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
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
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