Enhancements to Member Connect

Janice 3 months, 1 week ago on Wordpress

Just a reminder that ancestry.com is a public website. Based on links to public information. My suggestion is that if you have copyrights on any of your material, do not put it on.

It is very difficult to protect intellectual property on a public information website. Not everyone will be going to your tree to view the original copyrighted information if you keep your tree private.

My opinion is that it is up to each of us to do what we feel is right to protect or not protect our information. That is not a burden we should put on ancestry.com.

As you said, the snowball effect could happen very easily. One person takes the information and passes it on without copyright information. How would anyone know that the first person had a copyright on the info? It really is up to the owner.

If you have taken the time to copyright your material, then obviously it is yours. And is not open for just taking. Maybe an edited or shortened version for a public site.

Put that type of thing on your own webpage. Then you can use source code to block or at least have a pop up box that says “don’t take – copyright protected”.

I have done that and it works very successfully. Then, there is no worry about anyone using my info. My family members leave me personal notes and messages that I do not want shared. We also have great stories about our upcoming events and our kids “home runs”.

You have to actually be related to get our family web address. No, of course it is not perfect, there is always someone who will abuse it. But, my family likes it and enjoys both the public and private family pages/sites.

For ancestry.com; those that are related, great, the info is there for you. Not related, well it sure seems like a waste of good time to be gathering mostly useless information for you.

But, I have only put on the public site information that can be gotten from any number of places on the internet or research sites. It is there because I want it shared.

I know several people that have family web pages, as I am sure you do. It really seems, in my opinion that your purposes would be better served by making yourself a really spectacular family webpage. And you wold be better able to protect your information.

If ancestry were to block all copying; that would completely defeat the purpose of belonging to a site based almost 100% on public information; which is, sharing of that public information and building our family trees.

Member connect is just one of the many great features available to us for building those family trees. ... See all content Hide content

Reply

Susanna 3 months, 1 week ago on Wordpress

Is anyone else having trouble not seeing ANY activity when there were plenty of activity items listed before the enhancements? I find it hard to believe that there are none now… I have tried various combinations of checking items from the list. Thanks.

Reply

Tara 3 months, 1 week ago on Wordpress

I have written lots of biographies and transcribed documents for my ancestors which are available on many county GenWeb and US GenWeb sites WITH A COPYRIGHT NOTICE. I have seen a number of my articles appearing as “stories” on some members trees, with copyrighted photos as well…minus any acknowledgement of author, owner, or site it was taken from. Other people are attaching these items to their trees…kind of a snowball effect ensues where copyright is continuously being violated. Now, when I put all this stuff up on US and county GenWeb, it means I want to share it with ALL that person’s descendants, but the copyright notice also means I wish to retain rights to my intellectual property.

How ’bout if we want our tree to be public (because I do want to share, but don’t like people posting my work as their own), maybe you could do some sort of a check box so that the owners of original copyrighted materials decide to make their photos, stories, etc un-attachable to someone else’s tree without permission? Everyone could come to your tree to view the original copyrighted information, but they can’t just attach your work to their tree without your permission. Also maybe a pop-up when you post a story or photo that says something like…”Is this material copyrighted? If so, please be sure to obtain permission before posting here.”

If someone asks my permission to post my copyrighted articles, 9 times out of 10 it will be given to them as long as they include the copyright notice. I think that’s what’s getting most of us irked about Member Connect is that it actually encourages people to take without permission. ... See all content Hide content

Reply

Jo 3 months, 1 week ago on Wordpress

David (#44) – Are you saying that not only can other members “attach” our documents, stories, and photos to their trees (AKA steal them) but now they can “spy” on us, too, watching everything we do on Ancestry without us knowing about it?

Reply

Bernice 3 months, 1 week ago on Wordpress

At first I did like Customer Connect, but later when my aunt and I contacted some of the members, because we thought we might be related and wanted to to how. Most of the members did not answer, which is ok because I’m a little unsure if I would answer some of the emails. But the problem we both encounted seems that a few of the connectors are not related to us at all. They work for other people wanting information or they just seem to be collecting “old pictures” at random and no information. Can we choose not to have any members connect with us? ... See all content Hide content

Reply

Daneille 3 months, 1 week ago on Wordpress

Maybe I have missed this, but if someone else chooses to click “connect” to my info, will I see their page in my connections list? Can I “disconnect” them? or block them? Thank you.

Reply

Tara 3 months, 1 week ago on Wordpress

And again I say…HUH????

Janice, I’m praying for you.

Reply

Tara 3 months, 1 week ago on Wordpress

Janice…Huh???? You seem to have confused me with someone else. Reading back over my posts, I don’t see anywhere that I’ve personally attacked you at all. I actually complimented you in #23…(seriously considers taking that compliment back now).

Obviously something I said elsewhere must have struck a nerve with you, so…if the shoe fits…

——–

You say: Of course, Tara and Joyce have admittedly scavenged a portion of their family trees from public sites, without any explanation as to their relationship to the owners, but they know what they are doing.

How stupid do you really think the rest of us are??

