Genealogy Chat

I have given and received info and photos on shared ancestors and it has been an excellent experience. However, I have typed out each one individually as I really don't want/need names that have no meaning for me, so it has been quite limited but massively helpful. My tree is quite small compared to others, but it takes a long long time to research each ancestor and make sure it is the right one. I don't do gedcom as no-one could really want ALL my family as I don't want ALL theirs. I have made mistakes but have been able to correct them on further researching. With the major name of Smith!! it is so easy to get the wrong one and I really could do with deeper pockets for all the certs LOL I am somehow going to have to find the wherewithall to go to records offices this year, as it will be a 1 or 2 night stop-over for each place. Wonder if I could turn myself into a charity?!! LOL
Love the kind people here :)

Kylie, to be honest you attitude needs readjusting.

Have you thought people might just use the site because they prefer the lay out to what they can do on their home computer.

Maybe they just want to share it with close relatives.

Maybe they have be burnt by wholesale copiers.

I will share my tree if I think its actually going to be helpful for that person rather them just increasing the number of 'relatives' they have.

Sorry no ones getting hold of my full tree by me sending them the file (unless they are a close relative) if they want the information they can copy it, even then after being burnt I'm keeping info thats out there to a minium.

The attitude of i you don't want to share everything don't share at all is downright stupid. For starters most contacts I have share a great grandparent, they don't need to know who my parents married and all their ancestors.

I have a few rare names in my tree and other relatives would be rightfully peeved if someone who was such a distant relation they can't explain how they are linked to that name suddenely had people with that name in their tree.

Sharing yes, wholesale handing over of information not on your nelly.

Good point about the errors, maryjane-sue. I've got in my tree, for instance, a Herbert Castledine who a contact of mine has as being married to Sarah Ann Cook. Try as I might, I couldn't find this marriage. She had actually been born Sarah Ann Roworth and married a Mr. Cook before Herbert but my contact had just put her down in her first married name. Took me ages to solve that.

One of the reasons I am wary about sharing some information is that, once you give it to someone else, you have no control over what they do with it. I happen to be adopted, I shared my tree (which doesn't mention me being adopted) with someone, who apparently passed my information on (having deduced that I could be adopted) and it is now on a tree on Ancestry belonging to a third party. I have contacted the third party who said they had no idea how they were even related to me!

This is why I've got a website now with my family history stuff on - there are loads of details but I can customise it and edit it before putting it on the web to exclude living people or sensitive information. Anyone can visit the page, the details come up on internet searches and it's easy to modify, plus I have total control over what information I give out.

Personally I prefer to work through someone's tree than just merge a gedcom file with my tree. Even if someone does send me their gedcom file I will open it on my tree program and make a Descendants Report and work through that and add names to my tree that way, I am more likely to spot mistakes or errors in trees that way. THEN I verify the names and information provided.

Isnt the whole point of this site to share what we have found? and if i had confirmed every entry on my tree individually through obtaining birth certs, and marriage certs etc, i would be BROKE. Its not a case of swooping up someone's work, but usually both parties have info that the other hasnt. I have a couple of hundred people in my tree from my great grandparents down, and know the info is accurate. I would be more than happy to swap files with somone who may be in my Great Grand Uncles line if they contacted me.

Basically, i feel if you dont want to share your whole info, you should not bother sharing your tree in the first place.

In saying that though.. i have met some wonderfull people that have shared a wealth of information and i do appreciate all they have sent.

Its just a few that bug me.

Think you have to be careful of is, some people have had their fingers burnt, as it it were, by opening their tree to others who have then taken every scrap of information on it (whether it is wrong or right) and so it does tend to mke people more careful.

Also, I think some people sometimes want to make sure there is a definite connection. Personally, I've never sent anyone a GEDCOM file because I don't get how they work but I have sent birth, marriage, death etc details of the ancestor I have in common with a contact as well as details I know about children, addresses, burial places etc.

Kylie if you copied this tree containing "hundreds of people", how would you know that the information is correct?

Most of us would never copy, we may use someone else's tree as a guide but we'd check every bit of information ourselves.

If you were to just merge someone's Gedcom with your own you would end up with a string of names you'd never read.

I have had success with searching for family relatives, but i come accross many who say they dont have a gedcom file to send accross with info on the lines i am researching.... I am more than happy to share all i have with anyone who asks, and i dont understand why people put the info up if they dont want to share it!! If we have access to tree's that have info that we require, are we able to download and save the decendants of the people we are tracing from another persons tree? If we can, how do we do it? The only other way i have found is the cut and paste button, but isnt that only individuals? or can we somehow highlight the line we want and add to ours? I recently found a line that had hundreds of people that i would like to add, but it would take hours to do individually.

Kylie