Larry Jones wrote
<I'm sure that many list members share their trees with the published sites
on the Internet, specifically Rootsweb,
Ancestry.com and FamilyTreemaker.
Has anyone on the list tried to correct a mistake with any of these Internet
sites? How did you contact them and how successful were you in your
correction efforts?>
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Congratulations, Larry. My impression has been that very few people are
concerned about correcting misinformation contained in web postings. It will
be interesting to hear if any of these site operators have seriously
considered addressing this issue.
I have found web postings by people I don't even know, which contained
selective chunks of my records I had shared
with someone else. Often these pieces have been pasted into the pepetrators
family tree because he/she arbitraily decided it helped fill in blanks. I
even found one which listed my wife and her parents and siblings. Amazingly,
she had a total new grandmother---someone we had never heard of. With just a
few mouse clicks anyone can easily create a very convincing new piece of
fiction.
I found portions of my records inserted into one such family tree which was
comprised of over 700,000 individuals. Adam and Eve were'nt yet included. I
challenge anyone to prove how one person in one lifetime could accomplish
such a fete. It simply could not be done. That person probably started
researching 6 months ago. After 25 years I have fewer than 9,000 names in
the family records for both my wife and I.
I call this "cut and paste" genealogy. It is rampant out there on web sites
like Ancestry, World Family Tree, MyFamily, et al. I don't post family tree
information to any of these. I never will! You are encourage to to post
unlimited updated versions of your tree, which are merely added to all the
previously published trees. Your earlier versions are never purged. In
fairness, I can envision the costs being overwhelming for these folks to
edit individual trees over and over. There would be no revenue associated
with doing this. It is easy for us to forget these are ALL business
ventures--not volunteer organizations like our local historical and
genealogical societies.
I do post surname queries--on RootsWeb, Genconnect, and such sites. This has
helped me in researching specific individuals or families. I have discovered
numerous actual cousins, who are conducting actual research on my
families.
Seriously, has anyone out there ever been contacted by an actual
cousin as a result of posting their family tree online, or having it
published on a family tree CD-ROM?
My old grandpa always said, "you get what you pay for! "The old consumer
warning applies here. Caveat emptor! Buyer Beware!!!
Wayne Thalls waynetha(a)cruzio.com
Santa Cruz, CA (b Grant Co.)