—————-

You really need to go back and re-read my posts, because nowhere does any of mine say that. Please take your drama elsewhere. ... See all content Hide content

Reply

Andy Hatchett 3 months, 1 week ago on Wordpress

Joyce: Re #39

You appear to think that I run thru records just attaching people to other people because some names or dates match.

I always research before adding someone so I am 99.9% sure before they go into my database. While I have several hundred living people in my database whom I’ve never had contact with I have had contact with some of their living relatives.

You said

[QUOTE]

Now how would you like to pop up something that had your great-grandpa married to his mother? To find his sister married to her father? That’s what happens when one not remotely related to the family does, when they start attaching anything they find to anybody else in their tree. If you don’t actually research it, then you don’t know when someone else has it wrong.

[UNQUOTE]

I don’t depend on someone else’s research. I always consult official documents if possible.

You also said:

[QUOTE]

It’s people who try to record other families’ information without researching it, who make a mess of it for all! HANDS OFF unless it is yours! Otherwise, one day you will find online where Andy Hatchett’s mother married her own grandfather, and Andy married his aunt, who just happens to have the same first name as his real wife. Won’t be me that does it, but someone with your attitude will, and with a lot of luck and ten years of perseverance you might get a few of the hundreds who have copied it by then, to remove it. And , thanks to those who ignore requests to remove or correct it, it will go down in eternal history that way, because after all, it was on the internet!

[UNQUOTE]

The part about “Hands off unless it is yours” is telling.

NO ONE owns their relatives-period.

Someone may be your great grandmother and at the same time be the 14th cousin twice removed of my Geat aunt’s sister-in-law’s third husband’s wife. I have just as much “claim” to her as anyone else and nobody has the authority to say otherwise.

Bottom line is adding people, related or not, should only be done after researching the individual yourself- not depending on the research of others.

Frankly, I see nothing wrong with that “attitude”. ... See all content Hide content

Reply

Joyce 3 months, 1 week ago on Wordpress

Andy Hatchett

Re #30

Andy, what you say you are doing, is just the situation I’m talking about!

Now how would you like to pop up something that had your great-grandpa married to his mother? To find his sister married to her father? That’s what happens when one not remotely related to the family does, when they start attaching anything they find to anybody else in their tree. If you don’t actually research it, then you don’t know when someone else has it wrong. When there is a senior and a junior with same names, the relationships are often recorded wrong.

Just this very week, I found my 3rd great grandfather and 2nd great grandfather listed, along with supposed children of each. YES, their areas of birth and death were correctly listed, BUT the census records attached showed them having moved all over two states, when they never left one little county in one state. Then the children listed were totally wrong, with children of someone else listed as my great-great-grandfathers, and middle names given for his siblings that I’ve never seen in 15 years of research at court houses. The person also posted a tombstone picture of my 3rd great grandfather….a picture which I had made a few years ago, and had shared with a few!

After asking, the lady told me she wasn’t related. Someone had given her information and she had found other information which she thought might be right, and she added it.

This lady was kind enough to make a concerted effort to correct it when I informed her of her many errors. Not many people will even try to correct it, so what are my relatives going to find when they don’t know their history and start searching for it online?

It’s people who try to record other families’ information without researching it, who make a mess of it for all! HANDS OFF unless it is yours! Otherwise, one day you will find online where Andy Hatchett’s mother married her own grandfather, and Andy married his aunt, who just happens to have the same first name as his real wife. Won’t be me that does it, but someone with your attitude will, and with a lot of luck and ten years of perseverance you might get a few of the hundreds who have copied it by then, to remove it. And , thanks to those who ignore requests to remove or correct it, it will go down in eternal history that way, because after all, it was on the internet! ... See all content Hide content

Reply

Tara 3 months, 1 week ago on Wordpress

Tom #36…I wasn’t talking about my own tree. My tree is private, though is accessible person-by-person through searches. If someone wants to know more about someone in my tree they have only to ask. What I was talking about is someone else’s tree where they posted me, my husband, son, mother, brother, sister-in-law, & their daughter, my niece, complete with our dates of birth, marriage, & other personal information in notes (except for marriage dates which were actually on the main pages). That’s how Ancestry missed privatizing that person’s file…it doesn’t catch notes. The issue has been resolved though, but thanks for the reply.

One other thing David…someone once mentioned on another Ancestry blog a while back that they’d love to see either a relationship calculator or an event box or some kind of entry spot where we could add stuff like “3G-Grandpa”, etc next to a person’s name in our database. I think Member Connect could be so much better if we could show in our own database how we, as the home person, are related to any given person in our databases. Everyone could see at a glance if another member is actually related to us or not and then we could spend time developing that cousin relationship further, or not waste time writing to people who have absolutley no clue how they’re related to who we’re asking about from their database. I think we could make a lot more useful connections with something like that. Yes, we can enter that information now as notes, or AKA’s or whatever, but I think the original poster was looking for something more uniform across the board. Just a thought… ... See all content Hide content

Reply

Janice 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Wordpress

Just one more comment and then I am off my soap box.

