Is this odd, or is it just me being cynical and suspicious?

Ann In the UK · Post by **Ann In the UK** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 2:35 pm

A little while back I made contact with someone on Ancestry who appeared to have a couple of 'my' people in his tree. The upshot was, I enabled him access to my tree, and he enabled me to access his. Anyway, it quickly became apparent to met that, somewhere along the line, he must've got muddled and had added people he found with similar names and backgrounds (who happen to also be in my tree) to his tree with little evidence that they were 'his' to support it.

Or so I thought.

I emailed him and told him my thoughts, explaining that the people he had listed who I thought were mine, were definitly mine, but the groups he'd put them with were incorrect. But he just emailed me back, apparently oblivious to what I'd said, and seemingly thinking I was the one who'd made the mistake. I hadn't.

Anyway, no matter, I thought, and I let it go. And I forgot all about it until a couple of weeks ago. I was going through my ancestor's 'hints' when I came across one linking to his tree. And, when I looked I was horrified to find that quite a lot of the information in my tree, about my ancestors (including photos and other additions), had been added to his tree - which by then had over 6000 people in it! That's when I realised he still had access to my tree!

Needless to say, I've since removed his access privileges to my tree(although I still have access to his). But I just can't figure out what's going on. It doesn't make sense. Has anyone heard of anything like this before?

Post by **Anne H** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 2:58 pm

Hi Ann,

Yes...I believe it happens quite a lot - including my own tree being 'stolen' by my nephew and a few 'distant' cousins when I had it on GR. The sad thing with mine was that they just copied everything, and from viewing their trees, none of them have ever researched their own immediate families...just took mine.

No, it doesn't make any sense.

Regards,
Anne H

LesleyB · Post by **LesleyB** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 3:01 pm

Hi Ann
A good few years back I remember looking at one of the forum areas on GR and there were posts about someone who was just taking people from other people's trees and adding them to thier own with little interest in whether they were really all connected or not. I seem to remember the consensus of opinion was at that time that is was a numbers thing - people who only wanted BIG trees with no care at all for accuracy of any kind.

This kind of copying with out quesitoning is also, I think, responsible for those "myths" which arise: the kind of thing where 20 people say on their trees that so and so was born on 13 June 1794, when you know it was 18 Jan 1794 because you have seen the original OPR - but if 20 of the say it was June, then you are clearly wrong...according to them, and so the myth continues. Similar things happen with names when blind copying of someone else's transcriptions are concerned!

I did have a similar thing happen to me but of a much milder nature. I just wrote to the person and said that it was clear the stuff had been taken directly from my tree and that it would have been polite to at least ask before adding it to their own tree. I think there are some people who just do not put thier brains in gear at all - once the info is on the internet, the attitude of a certian sector seems to be that it is all public info now anyway and hey, it's all free...isn't it?

Odd world.

Best wishes
Lesley

Ann In the UK · Post by **Ann In the UK** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 3:07 pm

No, maybe I didn't explain this very well. My problem isn't that the information I have there was used by someone else, or that it was added to their tree - that's what happens at Ancesry. My problem is that the people he added, and indeed the ones he appears to have added through out his tree (nearly 7000 members!) just don't add up. It's like he's just adding random people. The only way I can describe it is that he's like (for want of a better description) a spambot - you know one of those things that trawls the net looking for email addresses? Except he's trawling Ancestry - for other people's ancestors

I just don't get it.

Ann In the UK · Post by **Ann In the UK** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 3:09 pm

Sorry Lesley, I guess we posted together.

Yeah, it is an odd world. Full of odd people. Not in my family, though, obviously

Ted · Post by **Ted** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 5:59 pm

Hi Ann / Anne / Lesley

I came across something similar on Ancestry recently - I was searching for some of my lot in other's trees and came across a whole bundle of them in a tree owned by someone in the US with around 7500 names in it. I am always a bit suspicious of big trees like that as there is often little substance to them other than 'badge collecting' - however I made contact on the off chance of some info on my elusive relatives.

The owner had no idea other than that he had copied them from another tree as the surnames were the same - which led to an assumption that they were his. Needless to say he did not get anything more from me to add to his collection of names.

Makes you wonder why they bother eh?

Ted

Post by **Anne H** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 6:13 pm

Hi Ted,

The owner had no idea other than that he had copied them from another tree as the surnames were the same - which led to an assumption that they were his. Needless to say he did not get anything more from me to add to his collection of names.

I will never understand that mindset.

I can understand making note of family trees you think might be connected and then researching them yourself before entering them into your own tree, but name collecting without research is to me, just plain idiocy!

Does make you wonder!

Regards,
Anne H

Ted · Post by **Ted** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 6:30 pm

Hi Anne

It makes you wonder indeed ! I came across another person who did have some of mine in his tree - he was in fact a distant relative linked to my GGG Grandfather - I noticed that he had the wrong person in that position in his tree. I had spent at least 4 years researching him and have lots of supporting evidence to support my conclusion, including great details of his army service in the Penisular Wars (and before then) - I am 100% sure I have the correct person.

However this distant contact took the hump when I told him. He had based his conclusions on pretty superficial research and an assumption from the 1841 census and could not accept that he had the wrong person. His loss !

Ted

Ann In the UK · Post by **Ann In the UK** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 7:22 pm

It's certainly made me wary of contacting people with more than a couple of hundred in their tree though. I mean, I come from a family of large families - but I think if I were to hit a couple of thousand, I'd start to suspect I'd gone wrong somewhere!

I guess some folks just have money and time to waste on Ancestry subscriptions!

LesleyB · Post by **LesleyB** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 7:39 pm

hi Anne
Hate to say this, but I have over "a couple of thousand" but could show you evidence for the vast majority of them . ...And this is why I do not have a villa with a swimming pool in France!!

Best wishes
Lesley