Hi all, I'd like to weigh in on this fascinating conversation, too -- I wrote this last night but didn't send it, and it seems as though Roger Cousens has beat me to the dark side!
I myself have a (very large) tree on Ancestry, which I've found to be a useful tool -- for me -- as I've scaled up my research over the past few years. I agree that there is a loss of control when taking this approach. To my eye, the biggest issues are: 1) Relying on Ancestry (or another paid site) means that if you build up your tree while attaching records there, but at some point in the future cannot afford the subscription fee, you can of course download the GEDCOM file but you no longer have access to your evidence. You can download the documents, but then you have to manually attach them again, which is very time-consuming if you have thousands in your tree. And, in my opinion, a tree without evidence is useless. I've tried to tackle this by setting up a system to archive all the evidence attached to my tree so that I have it when/if I leave Ancestry in the future. But it's slow-going and frustrating. 2) As Margaret in Oz noted, Ancestry has changed its terms of service so that uploading information to the site is a grant of (unfettered) use to them. Which is a loss of control. I haven't worked out how to handle this. I still assert copyright (fwiw) on any images I upload, but I also consider how I'd feel if an image I upload was used by Ancestry in an advertising campaign. Any media that's set as public can be viewed and downloaded by other users, and I think about this, too. I have, however, also weighed these up against some benefits: 1) Public photo settings mean that I've also been able to see photos of grandparents and great grandparents and great great grandparents that I never would have seen if other users hadn't been generous enough to make their photo uploads public. For this reason, I do try to share and share alike. 2) Having a tree on Ancestry has led to new connections and discoveries. I'm in touch with second cousins that I never would have met otherwise -- some of whom have stories of my direct ancestors, such as my great grandmother, that our family had never heard. And a couple years ago, a stranger contacted me when he found a family bible in a charity shop near Birmingham and built a tree on Ancestry to see if he got any hints from other user trees. That bible once belonged to one of my 3x great granduncles and contained a watercolour portrait of my 4x great grandfather. My family has since been reunited with both the bible and the portrait, all because I had a family tree on a site where someone else could connect with me. 3) DNA testing has helped me to break through some break walls, and is helping me to uncover my mother's Irish origins. The only reason I'm on this mailing list is because my great aunt has matched with a number of people with her maiden surname, Hagan or O'Hagan, whose families have never left Ireland and all lived in the area of Strabane or Sion Mills in the 1860s to 1880s. I've now got a cluster of O'Hagans in Ireland with whom I share research ideas -- we don't know how we're related, but DNA says that we are related distantly, in some way. 4) Searching for evidentiary documents is MUCH faster -- for some documents and some areas of the world. I use a mix of sites to find information, but the search tools on Ancestry and FindMyPast are very powerful if you focus only on records (not member trees). I personally find FamilySearch trees to be just as messy as member trees on Ancestry and elsewhere. I recently had to ask FamilySearch to mark a living relative as living when another user entered a death date for her based on the (incorrect) assumption that someone born in 1926 would no longer be living. Most of the time, it seems people just copy information without checking it themselves; one of my favourites is seeing a tree with people whose baptism or marriage records date from before their birth or after their death. I've also observed people copying stuff from my trees that I've marked as WILD SPECULATION (all caps) while trying out a hypothesis. Essentially, I think of others' trees -- no matter where they are -- as something between a nudge for future research (at best) or misinformation (at worst). Having the tree on my own computer would give me control, but I benefit a great deal from the network of connections that I get from having a tree online. What I love about CoTyroneIreland.com is that it provides an orthogonal avenue for research -- both all the great transcribed and indexed information that is geographically specific (thank you, Len, especially!!) but also this list-serve which sparks ideas. And Jim has now convinced me to put higher priority on making my private tree to be as robust as my online tree; I don't need all the people in my online tree. (I've got 30,000+ people in it, between my family and my partner's family and shrub trees that I've made to explore a hypothesis.) But with a lot of American immigrant ancestors with documentary evidence back to the 1600s, even my confirmed direct-line ancestors number in the four digits, so it's going to take a lot of time! With all best, Robin Dennis (researching O'Hagan and Wallace and possibly Mills in Ulster) On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 11:43 PM Shirley Harper via CoTyroneList < [email protected]> wrote: > Please nobody rely on the “trees” you find on Ancestry. Many of them are > now fictitious