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  #21  
Old 08-10-12, 22:01
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The cheekiest plagiarism I ever saw was someone who copied my tree AND all my narrative comments, including the line

"I have in my possession a letter from...."

I've just seen one like that on Ancestry which has all my notes - "the original certificate is in the green hanging file in the second drawer of the filing cabinet" etc.
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  #22  
Old 08-10-12, 22:45
Olde Crone Olde Crone is offline
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Merry

Actually, it isn't even cheeky, it's just down right insulting, because they haven't even bothered to READ a word of the stuff they've copied!

OC
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  #23  
Old 12-10-12, 03:47
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I'm at a stalemate with my 2g grandfather. I have him chuffing off to India and someone else has him disappearing and ending up in NZ. He could not do both.

My problem is I can't find any evidence of his actual date of birth, I have the year and place. The other people have this : My grandma (or great grandma) had his DOB in her birthday book.

This is wonderful except her grandma was born years after he died. Any info I can find about her gg father that would have been provided by him contradicts the DOB and parents they have for him. Someone obviously found a name that matched theirs and latched on to the DOB.

On the other hand my great granny lived with my 2g grandfather for many years and was an adult when he died. She bought his birth cert, I would think she'd know she had the right one and the details of which match up with other info I have found. My problem is she bought it after his death so there is room for error.
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  #24  
Old 12-10-12, 05:57
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marquette marquette is offline
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Hi Toni,
A dilemma for sure, but great-granny would probably have had some idea, better than others who did not live with 2gg grandfather.

Have you looked at it from the other direction - have you tried to prove that whose birth certificate it is ? I mean, have you tried to eliminate every other possible man of the same name and age ?

Have you checked up on the person who died in NZ - they have plenty of on-lline resources including BDMs and online newspapers. And if he went to India, FIBIS has an online database of baptisms, marriages, deaths and newspaper reports. All quite useful and free.


Di
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  #25  
Old 12-10-12, 19:02
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BlueSavannah BlueSavannah is offline
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Hi Everyone,

I've had a lot of the same issues with the Ancestry trees. My tree is on Ancestry but is private. I will let people view as I always like to share with new contacts.

Two or Three of my lines seem to have a lot of people 'researching', but its clear they have copied the ancestry hints which I also had and were spectacularly wrong (census info for years after the person had died etc). I've also noticed that a picture of a gravestone that I took about 4 years ago, is now on a large number of trees as I shared it with a member who's tree was public so everyone copied it off her.
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  #26  
Old 13-10-12, 08:42
Vicwinann Vicwinann is offline
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Unfortunately, Ancestry member trees - in particular - are bringing family research and researchers into disrepute. In much the same way as did the fraudulent lineages created by Gustave Anjou 1863-1942. Some of these forged "genealogies" are still causing untold anguish for and among serious researchers and the LDS.

I am afraid that although it sounds churlish, because of the lack of integrity of some researchers, I will not now publish anything on the net regarding my family for public consumption, and I am also extremely wary as to what I allow to be seen or is sent out by me to anyone privately.
I have been caught several times where my hard-won research has obviously been copied and then published elsewhere verbatim with no credit being given, and also many times when I have contacted people outlining possible errors in their information, I have been roundly insulted or ignored after proving my point.
After a while I think that you develop a gut instinct about the integrity of online contacts from the way that they approach you but one still makes the odd mistake.
Victoria
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  #27  
Old 13-10-12, 09:10
Olde Crone Olde Crone is offline
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Victoria

I agree, it does tend to make you churlish and I now put potential relatives through hoops before I give them any information.

If they pass my interrogation, lol, I then drip feed information, partly to control what I give them and partly to gauge how interested and committed they really are, as I don't see why I should hand over 40 years of research only for it to be left unadmired in a drawer somewhere, or tacked onto some rubbish internet tree.

I am also fed up of the attitude of various people who say "I thought this site (whichever one we are on) was about sharing - why are you on here if you don't want to share?". My reply is - I don't mind SHARING, I love SHARING - but only with my proven relatives, not with any old body who happens to have the same surname somewhere in the world.

I'd also like to get something in return for my SHARING. I very rarely do, not even a thankyou sometimes. My SHARING always appears to go one way.

OC
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  #28  
Old 13-10-12, 09:38
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I have been a member of GR for years and about once every two years or so I get a message from a lady askng if we are related and if I have more info on X (our mutual ancestor)? She has the wrong wife for X and will not accept she is wrong despite piles of documentory evidence, but every time she contacts me it's as if she doesn't remember our previous conversations until I remind her, yet the mere mention of her name brings me out in a sweat! I have access to her tree which has a rather blunt comment about me and my research on it, yet she still sends me these messages!
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  #29  
Old 13-10-12, 09:57
Olde Crone Olde Crone is offline
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Oooh, Merry, I wonder if it's the same one who plagues me! You'd think mine would remember, because we exchanged a lot of paper information by (expensive) snail mail but each time, it is as if I am a new contact!

OC
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  #30  
Old 13-10-12, 10:20
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I suppose I ought to say here that I am extremely grateful to those of my parents' generation who unstintingly shared their hard-won research with me a generation ago. The advantage of snail-mail and hand-written trees was that you had to add each piece of information manually, so each was subjected to scrutiny and you didn't clutter it with third cousins' in-laws.

Because Ancestry doesn't really have anything to offer on my direct ancestors I am playing around with the obscure side shoots in case they shine a light on why some people made what appear to be bizarre or random decisions.
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