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Do they copy your tree???

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  • Do they copy your tree???

    Just relating an interesting experience as I know we have all suspected our hard work has been copied by 'tree stealers' at one point or another!

    My sister in law has just begun her tree. Her maiden name is vanishingly unusual but she had found her family in 1891 and 1881 - zilch elsewhere. I knew they must be there to be found and - of course - with a rare name it is all down to different spellings and mistranscriptions. I did manage to find them on all the censuses and on FreeBMD and she has begun buying certificates to back it up.

    Some of the entries were so completely different to the actual name and also it changed over the years (a case of a dropped 'H'). In one census the head of the family has the wrong first and surnames and could only be spotted by places of birth. In one census he had no surname at all, the wrong age, and was living with his married daughter, whose marriage I managed to find. I felt very proud of myself!!!

    Later I looked on Ancestry and found someone has a public tree on there and has gone through exactly the same convoluted searches as I had!!!! I was pleased to see someone had had the same thoughts as I had. It crossed my mind that if I had done this earlier and published it all on the internet I might have suspected this person of 'stealing' my efforts.

    It just goes to remind us that most information is out there to find if you look hard enough and think laterally. So (unless the other tree has very personal information which could not have been found) I'll be more careful in the future before I moan that someone has 'stolen' my work!

    I was glad I didn't search the Ancestry trees before I did it - all that hunting pleasure would have been taken from me! :p

    Anne

  • #2
    Think some of these problems could be with people who use FTM , after every so many people are added a box comes up saying add to generations network which is part of ancestry trees , so those who dont read it properly like I nearly did could do it by mistake ;;
    borobabs passed away March 2018

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    • #3
      HI
      This might sound odd (but thats me) I never check the ancestry trees untill I have done all to that line why I do not know but it never dawns on me too.
      But then when I do and find one that has a different person marrying someone than I have I have to go and check what I have got to make sure that I have it right.
      The biggest mistake on everyones tree on ancestry is they have the sonn of one person being born in 1597 the parents are born in 1800's But loads of people have that as a connection


      Laura

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      • #4
        I have a hobby tree which follows a book written by an old man in 1887, who had the most phenomenal memory for local genealogy.

        However, his narrative style left a lot to be desired ("Now, talking of the first John again" - unh, which John???) and I spent literally years unravelling the book.

        One day I was chatting to the Registrar and she said "You do know there is an unpublished manuscript by a local historian?". I got the manuscript and I was absolutely thrilled to see that our research matched, even down to certain misgivings we had about some information.

        My tree is on TP and anyone who has read the manuscript will think I just copied it word for word - I didn't, my research was original!

        OC

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        • #5
          I was furious the other day had asked a member on Ancestry about somebody in both our trees he only had the name no dates nothing , not only did he not bother to reply he then copied all my details word for word ,and I know he did because he did this the day after I emailed him.
          I dont actually mind most of the time but I do when they dont even bother to share info .

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Val wish Id never started View Post
            I was furious the other day had asked a member on Ancestry about somebody in both our trees he only had the name no dates nothing , not only did he not bother to reply he then copied all my details word for word ,and I know he did because he did this the day after I emailed him.
            I dont actually mind most of the time but I do when they dont even bother to share info .
            Thats happened to me a few times in the few months I have been researching my family history. You have to look though at the advantages, I have linked up with two cousins that up until a few months ago I didn't know of their existence. One of whom is very interested in motor racing, but didn't know of the family connection until I got in touch with him. With another we together have worked out a missing bit of history, as to what happened to one of the sisters, as she was a witness on my great grandparents marriage certificate and X remembered the name on his side of the family and did some digging and made a useful connection.

            I have also made contact with a very distant relative overseas and through talking to him on line, he has helped me make sense of origins on names in useage in my own direct family's recent past.

            I don't think its about necessarily how far back you can go, though its very satisfying visiting a cemetery and finding generations of your family there I would think, but I find the back stories more interesting; ie how they lived, what they did etc.

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            • #7
              oh I dont mind at all usually as it can help a lot but not when they ignore my email and still copy my stuff after .

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Val wish Id never started View Post
                oh I dont mind at all usually as it can help a lot but not when they ignore my email and still copy my stuff after .
                It's the lack of courtesy, isn't it!

                Christine
                Researching: BENNETT (Leics/Birmingham-ish) - incl. Leonard BENNETT in Detroit & Florida ; WARR/WOR, STRATFORD & GARDNER/GARNAR (Oxon); CHRISTMAS, RUSSELL, PAFOOT/PAFFORD (Hants); BIGWOOD, HAYLER/HAILOR (Sussex); LANCASTER (Beds, Berks, Wilts) - plus - COCKS (Spitalfields, Liverpool, Plymouth); RUSE/ROWSE, TREMEER, WADLIN(G)/WADLETON (Devonport, E Cornwall); GOULD (S Devon); CHAPMAN, HALL/HOLE, HORN (N Devon); BARRON, SCANTLEBURY (Mevagissey)...

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                • #9
                  yes Christine thats it ,I dont begrudge anybody some of my info if it helps us but dont like to be used that way.

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                  • #10
                    Comes back to the age old thing, manners. Something some people just dont have.

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                    • #11
                      I posted sometime ago how freaky I was finding the fact that someone from Genes Reunited had connected with not only my whole side of the family but also every branch of my husband's side, even all the German relatives. I did politely tell her by email that she could not possibly be related to everyone in my tree but go no response.

