Genealogy Chat

How do you know if someone has copied your tree?? I think I may also have allowed access in my early days (last month!) of doing my tree...... ! Oops!

Any one who wants can see my tree. All my living relatives are happy for their details to be shared in this way. I don't really care what anybody wants to do with the information, it's only a list of names and numbers really. If they copy it then that's up to them, to me the best part of this hobby is finding the info myself so they are missing out on the discoveries.

I agree with you Helen. Some people get too precious about this, but as you say, at the end of the day it's just a list. For you it has meaning because you've discovered 'family' (even if they're long gone) but if someone gets a buzz from having a long list of names & dates, so what? - just a bit sad for them really, but I wouldn't deprive them of it. Sarah

Helen and Sarah You make my blood run cold! Are you really saying you are happy for a total stranger to have details of living people on your tree? Are you not worried about identity theft, or even worse? As for the rest, my tree is not just a list of names and dates. It has documentary evidence, lots of certs, Wills etc, all of which cost me money and all of which will cost me money to send to any contact. I am also not happy about sharing my tree with someone like Helen and Sarah, who will happily pass on any personal information I have given to anyone who asks, to do with whatever they choose. Not picking on Helen and Sarah personally - but their attitude illustrates what COULD happen to your tree. If that doesnt bother you, then it doesnt matter, but it bothers me. Olde Crone

Have to agree with Olde Crone. I don't feel I am 'precious'. I'm just more worldly wise and determined not to be used by freeloaders and name collecters. Definitions of a freeloader: Just takes and copies and adds nothing to anyone's research. Doesn't offer to send photos to put faces to names. Hints that they would like to know more about so and so - dropping almighty hints that they would like YOU to send for BMD certificates but doesn't offer to help with the costs. Proper Contacts. These people are connected to you and are just as interested in your mutual rellies as you are. They swap info with you and you share photos and share scanned BMD certificates. You both jointly research the family name you share. When either of you buys a cert you share it with the other person. I am pleased to share with the latter but the former can go take a running jump! I like to share but not be taken advantage of. I make no apologies for that. Cheers, Horatia

Horatia How I agree with you! In my early days on this site, I sent a lot of information, plus copies of everything, to several people. Two things started to really irritate me: One - no one ever questioned a single word of my research, just swallowed it whole without a thankyou. All I have ever received in return was a single, photocopied Wedding photo of the contact's Grandparents who were removed from me by ten generations! Two - All trees have 'loose ends' - mine included. Not once did any of the recipients of all my hard work/money, EVER say to me 'I see you havent got Joe and Aggie Bloggs marriage cert yet, shall I send for it' Or - see you cant find Joe Bloggs baptism, where have you already looked and I'll have a go' We all have different standards of research and different attitudes to our trees. I must admit it came as a surprise that not every one shares my attitudes. Olde Crone

well said Olde Crone and Horatia, only wish I was as good with words as you are. I am happy to share my tree and have done with 7 people on this site and they in return have shared with me, we exchanged certificates, photos and stories. They have had access to my tree and copied the down line from our joint relation. What they haven't done that I would object to is to copy every single person on my tree if related or NOT! Two of them were from my dads side, what good would having my mothers grandmother her sister, parents, and so on in their trees be..........they are not related to them. If people just stuck to the people they are related to there wouldn't be a problem and we wouldn't have this thread...........wouldn't that be nice but I guess I ask for too much!!

The whole point of Genes Reunited is to make contact with distant relatives and exchange information. In two months I have made 12 useful contacts from which I have learnt a lot. If you have two or more hot matches with someone there is a good chance of a connection and if you contact them it makes sense to let them see what you have so they can check if they fit. If you only have a simgle hit, and it is an unusual name, or the place of birth is a good match there is also a good chance of success. In these circumstances I would also open my tree, if I made the enquiry. If someone makes an enquiry to me, the first thing I look at is have they opened their tree. If so then you can easily see if there is a connection. If not then I am much more cautious and would not open my tree until I had several exchanges which established there was a definite connection. Like you I have spent a lot of money researching my tree, but I am willing to share my information with anyone who is interested. So far I have had two people I know are related to me who have refused to play ball. I reckon that is a reflection on the type of people they are, not on me. I do not worry about it. On the question of personal security and identity theft, apart from myself I put nobody who is still living on my Genes Reunited tree, ie I stop with relatives born around 1915. For the other relatives on the tree I only give name, date and place of birth. This is enough for someone to see if a connection is likley. This means my tree is quite small, but it has all the higher branches which can catch likley distant relatives.

I am happy to share, but I agree that we should be cautious - for example I gave one guy access when I first came on here, heard nothing from him again. A few months back I was horrified to find a site with my own mothers name on it - she is now deceased. This guy had copied everyone on my tree and added it to a website without my knowledge or consent. That is disrespectful and devious. So I am with the guys who say be cautious and only give what you need to give to confirm a connection.

