Genealogy Chat

* Gritty is correct.

* "I don't see contacting people on a website as being in that category" -

I do, when it's a case of a cousin who you did not know existed, the site let you know mometarily that they exist and had wanted to cvontact you, and then allows a technical accident to leave you cut off from them unable to make the intended contact, and they don't even get told it happened.

I also call that a breach of European Convention on Human Rights article 8 on family life.

* "Why would anyone else be on my computer? "

Shared or public computer, e.g. where you were taking advice. Someone who lost an invitation from me had it go the account of a friend who was helping her at the time. I don't have a web connection a thome, because can't cope with getting all the complex technical choices right, both of computer and router etc gadgets and choosing a service, so I'm reliant on public computers out of home.

Just read the first couple of lines again

Why would anyone else be on my computer?

If anyone was I would expect it to be a family member.... If you are using a computer at work then tough..... You should be working, not messing about with your tree

Anyway I still wouldn't invite anyone to share my tree..... A first cousin asked a while back..... She didn't get to see it either, but if she wanted to know anything in particular I would have told her

When someone sends an onsite message or an invite to view OR edit their tree, you get an email. (just like here on GR)
And if you invite another member to view OR edit your tree, you get an email when they click their acceptance. As per this incoming message (x's to protect my, their and my tree's privacy) :-


Dear xxxxxxxx,

Good news –xxxxxxxxxx has accepted your invitation to join your family tree.

Click here to visit your family tree:
http://trees.ancestry.com/fhs/home.aspx?tid=xxxxxxxx

You received this email according to your alert preferences. To change your preferences log in to My Ancestry and go to the 'my alerts' section. Please know that Ancestry.co.uk does not share your personal information with anyone. Learn more in our Website Privacy Statement.

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I've tried hard to understand what you are trying to convey, Maurice, and have failed.

Where does the' humanitarian' aspect come into it?

Definition of the word............

Concerned with or seeking to promote human welfare:

I don't see contacting people on a website as being in that category

I think Maurice means that if you're accepting an Ancestry tree invitation through your email (and are on a shared computer-e.g library), make sure that no-one else is signed into ancestry on that computer- otherwise the invitation is accepted by the person who is logged in (instead of the intended recipient).

I don't think it's an unwillingness to understand Maurice, just that in places your explanation is unclear ....and i read it on the general board as you know and several times here.

Can you clarify? are you saying that you share a computer and that the other person failed to inform you of an invitation to look at a tree?

As regards someone not being able to join A unless you have a debit card, you can join I would think using a 'pre paid card' that does not depend on you having a bank debit card?

Re Ancestry acting as some sort of go between between a paid member and free member (or non member) then how exactly would the extra staff be funded? Aside from privacy issues ( which are paramount....it is the choice of many people to not be contacted by any third party however well meaning) if someone won't pay to join in order to make contact then why should Ancestry ( or anyone) employ staff to do that for free?

Or am I totally misunderstanding what you have written?

I do sympathise that due to circumstances you have perhaps lost a chance of making contact, but at very least you can put a tree on here or other sites and hope that the person you seek will notice it at some point and join to contact you.

* You don't have to set trees such as to allow anyone to edit it.

* I'm extremely offended by folks who reject understanding things on grounds of length. The explanation would not be complete if I cut out any of it, and not complete leads to not accurate. This is a humanitarian issue, care is needed to make it known in an accurately and completely.

Obviously I did not ask for the issue to happen. Unwillingness to read about such things is uncaring. Unwillingness to understand is simply closed minded. It's like saying "I've already fixed what I believe in life and will never listen to anything else." Both would result in culpability if you helped to cause anyone to suffer the experience as a result of not making the simple civil caring effort to absorb the info about it.

Like Jax,


I found your posting too much to read and to understand


However, I will say this ...............


I never invite anyone to see my tree ................................


if it is public, everyone can see it ........ and take all the information they want from it.


Mine is Private .................. and I do the same thing that I do with mt tree on GR


anyone who asks if there is a connection has to prove to me that there probably is, then I will let them have the pertinent information ................ patiently typing it out for them



One of the major dangers with ancestry trees is that people you invite to see your tree MAY be able to also EDIT your tree ............................. and they may well alter your information with the wrong information.

Too much for me to read

I dont invite anyone to look at my tree on Ancestry...if I wanted anyone to see it I would make it public

You took the advice from RamblingRose & reposted on this board. Suggest that you delete the earlier thread:

http://www.genesreunited.co.uk/boards/board/general_chat/thread/1347114

Also, as you seem to be making more than one point, perhaps you identify them? I see two - pc logging and Ancestry's messaging system. But are there more?

For all who have accounts in Ancestry too. An ethical shocker. If by accident a different user account, not your own, is signed in on the computer where you are accepting from, your acceptance will go to that different account. But in their system a tree invitation can only be accepted once then is gone. The acceptance of your invitation can actually go to the wrong person's account, by accident: that happens if your email but a different user account are signed in on the same computer. There is nothing to make sure it only goes to you. You don't know this danger exists before it happens. Then after it has happened, that's it, the invitation is gone.

The inviter does not know it has happened, they just think the invitation was accepted - I now realise this happened to one of my invitations. But worse than that. Not all inviters or trees display a username, so you might be left not knowing one. Then, only if you are a full paying member have you any means at all to initiate a contact. This includes if you do a member search on the inviter's real name - you can only find them if they have a public tree, and then if you find them you can't message them unless you are a paying member. But many folks who are free Ancestry users without knowing it's possible for this situation to happen, may not be able to become paying members even if they want to - because only folks with bank debit cards can do it, and nowadays it's surprising who may not have one. I have seen a bank not want to give one to an old lady with no debt history at all. You need a card even to get a 14 day free trial from Ancestry and they only let each person do that once. Anyone without a bank card, using Ancestry without knowing this can happen, could be left totally powerless to contact an inviter whose invitation has gone astray. Nor will the inviter know it has happened.

Not all inviters display a username. If you are left without a username for the inviter, their support service will go in 5 days from "if you could call us on... with the username for the owner of this tree once we verify your account details we can accept this invite for you" to "Unfortunately our privacy policy does not allow us to contact that member on your behalf nor to have the invitation resent to you". No explanation even of grounds to have such a privacy policy, when it's common sense that they have an e-address registered for every user so must be able to contact them. What sort of practice is that, capable of cruelly leave folks cut off from a warmly writing cousin who had been keen to make contact and who won't even know it happened?

All our friends and contacts using any tree sites need warning about this. Paying users of Ancestry should demand safeguards before being willing to stay with them. What service are you paying for, if this disaster can happen to your invitations and you would not know it?

Topics here recede down the list so quickly, and I would not be allowed to keep reposting it, that its content needs prompt saving and passing on by all who see it. NB I have been advised to post in this section, after did in "general chat" first.