Genealogy Chat

Just been checking my tree matches and for the second time in a few weeks I have found that a contact has added a great chunk of my tree to his own and that I have appeared as a match. I find this a bit disconcerting as last time I looked I was not quite dead (a bit sluggish maybe but probably still in the land of the living). How do other people feel about this? Would they contact the person and ask them to remove the living people's names from their trees, or just put it down to experience?

Hi, I'm new on here, so maybe I did this in the wrong way... but I discovered that you don't have to have yourself in your tree, you just start with an ancestor. Maybe it's too late to change the details for you, though? As to your question, I'd ask him/her to remove the relevant people, as a matter of courtesy both to you and to them. That's my $0.02, anyway, for what they're worth... Andrew.

Hi Andrew. Thank you for your two-pennorth!! I hadn't thought of not starting my tree with myself. I just thought that it would be common courtesy for someone to ask the permission of a living person before adding them to their tree.

Angela there have been loads of threads on this very subject! I have realised that some people don't feel the way I do about adding living people to their tree without specific permission. A polite message requesting them to remove it might work or if that fails contact GR and ask them to remove you. (from the other person's tree, I mean!!) netti x

'Hi Andrew. Thank you for your two-pennorth!! I hadn't thought of not starting my tree with myself. I just thought that it would be common courtesy for someone to ask the permission of a living person before adding them to their tree.' I'd have thought that it would be common courtesy for them to ask you before 'borrowing' your research full stop! But then 'common courtesy' doesn't seem to be a terribly widespread commodity. I almost said 'these days', but I resisted! Cheers, Andrew.

Thanks, Netti. I might well go with the polite message suggestion, or maybe just put it down to experience. I must admit that I have never added great chunks of other people's trees to my own, only the people that were relevant to furthering my own research. Ah, well ... onwards ever onwards!!!!!

Hello again, Andrew. Yes - please add 'these days'!!! I do feel a bit peeved that I have spent several years and a lot of effort doing my research and that people can claim it for themselves without asking. I have found a number of wonderful contacts on GR (all my 'GR Cousins'!) and we have had lots of correspondence and helped each other out with copies of documents, family photographs, information, etc. Because of the effort that these people have put in, I am only too happy for them to share my tree. Maybe I am just feeling like an old cross-patch this morning.

I am in favour of sharing trees and information, but for my own information and as a matter of courtesy I try to remember to fill in the 'Source' field so that anyone to whom I have given access is aware that I am not taking credit for the research on that particular entry and that I have not verified it with original sources. When I DO check it with an original source then the 'Source' field gets altered.

That sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do, Brian. It shows that you are willing to check the sources and not just rely on another person doing all the work.