I remember a thread a while back on this list (I'm sorry, I don't
remember who wrote about it) about the fact that our research is being
used as part of item descriptions on Ebay and perhaps other public
auction forums. I have received an email this morning that I suspect
will result in the same type of circumstance. This person wrote
explaining that their friend recently bought a framed confirmation
certificate for a child that occurred in Eau Claire Co. I happen to
have a book containing indexes of names and dates of records for the
church in which this confirmation occurred. It is filled with valuable
information so I have offered to do lookups in it (as posted on the EC
Co. lookups page), which is why I received the message, I'm sure. The
person is requesting further information on this child (the child's
married name, parent's names, etc.) It is stated that the person "hopes
to find a relative who would appreciate having the record." As I said,
the message gives me the distinct impression that what I send will be
used as a selling point. So, I have written up a response to send back,
but for some reason, I just feel funny about doing this. I mean, we are
here to help others to find info that they might not have access to,
right? I have information (not exactly what is asked for, but info that
will definitely help to pinpoint if this is the right family or not).
Should I share it? Should I ask for a fee (which goes against
everything that the USGenWeb and WIGenWeb stands for, in my opinion)?
If so, what would be the proper charges? Here is the letter that I am
thinking of sending to this person. Please give me your thoughts:
While I can only confirm the dates of (child's name) birth and
confirmation (no marriage or death record could be found for her), I
did find her baptism date and quite a bit of information on (child's
name) family, including her parent's names, marriage date and their
parent's names (child's grandparents), along with birth, marriage and
death info on 10 of (child's name) siblings. I also have a very short
biography which was written before 1881. If this is the type of
information that you are interested in obtaining, I will be happy to
share my findings with you, but I am curious on how you propose to
find the rightful owner of this certificate? I am asking because many
of us volunteers have provided hours of our time researching, only to
have our research end up as part of an item description on Ebay, with
no remuneration for the work and time involved in finding the data for
them. I personally have spent 2½ hours finding this data. If this is
your intention, I will have to ask for a fee to cover my research
time. If this is not your intention, then please accept my apologies
for assuming so. Please let me know your plans and I will send you
the info accordingly.
I sincerely hope that I can be of help to you in finding the rightful
owner,
Nance
Is this going against all that we stand for? Am I being too suspicious
and should just go ahead and freely share this info that I've
collected? Or since this person only asked for specific information,
should I state that I couldn't find further info on this child and
simply give the parent's names and call it good? Yeah, silly me, I went
through all the trouble of looking it all up as I try to be as thorough
as possible when doing lookups and offer all information that pertains
to the family in question usually. Should I let my time just go to waste?
I have written two messages to this person, one containing all of the
data found, the other just what is pasted above in this message above.
I have sent neither of them and will not send them until I hear some
feedback from any one here who wishes to comment. So, does anyone have
any suggestions for me? If so, I thank you very much in advance for
your thoughts,
Nance
Barron, Burnett, Eau Claire, Sawyer, Trempealeau and Washburn counties