                      Well Charlotte W. (won't give her full name), what you don't realise is that I have secreted my favourite pets names in my family tree as well. You never know, you might even be related to my now deceased cockrel along with my many dogs and cats over the years. I know this sounds really an awful thing to do, especially as I have had so much help from other people, but I started to feel as if I was being stalked!

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                      • #12
                        Hattie I bet I know who that was they also copied the whole of my tree .

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                        • #13
                          I have managed to track down a child for everyone of my Dad's aunts and uncles. I sent one of the cousins what I had on the tree from Dad's grandparents down to Dad's generation. He made contact with the last remaining cousin and sent her my tree. When I finally spoke to her she told me how much work he had done on the tree!!

                          I don't care that the family has the tree or that he gave it to them. I do care that a man who had no interest in his living relatives is suddenly contacting them all and passing off my own work as his own.
                          Kit

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                          • #14
                            Hattie thats brilliant!!!

                            are you related to woofie smith born 1946 :D
                            the meercat.

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                            • #15
                              I have had problem on Genes recently where I gave a gentleman access who is very distanly connected on my dads side and then a week later looked at his tree to find he had taken a lot of my rellies and put them on his tree, and now I find that he has put my mums late sister on his tree. I have asked him politely to either explain his connection to her or remove her from his tree as far as I know he is not related to her, and needless to say he has not answered me.

                              So now I won't let anyone have access on Genes unless I am sure they closely connected to me.
                              Proud to be connected to Elizabeth (Marjorie) Griffin, one of over 100,000 British Home Children sent from United Kingdom to Canada & Australia to begin a new life.

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                              • #16
                                Originally posted by Kit View Post
                                I have managed to track down a child for everyone of my Dad's aunts and uncles. I sent one of the cousins what I had on the tree from Dad's grandparents down to Dad's generation. He made contact with the last remaining cousin and sent her my tree. When I finally spoke to her she told me how much work he had done on the tree!!

                                I don't care that the family has the tree or that he gave it to them. I do care that a man who had no interest in his living relatives is suddenly contacting them all and passing off my own work as his own.
                                Exactly the same thing happened to me. I sent a very distant cousin my tree by post.
                                A few weeks later his brother knocked on my door and showed me this "brilliant tree that his brother had done".

                                My tree, my work and he claimed the credit.

                                They both got a right mouthful off me and were told in no uncertain terms whose work it was.
                                I never got an apology.

                                He can't back any of it up, I never sent any of the certs.

                                I don't mind sharing info with anyone but to claim it as their own work just isn't on. At least acknowledge whose work it is.

                                If it was a book or a song or whatever they would be taken to court.

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                                • #17
                                  Originally posted by hattie View Post
                                  I posted sometime ago how freaky I was finding the fact that someone from Genes Reunited had connected with not only my whole side of the family but also every branch of my husband's side, even all the German relatives. I did politely tell her by email that she could not possibly be related to everyone in my tree but go no response.

                                  Well Charlotte W. (won't give her full name), what you don't realise is that I have secreted my favourite pets names in my family tree as well. You never know, you might even be related to my now deceased cockrel along with my many dogs and cats over the years. I know this sounds really an awful thing to do, especially as I have had so much help from other people, but I started to feel as if I was being stalked!
                                  What a weird thing to do, copying someone else's tree in its entirity when they have no connection to you whatsoever. Like the idea of the family chimp/cockatoo etc - who is making a monkey out of who?

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                                  • #18
                                    i only put the brief stuff on my ancestry tree. dates, and suburbs. never addresses. i dont really do it to get rellies though, i come from very small families that didnt have a lot of descendants. i mainly keep it so if i lose my research to a fire or something i have it somewhere i can access it.
                                    and i know where to look for the bmd's, and am pretty secure in my knowledge of who, what, and where with the census.

                                    i did have my coates tree up though. and then saw a tree with my exact info in it!! i was excited, a cousin. but then it turned out, that the person was related to a sister of my great grandmother's grandma. she was connected to the powton's, who had know connection to the coates family. yet this person has my coates family back to 1666? the tree is gone now, i can only assume it became private!!

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                                    • #19
                                      Hello this is my first post,but this seems to be an ongoing problem on every site.I now have a limited amount on any tree I put on line and have it as a private tree.recently I made contact with the husband of a distant cousin on Tribal pages.He's now put some dates on there from me however he's still got them wrong.Three of us descended from the same family have noticed he's got the wrong parents for our man in 1840,we've not decided how to tell him yet.
                                      I'm looking for Briscoe,Taylor and Rayworth in the Midlands-especially John Briscoe's birth -he married Elizabeth Piper in Martley in 1810.
                                      Barb

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                                      • #20
                                        Once and only once, have I opened one of my trees on Ancestry to somebody. Never again. Everything was copied, but what really cheesed me off, is that I get hints for that tree via Ancestry - and they're mine - from him!!

                                        Having said that, my Ancestry tree is treated as a 'working document' and sensitive info eg. cause of death is kept on my off-line tree.

                                        A salutary lesson :(

                                        Gwyn
                                        Last edited by Oscar; 09-07-09, 16:57. Reason: Can't spell!!
                                        Freya - a lovely, funny human-friendly disaster waiting to happen....

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