

I would make contact and ask her to remove all information about yourselves and your children if she won`t then I would contact Ancestry and ask them to intervene.


I don`t put any living persons details on my tree, my tree details start with my grandparents, all living people are down as male/female living and their year of birth, nothing else.

I know who they are....no one else needs to know.



Nicky