Mean spiritedness

[Asa]

Gwynne, I do share my Ancestry tree with 2 researchers both of whom I know are like-minded. I think I only have my tree on there now but I ought to check....

Julie, that's a very good point. And it's sort of why I'm feeling unhappy about it all - as I've said I have achieved such a lot lately on one particular family and it's the one that came up for take two 5 x grandparents this week. Part of me wants to say "Look what I've found!" but the other part of me doesn't want to see all my efforts diluted to someone else's badly researched tree in six months time. I *still* see my (living) parents and late grandmother's info on the net from time to time, usually with the details wrong.

[Margaret in Burton]

My elder daughter has just started getting interested at last. She asked me a few days ago if the tree was online anywhere so she could look. I gave her access to my Ancestry tree which is private.
She then said she'd started her own as she wanted to put her OH's side on . Firstly I told her to check she'd done it as private, she hadn't so soon changed that. Then I told her about name collectors who just tag stuff onto their trees just to make a bigger tree and people adding on stuff that are only connected by numerous marriages and not blood related at all.
Her reaction? "Well that's just plain daft".

I've put FTM on her laptop and transferred our tree to it, I'd done a small amount of research of her OH's side a few years ago so we transferred that too and merged the two making her the home person instead of me. Told her to do her OH's side as really ours is done with one notable exception ( Peter Henry Harrison lol)
It's early days and I sent her 1911 and 1901 census images last night and she's confused but I'll go and explain things to her.

She won't fall for the things I did in the early days of sharing your whole tree with folks, I only give a small amount to people these days that is connected to them via email, now I know the pitfalls I'm warning her in advance.

[Olde Crone]

Julie

I once posted on GR that I had an overwhelming urge to say to some people "You are too stupid to do family history". So far I have managed to resist.......

OC

[Phoenix]

Isn't that the whole problem with family history? That you cannot say that? Nobody can be denied trying to find out more about their grandparents. It's just unfortunate that some wouldn't recognise them if they bumped into them in the street, and others claim kinship with complete strangers.

I've been on help desks for beginners many times. and I have to say that I get a huge buzz when we do find granny in the census. But I know that quite a few will never find great granny.

[Phoenix]

I have to say too that while it took me years, pound notes & shoe leather to find my ancestors, someone starting today could polish off all my ancestors to 1841 in a fortnight or so and make very good inroads in my Norfolk and Dorset ancestors.

When it was difficult, there was a lot of fuss about "reinventing the wheel". Today, I would prefer new researchers to plough their own furrow, ideas untainted by what I have found.

I can remember once, in the pre-computer days, suggesting that there was always a possibility that some of my conclusions were wrong. And I remember the look of withering contempt I was given. But I was far more likely to have leapt to conclusions then, simply because I did not know that two babies were born with the same name within a couple of miles of each other. I have made a couple of complete howlers in my time and I don't doubt I will continue to make some more.

[Olde Crone]

Oh, how I agree, Phoenix! My pre internet work was riddled with mistakes, not necessarily because I was careless, but more because it was so difficult and time-consuming to find even one tiny fact and it had to be done physically, which meant a narrow focus mostly.

Thanks to the internet, I have discovered that baptisms which "ought" to have taken place in Lancashire, in fact took place in Cumberland. Pre-internet, if something didn't happen where you thought it should have happened, then you were stumped, because there was no fast way of researching in other areas of the country short of going there and no clue as to where "there" would turn out to be!

OC

I am very fortunate that distant relations, about 30 years ago, in many branches of my family, were interested in their family history. Lots of stories were wrong, because you didn't travel to the other side of the world leaving your family behind, not to do everything to give your children better opportunities for self advancement than you had. If they had stayed in UK/Ireland/Germany they might have had a good life, but obviously at the time they didn't think so. Unfortunately, Australia is a big place and families scattered, so some members of my family travelled all over Australia to UK and Germany and also paid researchers to try to unearth the facts. They very happily shared what they found. When they printed books you paid for them, but not anywhere near what it cost. So many family members aren't interested, but I just hope in a few hundred years time, that if the world is still going, that someone will be happy to know where our ancestors came from. I plan to have (if I live long enough) my research in hard copy in a number of places, not just online. I've had so much help from so many people I like to think that I may help others .. even if it is b.......... frustrating to see others nab your research and don't acknowledge it and then put it the wrong place.. I just think these people aren't serious researchers and will get bored with it. Unless you are a complete newby or i d j e t .. you must know to take people's trees as a starter, that need to be checked surely!!! Julie

[Margaret in Burton]

Trouble is Julie is that people don't check it. They assume its correct, they don't even read it. Someone allowed me access to their tree, either Ancestry or GR, can't remember which, and it was riddled with errors like people hopping back and forth across the Atlantic to have children baptised etc. thinking about it, probably Ancestry, those damn ancestry hints.
I pointed out the errors and they admitted they'd got it from someone else and hadn't checked it.
Even if the person gets bored the trouble with an online tree is that it's there forever and keeps getting repeated by people copying and of course the more people who have the same information even if its wrong then people believe that to be the correct one as its on the Internet.

I think that lots of the advertising that is out there doesn't help one bit .. it's like telling kids to go into a sweet shop and help themself, or finding family is like going to a free supermarket where you just grab what you can find. Very rarely, unless you have expert help like on here, are family easy to find. I think unless you are very experienced and usually after you have followed the wrong line, which makes you much more wary, can you really be confident that you are on the right track and you still make mistakes. Right from the begining people should be advised to read FH books and talk to people experienced in FHG. These people will usually tell you to confirm your sources, and hopefully if you find it in 3 different places, you have the right person. So I don't really blame a lot of people who are just starting out, as they are not being advised that by Television programmes etc .. unless I am not looking at the right TV or Research Venues? Julie

[Margaret in Burton]

Television ads for genealogy sites don't help one bit. They give the impression that a few clicks of the mouse and your whole family tree magically appears.


Hence people says when you mention how many years you've been doing it, " haven't you finished it yet?".