General Chat

Have you heard any more off GR caz, did you e-mail them again? catherine xx

I sent them another email yesterday, not sure if they have emailed me back yet, i cant access my MSN so i have to go to another site i belong to and on there..there is a couple of people who access my MSN for me and let me know what emails i have had. Not checked to see if this female has still got my names in her tree this morning, just going to do it now. CAZ

Just checked and she still has my name and my eldest boy, so none of the names have been deleted yet.....:(

Reading the Name Stealer istory reminded me of what happened to me last year. It was like reading my own experience all over again. A female asked to view my tree, saying that she had a connection to a member of my family. I kindly allowed her to view and within days all 170 names in my tree had appeared in her name. She was totally unconnected to my family. Even mine and my husbands names were there. Now she has put my tree on her own website. It makes me so angry because even addresses where my parents used to live are there. The trees on genesreunited are our trees and we do not put them there for unconnected people to claim and use as their own. I am happy to give any related person as many names as they want so I don't consider myself a spoilsport. I contacted both websites but sadly both said they could not get involved. Anth.

I thought the idea of genreunited was to help us find living relatives as well as our ancestors. I have been researching my family tree for 16 years and have given my information freely, although I do have a website, but what is the point of all this if we're not prepared to share. I know some people are rather possesive about their research, but at the end of the day we are all looking for relatives as well as ancestors. I still get a thrill when I make a new connection, but I have recently come across a contact who I thought had given me her permission to add her living details to my tree, but apparently she hadn't. So I have now deleted her and her family from my tree and I thank god she is not a close relative of mine. I will think twice in future before sharing my details, so other genuine and nice people will miss out on all my research. I have even sent them copies of certificates I have payed for, and also baptisms and burial records. Thank goodness there are more caring and sharing people out there than the selfish ones. Gill

I thought the idea of genreunited was to help us find living relatives as well as our ancestors. I have been researching my family tree for 16 years and have given my information freely, although I do have a website, but what is the point of all this if we're not prepared to share. I know some people are rather possesive about their research, but at the end of the day we are all looking for relatives as well as ancestors. I still get a thrill when I make a new connection, but I have recently come across a contact who I thought had given me her permission to add her living details to my tree, but apparently she hadn't. So I have now deleted her and her family from my tree and I thank god she is not a close relative of mine. I will think twice in future before sharing my details, so other genuine and nice people will miss out on all my research. I have even sent them copies of certificates I have payed for, and also baptisms and burial records. Thank goodness there are more caring and sharing people out there than the selfish ones. Gill

Morning Anthea, its bad aint it when somebody just takes the info without asking. My problem was when i sent her a message from the Hot Matches i forgot to untick the box so she could'nt see my tree.....the next thing is a contact of mine asked if i knew who this female was because she turned up in my contacts Hot Matches with a load of my names......BUT because this female never ever sent me a message back from my first message i forgot all about her and had to check all my contacts....and there she was, i'd sent her a message roughly about over a month ago....and she's taken a lot of my names, i sent her a message asking about my names she had and she appologised for not getting back to me sooner, THINKS we had a connection.....and that was it, no access to her tree or nothing....my contact managed to get access to her tree and she then forwarded me all the names that this female had in her tree......well at the moment i can see that she has taken 85 names of living rellies and i aint even going to look at the dead rellies....i have over 1200 people in my tree and searching name by name does'nt excite me...lol... I have never had a problem with people taking info from my tree so long as i offer or they ask....and that includes the living rellies names...share and share alike, but dont just take......she has even got a lot of the info wrong, changing names slightly, different dad for one of my rellies...the rellie had 2 kids but only 1 father has been named...this female has put down both kids as having the same father and even birth years she has altered...but the other annoying thing is, a lot of these rellies she's taken from my tree are from my dads side of the tree....the person i was asking her about was from my mums side of the tree, so she has taken names from both sides of my tree.....cheeky b***h

GILLIAN, i have never had a problem with people taking info from my tree...you're missing the point, she never asked and she never even sent me a message back to my first message asking about a rellie, she just read my message..seen my tree was open for her to view..and then took a lot of names without a thank you or kiss my a***, she's taken names from all over my tree....not just the direct line, she has cousins of mine that are not related to the original ancestor.... I also send people copies of Certificates, Photos and any other form of paperwork i have. CAZ

Who is this name stealer?

