Like some others, I used One World Tree until I saw how "messed up" it became. However, I did want to place my tree online hoping to get help from others. I started by sending a very carefully controlled GEDCOM, making anyone that I knew or thought might still be living private. Now with Legacys ability to make them INVISIBLE, all GEDCOMs are sent with that setting.
Since Ancestry pretty much dropped One World Tree and went to a MUCH better idea where they don't hook other people into your tree thinking they might be related and where I can control what I send and whether others can work with me or not on my tree, I have sent it to Ancestry as well. I do NOT keep my tree Private because I want others able to explore it in hopes that if they find someone they are researching or if they find errors, etc., they will contact me and I can either work with them or clear up errors, etc. So far that has worked wonderfully. I have been able to help others and just recently, someone contacted me with sourced information that broke down one of my long-standing brickwalls. And yes, I absolutely love the hints! Because of them I have found sources I didn't have, been able to add people I didn't know belonged to my family (only if those people have good solid sources supporting them) and added comments to some of the databases where I found obvious errors. Did the people fix those errors - possibly not - but because my comment is there, it might stop someone else from adding erroneous information to their database. At least, it's worth a try. And yes, I've picked up some really good researcher "friends" through this service who have been able to make suggestions about research ideas and sites that I haven't yet pursued. I did make one BIG mistake when I first sent my GEDCOM to Ancestry, I didn't release my sources. Now I am going back and adding them as I run across them in my Ancestry database because I found out very quickly that the good researchers tended to ignore data that isn't well sourced, so I wasn't making contact with the very people with which I wanted to make contact. My hat is off to Ancestry for making their product so much better. Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages after Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Archived messages from old mail server - before Nov. 21 2009: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
