Genealogy Chat

Whilst I was away on holiday, an e-mail came through that allowed me access to a tree and gave me the opportunity to allow access to mine.

It came from someone I had never had any contact with (bad memory not withstanding). They had so many people on their tree it just wasn't possible to work out how they thought we might be connected.

So yesterday I sent a nice, polite pm asking how they thought we might be connected because there were too many names on their tree for me to spot who they might be interested in. I also apologised if I had forgotten and we had previously been in contact.

The pm has been opened. Anyway I thought I would take another glance at the list of names in case something jumped out at me and access has been removed.

I must say that it was a pretty impressive tree with (I think) over twenty-six thousand names on it and going back a long, long way. Some of the names too, looked historically interesting.

I just find it strange that someone who presumably has a lot of time and effort invested in their tree wouldn't have replied with the name they were looking at but simply removed access when I questioned who they might be interested in in my family.

Do you suppose I've been the genealogy equivalent of spammed to enable someone to add to the vast number of entries on their tree?

If anyone has had the same thing and wants to pm me the name of the person or ask me who it was, I'll pm them back. Then if it really does appear to be dodgy I'll submit it to GR.

xJ

Tree scrumpers

I doubt the tree would have been impressive if you had checked some of the details



Roy

I think that the most likely explanation is that the email came from a name collector rather than a genealogist.

Some people do seem to think that there is a prize for having more people in their family tree than anyone else has. Mind you if that is the case then the person who contacted you has a long way to go. I have seen trees with well over 100,000 names in them.

Hi Roy,

I'm sure you are right although I wish I had made a note of some of them to do just that.

Tree Scrumpers is a wonderful term. I've never heard it before but I love it. Perhaps a tee-shirt or should that be 'tree-shirt' is in order saying 'I've been scrumped' :-D

J

I fully agree with Roy and I've had the same thing happen to me: someone with 49,000 names in their tree but absolutely none of it backed up with evidence. Obviously a "name collector" and like as not their tree will be full of inaccuracies.

Best wishes

Kim in Hull

It's a lesson for those less experienced who need to be reminded to think twice before allowing access to their tree.

I prefer to establish decent contact with someone first before I let them have access. My list is a very short one.

J

On a couple of occasions within the last 12 months I've received am e-mail giving me access to someones tree. There was no message at all and either member was in my contacts list. I then checked posts where I'd tried to help and found that on one, the poster was one of those whose tree I'd now got access to. I contacted her and asked why she had opened her tree to me. She assured me that she wasn't aware she had.

I also sent a message to the other member. They didn't reply but access to their tree was understandably withdrawn.

I contacted GR to advise them there may be a problem in the system. They asked me to forward the email but unfortunately I'd already deleted it.

I wouldn't like to think anyone has been given access to my tree without my knowledge.

Chris

Oh yes I had one, who refused to name names lol, he opened his tree and there wasn't one name that connected with mine visible. When I persisted in asking what the connection was he replied that he had thousands of names and all I had to do was look through them or I would 'be missing out' he then became very aggressive and accused me of paranoia and worse lol.

I did work out who he probably 'thought' might be a connection in his name gathering, I assume he was collecting names for a particular part of Australia, as that's where he was, where someone of the same surname as someone on my tree was quite 'famous'...not that his name came up on the tree at all when searched , , and no connection at all to mine unless he managed to be born in Aus' and London at the same time. :-D

Yikes!

That would be one heck of a glitch.

I've already sent GR a message with my thoughts and a link to this thread. If I am wrong about this person I'm happy to apologise if she sends me a pm. But I'm going with my gut instinct that says I'm right to be suspicious.

I'll let you know what, if any, response I get.

xJ

This used to often happen .............


..... people (especially newbies) would send a pm asking for contact, and did not notice that there was a box underneath the message box that was ticked by default, and that gave access to their tree.


One had to physically untick that box to remove access



soooooooo many people used to not know about that.



Now, I haven't sent a request for contact for many moons ....................

is that box still there?????????????????????


YES !!!!!

.................. I've just looked in my Hot Matches, and ticked on the name of someone who allegedly has matches with me, and this box is next to the list of "matched" names ................

Next step: Send a message

If you think you share relatives with xxxxxx xxxxxx, send a message to find out more
Subject Message

Allow this member to view my family tree



There is a box containing a tick next to that Allow this member ........





Could this be what happened.?





sylvia

This crops up quite regularly

sure does!!

I understand what people are saying about not unticking the little box when sending a message which means automatic allowal for the recipient to view your tree.

Normally, when I'm given access to someones tree, I get two messages, one is the written message, the other is the standard xxx xxx has opened their tree and that person is then in my conatcts list. The two occasions I'm talking about, all I received wasthe xxx xxx has opened their tree. The member did not appear in my contacts list. Because I did not know why I'd been given access, I immediately checked my contacts list at the time. So it wasn't because they had forgotten to untick the box when sending me a message.

Chris