Hi Ian, You say you are willing to open your tree and if that is your choice then good for you. What I am amazed at is why don't people exchange a few messages first to establish if there IS a link? I usually just say: Was he married to so and so or were his parents so and so - that normally does it. Not a lot of typing really is it? Lots of people just seem to open their tree willy nilly to all and sundry without asking questions! To be honest, I am fed up with the world and his wife opening their tree to me before establishing a link. My contacts section looks like a forest with open trees and half of them are NOTHING to do with me whatsoever - what's the point of that? Seems a waste of time and space to me. Cheers, Horatia

I need a bit of advice too. When I first started researching I made contact with a fellow researcher through another site. There is a valid link but only by marriage. He enabled me to trace a distant overseas cousin, with whom I've now formed a great friendship., so I am very grateful to him. I was inexperienced and thought it would be for his private use so let him see living rellies (I wouldn't do so now). He later joined genes and put up my whole tree including detailed notes that I had sent. I requested about 12 months ago that he remove the living rellies and he repied that he would but was waiting for a reply from GR as to how to. (I told him how I would do it) . The names are still there - I've asked again today for him to remove them. He has also published my email address within the notes - but I haven't tackled him about that yet. What would you do? I feel a bit anxious about it all.

Helen, I would contact Genes about this. He definitely has no right to put your e-mail address on a public website for all to see. Have your living relatives given him authority to put their names on here? If not then he or Genes should remove them. Cheers, Horatia

Horatia Thanks - No I have told him quite clearly that the living relatives have not given permission and provided him with a list of their names so that there can be no confusion. I think that I will send him a message now to ask him to remove my email address & then contach genes if theres no joy.

Dear Horatia, You can remove other peoples trees and messages which are no longer useful simply be deleting the contact from your 'my contacts' page in 'Messages'. Dear Helen, Once your e-mail address has been published on the web, you will start getting junk e-mail, sometimes in vast quantities. If you don't want this you have to change your e-mail address. This can be annoying to all your contacts, but there is no other solution to this. On the question of other people publishing details about you they have found from any source, I think this comes under the data protection act. You have an absolute right to ask for what information they have and ask them to correct anything which they have got wrong. If they do not do this then complain to Genes Reunited or the publisher, or the ISP host, if it is a different website. Asking others to remove information which is correct, comes under issues of personal privacy. Again I would complain directly if you feel your privacy is being violated. Publishing information on the addresses, telephone or e-mail addresses of living people, without their permission would clearly come into this category. Genes always asks you not to publish information on living people without their permission. If others are violating this principle again I would complain. See the note at the bottom ot the add message page: Important Note: Please do not post anything here which may offend, infringe anyone's rights, or breach the law. If you see anything here that may do so, then please inform us of it using the Contact Us page. We do not generally monitor contributions before they appear here, so we rely upon users to help eliminate offending material.

Another thing......!! There are a lot of things on my tree that have taken literally years to work out. If I open my tree on here and someone copies all the data from my tree to theirs because they like lists, then maybe I'm not that bothered in some ways...........................BUT (before Olde Crone does herself an injury!!)................................ ................what about when someone who does care a little more, contacts that name collector instead of contacting me and asks for info to help them with their tree?? The name collector won't be able to help them (other than supply a list of names). He or she probably won't remember who they got the names from.....he or she won't be able to explain the research behind some apparent anomalies in my tree, which I have fully documented. So, I'm afraid I only give data to people who are interested to know my SOURCES. Something that is not on my GR tree and that is why I don't give access to it. I have had contacts from two brand new sixth cousins this very morning!! Neither of them want access to my GR tree and neither have offered me access to theirs. Two fat emails will soon be clogging the airwaves though!! Merry

Dear Julie, and others I, like Tom, changed the amount of information and details accessible on my tree after reading an earlier thread like this. Please take seriously the possibilities of identity theft.... my husband kept receiving letters from Debenhams about a store card that had £800 on it and wasn't being paid. We sent all the letters back to the sender but they kept coming. When we eventually got a really stroppy letter from Debenhams the person had used our address and my husband's initial and surname. This information could have been got from various places - silly example but a postman would have more information than that on his rounds as he delivers it! Debenhams were brilliant and cancelled it and apologised profusely. We also had a brand new cheque book sent to us and one of the inner cheques had been removed. We only discovered this when £1000 went out of our account! I knew we would never have done that - and to make matters worse it was an account with not much money in so the bank should never have let it go through. The signature was nothing like my husband's either! Thankfully again the bank admitted fault and gave us the money back but I had to go to a polices station for two hours whilst they copied everything. PLEASE PLEASE be careful. Genesreunited can be a brilliant place and a wealth of information but be careful!! Abi

Blimey, this is all very worrying. I've only recently started using this site and had taken the attitude of being happy to open when requested, so long as the correspondent had already done so. You have to give before taking if you're requesting info. I'd be very dubious of someone asking me to open up without establishing both a connection and a correspondence first. I have no problem sharing my information, whether I've paid for it or not. But if someone was clearly simply a 'taker' I'd have a different view. I'm afraid I have copied some info. from sites I've been given access to, not all but probably more than I've needed. It's not really occurred to me that I'm then passing that on to other people (Duh!!). I guess there's an implied grant of permission to pass it on when you do open up; nevertheless...

Dear Ian, Yes, I try deleting them but they often come back! I don't want to keep going into the contacts section deleting trees that people shouldn't have been showing me in the first place. I don't even ASK them to show me their tree but am forced to have it there being a waste of space! Some of them are like boomerangs and keep coming back! Cheers, Horatia

I'm just going to throw a question in here, If you give access to your tree,and the other person just copies the whole thing lock stock and barrel without so much as a can i or do you mind,could that be taken to be abuse? Would you be within your rights to report it as abuse or would GR say the aim of the site is to share info (regardless of how open or dare i say devious it is obtained?) Glen

Glen, Perhaps you might want to direct this question at Genes themselves - see what they have to say on the matter. It would be interesting to see how they view the matter! Cheers, Horatia