How dissapointing and in some ways upsetting

[perranmaid]

I finally plucked up the courage to contact a living person with a surname I am very interested in and after giving access to my tribal pages site the reply was to say the least slightly upsetting and dissapointing. It seems that the person believes I am a business and that I have highly "questionable motives" due to the number of surnames on the site, and the fact that I have not updated since 2006.

I have just sent an email back to try and reassure that this is not the case and that I am genuinely very interested in that name and that this past 12 months have prevented me from sitting at the computer for any length of time hopefully I have done enough.

Just needed to share my disappointment that all my hard work putting the site together across my whole tree, and my fathers work from 40 years ago is so easily dismissed and in quite a hurtful manner.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Linda

You should know by now that you can't win in this game!

Thousands of names in your tree? You must have copied them, or even stolen them, off someone else, and you cannot have checked a thing.

Only half a dozen names in your tree? You're a Newbie and too lazy to do the work yourself. Or you are so precious about your tree you aren't going to give any info at all, just TAKE off other people.

Ask your contact why he thinks you let him look at your tree for NOTHING, if he thinks you are operating a commercial venture. And close your access immediately. Silly old fool. (Him, not you)

OC

[perranmaid]

You are so right OC. maybe I should have been a bit abrupt with my reply instead of trying to justify my work.

Not to worry I will try a couple of others that I have found and see how I get on.

Problem is I get a feeling that this one does have info and been burned in the past.

[Olde Crone Holden]

Well, yes, one bad apple spoils the barrel, but surely if he stopped and thought about it, you wouldn't be GIVING AWAY information if you made a living out of selling it, now would you.

Perhaps he's not into genealogy and doesn't realise the HUGE number of hours and ££££ some of us put into this hobby. He is right to be cautious, but not to be downright rude and insulting, drawing conclusions from nothing concrete.

OC

[Pippa Doll]

Perhaps you should ask him to join this site?

[perranmaid]

Well email seen I asked for a read receipt, lets wait and see if I get anything back it's so annoying though, there aren't many of the name in this country, non that I know of doing research on this actual surname as a direct line, and only a couple in the world that I know of doing female members.

Now there's a thought Pippa if I get a reply whichever way it goes I may well do that.

[Little Nell]

Linda

How frustrating ((()))

[Simon in Bucks]

Did you mention to him that your father had also done some of the work stretching back many years ?

It depends on how you worded the e-mail - and that's the tricky bit, as you have no idea how they will 'read it'.

I hope you get a response, everything is possible - fingers crossed.

[perranmaid]

Simon,

The one I sent last night I pointed out that whilst the site bears the name, it does contain all my ancestors from work that my father did 40 years ago before computers were around, and then my work over the last 7 years. Contains many spouses names and that a high percentage of all branches had multiple marriages with in many cases 10 siblings who married etc. I had also pointed out in the previous email that the site had not been updated due to personal circumstances last year so I now wait to see whether that is enough to convince. if not nothing ventured nothing gained and this case nothing lost.

[Olde Crone Holden]

All that's left to do (!) on my tree is filling in the really difficult ones. Like most long-time researchers I have had the main lines in place for many years.

All I add to it these days is far-flung branches, out of a desire to keep working on the tree. This makes my TP tree look as if I am always working on it and finding out new things - I'm not really, 90% of the stuff on there has been on paper for decades.

OC

[KiteRunner]

Didn't you have to redo a whole branch of it recently, OC?

[Olde Crone Holden]

Yes, Kate, I did - a female side which my brother had tracked back only to the two previous generations, so not much harm there - I have never had a contact for either the right woman or the wrong woman, so no duff info passed on anywhere.

OC