Genealogy Chat

Sue Send him a short pm saying you have discovered a major error in your tree, and would he like the correcting details. If he is just a name collector then he probably won't even reply - he won't care if his tree is wrong. If he does reply, you could take the opportunity to point out that you are displeased about the fact that he has copied the WHOLE of your tree and ask him what relevance your mother's side has to his tree. In my experience on here, people are very reluctant to correct information which they have copied, and which turns out to be wrong - at least nine people on here are descended from a sibling of my ancestor, who died aged 4! I have pm-d them all, telling them exactly where to find the death reference (in the parish death register, would you believe) but only one person has amended the information - the rest are quite happy to be completely wrong. It is the fact that they are all happily passing this incorrect information on to other people which REALLY makes me mad. OC

Hi sue i understand where you're coming from. i suppose if something like that really bugged me, i would do what OC said. i would contact him and tell him how i felt, that his information is wrong and your concerned how it will affect furture research etc etc. whether he listens to you and does anything about it depends alot on his intelligence i'm afraid! best of luck michelle

Dear OC - you should change your name to 'Wise Old Crone'! thanks for your advice - I'm about to tell him now! Sue

Shelly in Northampton has said precisely what I was going to say.What does it matter if names from your tree are filched, I started checking on my forebears out of curiosity and hoped someone could point the way, my tree is open to all, after all if any of my relatives are theirs than they have as much right to that information as myself. I believe these sites are for info exchange, and what if they do make a pigs ear of it ,it won't damage your research, they are left in blissfull ignorance

Have just read through the whole correspondence. Seems like good advice. I think you are doing the right thing to tell him and also to state your displeasure! Certainly if the information is wrong, I'd want to get it corrected, whatever his ethics might be, for the sake of other genuine researchers. I have had contact with a few people on the site many of whom have been most helpful, sending docs etc and I have attempted to reciprocate - I even found a great nephew of my grandmother and we have been able to exchange old photos and identify a few unknowns!. Some people haven't replied beyond an initial response, but I don't care if someone copies my tree and the details, if it helps them, as long as it is relevant to them.

I had to laugh a bit ago - a contact I have on here copied my tree, too. I noticed they had my grandfather William Siggs down as being born in Uckfield in Sussex - a lot of Siggs were from that area, but this one was from Lincolnshire. I e-mailed them to point out the correct information, and they sent a reply back saying, sorry, they had thought he was born in Sussex, but they seem to have chosen not to update their tree - you can't force them to, I suppose. The mind boggles. My grandad's name was William Everard Siggs, so it's quite distinctive - if they'd taken the time to check the birth index, they would have seen his birth was registered in Grantham. He got married and died in Nottinghamshire. I don't know that he ever even went as far south as Sussex. At least one of my other contacts persists in believing this man to have been born in Sussex. He wasn't - to get this family to the south of England (well, Suffolk), you have to trace back three generations from him. I suppose some people just don't like to be told. (Or won't be told.)

Hi Sue, I totally agree with OC,the exact same thing has happened to me and shes right some people dont seem to care if they have wrong info Hugs xx