because of people taking them for their own and adding their > details in. Some of the trees now there are a real mess. > > You could try Family Search www.familysearch.org/ for better > information. > > > > Advice. Do your own research!! > > > > Shirley > > > > Sent from Mail <https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for > Windows > > > > *From: *M L Jarvis via CoTyroneList > <[email protected]> > *Sent: *Thursday, 13 January 2022 12:43 AM > *To: *'CoTyroneIreland.com Mailing List' > <[email protected]>; 'Gordon Wilkinson' > <[email protected]> > *Cc: *'Gordon Wilkinson' <[email protected]>; M L Jarvis > <[email protected]> > *Subject: *[CoTyroneMailingList] Re: Family Trees > > > > Perhaps a page with a table that lists members who have trees, where the > trees are located (Ancestry, etc.), and key surnames and locations is all > that’s needed? Then individual members could be contacted directly. > > > > We could also list GEDmatch numbers. > > > > And, yes, I can help create the table! > > > > Mary > > > > PS Ancestry trees can’t be changed by others unless they have permission > to do so by having been granted ownership. > > > > > > > > > > *From:* James McKane via CoTyroneList < > [email protected]> > *Sent:* Wednesday, January 12, 2022 5:22 AM > *To:* Gordon Wilkinson <[email protected]>; > CoTyroneIreland.com Mailing List <[email protected]> > *Cc:* Gordon Wilkinson <[email protected]>; James McKane < > [email protected]> > *Subject:* [CoTyroneMailingList] Re: Family Trees > > > > Gordon - first, it is easy to eliminate living people when creating a > Gedcom with most software so that is not an issue. > > > > Bill - while it seems like a good idea, there are a few issues on my end > which would have to be overcome - > > > > 1) currently advertising revenues on the website have been dropping > dramatically! It appears many users are using "ad blockers" to avoid > seeing the advertisements. If this continues I'm not sure how we are going > to cover ongoing expenses > > 2) to load Gedcoms we need to purchase software > > 3) we need the time to manage said software as I have experience in this > area from a previous life......... it takes TIME > > 4) I would not wish to manage a "live" site where people can amend > anything as it soon becomes so polluted ......... like FamilySearch and > Ancestry trees are > > > > Jim > > > > > > > Jim McKane > > Kitchener, Ontario > > > > > > On Wed, Jan 12, 2022 at 2:50 AM Gordon Wilkinson via CoTyroneList < > [email protected]> wrote: > > An interesting idea, Bill, but my data base has info on so many living > relatives and notes on many who value their privacy (DNA data, cupboard > skeletons, &c), so I've actually shut down my family web site and only give > the barest of information on the site now. Having said that, the most > productive info has come from distant relatives who have found and > contacted me through the the original website. Those inputs have been > immeasurably valuable. I pondered the thought of stripping details from > 'living' names, and editing the relevant pages, but the task got too big. > I've got around 8,500 names covering the ancestry of my grandchildren and > still more names to enter (proffered by one of those distant relatives.) > when I get time. > > The original website still exists, of course, as a local entity (8Gb) and > available only to select relatives. > > Gordon > > On 12/01/2022 7:37 am, Bill Young via CoTyroneList wrote: > > I have seen a number of mails on family tree research recently. > > > > Is there a move in this direction; and, if so, can we post family tree > data to the site? Provenance and accuracy are always going to be issues > but it may be worth hosting current versions of members’ GEDCOM files on > the understanding that they are the responsibility of the individuals who > post them, not of CoTyroneIreland. > > > > Best regards > > > > Bill > > > > J W (Bill) Young > > +41 76 391 6556 (WhatsApp & Signal) > > +44 74 2904 9955 (Telegram) > > > > > > ================================= > > Send a Message to the List - [email protected] > > List Archive - > https://list.cotyroneireland.com/empathy/list/cotyronelist.list.cotyroneireland.com > > Join the list by sending an email to - > [email protected] > > To receive the Digest version, send an email to - > [email protected] > > Unsubscribe by sending an email to - > [email protected] > > ================================= > > ================================= > Send a Message to the List - [email protected] > List Archive - > https://list.cotyroneireland.com/empathy/list/cotyronelist.list.cotyroneireland.com > Join the list by sending an email to - > [email protected] > To receive the Digest version, send an email to - > [email protected] > Unsubscribe by sending an email to - > [email protected] > ================================= > > > ================================= > Send a Message to the List - [email protected] > List Archive - > https://list.cotyroneireland.com/empathy/list/cotyronelist.list.cotyroneireland.com > Join the list by sending an email to - > [email protected] > To receive the Digest version, send an email to - > [email protected] > Unsubscribe by sending an email to - > [email protected] > ================================= -- ................................................ Robin Dennis +44 (0)20.8123.3960 phone +44 (0)7947.589.050 mobile +1 718.303.2080 US skype voip [email protected]
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