Genealogy Chat

I love sharing my tree with all and sundry, in fact Im quite proud of it, and grateful to fellow tree hunters for helping along the way. But don't you hate it when you give access, and the other person (who you KNOW shares your ancestors) refuses to give access too? Its so unfair. I was contacted today by someone, and by the tone of his message to me, it was sooo obvious he wanted one-way access. So I gave him access...with a few imaginary ancestors attached (under the surname he was most interested in, lol). Then I unticked the access box, and deleted those fake entries. Am I cruel? No, I don't think so.

I've just had the reverse experience, twice. One today - 'I've got a James Brown, born in Liverpool. Have a look at my tree.' I did, and as I suspected, there was no connection. There was no need for him to show me his tree. I did give him a little homily on what I do and don't do on a first contact. J

Hi, I don't show people my tree on here! However, if there is a match I send them a report about the branch of the family they are interested in. Why don't I open my tree? Because I don't want them blanket copying ALL my relatives - especially the ones that have no connection to them! That happens a lot on here (you just have to read the horror stories)! I also get the reverse. I put a Sarah Elizabeth Beck on my tree born Wighton, Norfolk, but get enquiries about Sarah Becks born in Yorkshire!!! I wouldn't have put she was born in Norfolk if I thought she was born in Yorkshire would I?! Cheers, Horatia

I recently had an experience with a relative on one side of my tree, 'blanket copying' and then going on to share personal information about me with a relative on the other side - no relation to them, no matter how you look at it. Without going into too much detail, for obvious reasons, the person they were sharing information with was the last person I want knowing anything about me! I didnt mind giving people access, but I get really annoyed when people copy both sides of the tree - for what purpose? If you are DISTANTLY related to me via my mothers side, I would love to know the claim to distant relatives of mine on my fathers side!

Only today I had a really polite message re one of my relatives. The contact had opened her tree for me and asked to view mine. BUT there was no mention of why she thought there might be a link eg place of birth, marriage partner etc and when I looked the person she was asking about didn't appear on her tree ! I have sent her fairly full marriage details for the relative in question and IF she can say how she thinks we are linked I will gladly send her a file containing the part of my tree which she shares but sorry I will probably not open my full tree, most of which will be irrelevant. Waves to distant cousin Karen and sends sympathy. Why oh why can't folk do what we did, we viewed trees, swapped info and pictures about our mutual ancestors but neither of us would dream of copying unrelated part of tree or passing on info on living rellies.

Hello Judith, Hope you are well, fancy 'bumping; into you on here!

The trouble is, Rebeka, the 'fake' ancestors you created could now end up in other people's trees and be circulated for years to come.

If you read my message above Paul, it does actually say that after giving him enough time to copy my tree, I unticked the box (thus denying access again), and deleted the fake rellies. No-one should even be copying them, as genuine ancestors already know about this.