Am i allowed to name this person ??

I think it's out of order when someone does that. I always like to do the work myself, if I get stuck, I will look at someone else's tree for a bit of guidence, but I always double check it. And stealing LIVING members, is 100% out of order, especially when they ignore you.

I would. lol

Right, well the name of this female is SAMANTHA MASTERS. I have emailed her asking her to delete the names, she has never got back to me (why am i not surprised there) but i have been informed that since i emailed her she has added more names (not from my tree as i have now blocked her)....so she must have seen my message asking her to delete....and she has'nt... The surname that i originally wrote to her about was MUSTOE, so if you have Mustoe in your tree....dont get in touch with her as her info might not be reliable....she has slightly changed some of my rellies details....

The point of this is NOT whether you are a meanie or not, for not wanting to share....the POINT is that she does NOT HAVE PERMISSION from those living people, to include them on her tree. Her bad manners are beside the point - she doesn't have permission, end of story. Slighty off centre though - how do you copy someone's tree from here in just a few days, lol! It takes me nearly all day to find just one person on some people's trees! OC

Kind of beggars the question who own Gt Grandma - answer no-one. If you are related to a 3rd cousin on your cousins mothers side,and you want to put them on your tree , why cant you? So, she shouldn't put living rellies on with out permission - I guess she thought permission was already sought - after all you have them .''..but i have been informed that since i emailed her she has added more names (not from my tree as i have now blocked her)....so she must have seen my message asking her to delete....'<<<Sorry , dont follow that at all

On a thread of mine about the same subject, I named a ''person stealer'' two years ago, and GR sent me an email asking me to remove my post.

The thing I find really interesting about name gatherers on this site is what do they do when someone contacts them. If someone is of no relation to you at all and someone else contacts you about them what do you say,do you answer and say no I havent got a clue I just flogged this pile of names from someone elses tree because I thought they would look good. Or do they do what I suspect happens alot which is just ignore there messages I was stung at the start of the year and my tree went whizzing of to tribal pages where the person wrote this fabulous long blurb about there 'research' I nearly choked . The tree grows by hundreds a week as they scoop up unsuspecting peoples trees from out of here and transfer them. I am just waiting for some entrepeneur to start selling the info they take from here...... Regards Tania

Hello Caz My name taker was a different one to yours but she clearly had the same affect on you as mine had on me. Seems there are quite a few of us out there that this is happening to. Like you I enjoy sharing info, certificates, pictures, the lot, if a person has a connection. What it actually means is that someone completely unconnected is now researching your family tree just as someone is now researching mine. In my case this person contacted some of my contacts and said she was from my line and they of course didn.t know otherwise. If anyone wanted contact over one of our names we might actually miss out on that contact because the name stealer was first to be spotted as a possible contact. I actually get less contacts now that my tree is posted on my name stealer's website. Anth

Permission from living people, cannot be 'passed on' to a third party. I never lift information wholesale off anyone else's tree. But I do use their information as a prompt for my OWN research, a useful shortcut to finding the correct information (sometimes!). If they have a well-researched, well-sourced tree, and I find exactly the same information as they did, then it might look as if I had just copied their information. The only living person on my tree is me. OC

JESS BOW BAG BOBBIN DOG, what i meant about the following sentence : ''..but i have been informed that since i emailed her she has added more names (not from my tree as i have now blocked her)....so she must have seen my message asking her to delete.blah blah blah .... was, i had sent her an email asking her to delete the names she took from my tree, a few days later my contact who gained access to this Samantha's tree told me that she had added 4 more names...well in order for her to add more names she must have been on the site...to which she would have seen my message.....and ignored it... When my contact on here asked her how was she related to me she could'nt answer...she just sent a message back saying...'we are related but its complicated'...............thats because she took all the names without even checking who we all were, which proves it by her taking names from every branch of my tree. THANK YOU to everyone who agrees with me, like i have pointed out, i do not have a problem with anyone taking info from my tree..just so long as they ask or i tell them in a message to help themselves....this Samantha has never acknowledged my first message sent to her nearly 2 months ago. CAZ