All of us gather information for our family trees via ancestry.com and the sister sites and projects.

How many of us are active in any of the projects for transcribing records for addition to the one tree world data base?

I try to “give back” a little each week, by entering a few records.

Because, if it weren’t for all of the wonderful volunteers that are keying in information every day to continue building the database, we would all be back to the stone ages of genealogy.

Think about it and join a project. All of our families are awesome and we really are all related somehow. ... See all content Hide content

Reply

Janice 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Wordpress

I guess this is one of those situations where we will have to agree to disagree.

What difference does it really make to you what or how anyone else gathers the info for their family tree?

Your family is yours!! You decide what goes in it. No one else can mess up your family tree.

They can certainly mess up their own with unrelated information. So what? Somewhere all of the information we add to our family trees is freely accessible to anyone. So unless you are breaking into private banking, government or heath records to get your info, there is absolutely nothing wrong with sharing information.

Anyone can make a trip to the courthouse if they want. I just received deeds, land plats, and two death certificates this week. Simply by calling the courthouse and asking for them.

My “family” is also expanding to the outer branches. Via in-laws and out-laws. No matter how you look at it, blood related or not each of those branches is what makes our “family tree”.

It is awesome to know that one of my 12x cousins is related to Mary Queen of Scots and King Henry. Not a blood relative, but still in the tree that makes my family.

I am extremely proud that my great grand father donated the land that the city school was built on. And donated another 160 acres to the University of Minnesota as a land refuge. My other great grand father donated his land and home to the State. Every year a huge farmers festival is held and my mother sits in her grandfathers house and tells stories of when she was a child there. She is 83 and won’t have the opportunity to share that info much longer and the greater loss is that we will lose another insight as to how our cities and towns were homestead by great ancestors.

So if you want to add all of my family to yours wonderful!! We are very proud Norwegian family members!!

And yes, I still agree with not publishing everything for living members. With that being said, My family is very excited about seeing their names on ancestry.com so there have been no complaints. I guess we are really a bunch of ham it up nuts!! We like our names and pictures in lights. However, if any of my living family members (or yours) ask me to remove their info, I would do so immediately.

Yes, those that gather info just to pose as an expert really doesn’t make much sense to me. One would think that if they really expanded their own tree, they would accomplish much more.

Buck up, make your tree private and don’t scavenge any of the public tree information.

Or, I completely agree with #22 Louise, no one is stealing facts from other trees. Your info is no more valuable than mine. I consider myself very fortunate with any fact I find and cannot wait to share it with everyone. ... See all content Hide content

Reply

Tom Sommer 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Wordpress

I have found that many of the people out there copying families are just what I call “gatherers”. That is they gather everything they can find on a family name. Then they sit on the forums and pose as experts about those family lines.

I think they must have nothing better to do.

Reply

Joyce 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Wordpress

I agree with those who don’t want their present day information to be posted by anyone! Tara, you said it well. Some people have posted my g-g-g-grandparents, right down to myself, and Dear Lord, what a mess tehy have made of my family.

When I write to ask how they are related, I often find out they aren’t related at all. Then WHY are they convoluting and polluting MY family history? They need to work on their own, and allow me to work on mine. They would be furious if I did to their history what they are doing to mine. ... See all content Hide content

Reply

Leoa Skidmore-Weishaar 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Wordpress

I have tried using the member connect. When you come across a family tree with an member connect id it is easy to send them a msg. However, if you go into the member connect search it is difficult to find the member your looking for. If this area had a search where you could enter the member connect id and it take you to one of their enteries it would make it a lot easier then searching the thousands of members. Thanks. ... See all content Hide content

Reply

Andy Hatchett 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Wordpress

Tara: Re:#23

As far as I know neither you or your family are there but…

My point is that there is no legal requirement for permission from anyone to post personal, as opposed to private, information about that person.

I’ve traced whole families from 1850 thru 2002 in Texas that are in one of my databases and have never contacted any of them.

I come at genealogy at a different angle, I want to not only extend my lines back as far as possible but I also want to bring all of them as far forward as possible- and leave a record of it for future researchers. ... See all content Hide content

Reply

Tara 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Wordpress

My apologies to everyone that my original message seems to have caused some controversy.

Thank you David. I will be in contact with customersolutions shortly. Hoping to get this resolved soon.

Janice…good for you! Glad to see someone else actually does the leg-work for a change. While my tree is private, I still do share often and freely, and like most, don’t appreciate not getting anything in return from some people, although I also often given lots of information with absolutely no expectations of a return at all. Those of us with private trees aren’t all baddies. Best of luck to you in your future endeavors.

Andy…yes, I do mean my son’s and my husband’s and my mother’s and my own personal data. None of us gave permission to this person for it to be posted online, and the person has not answered any of my very nice requests to please list us only as “Living SURNAME”. If your folks gave you permission, then by all means have at it. That’s completely your business and is between you and them. If my immediate family is not in your database, then you’ve no need to fret. ) ... See all content Hide content

Reply

Louise 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Wordpress

I agree with the fact that if you have a private tree, you should not get your info from public trees, if you are pulling your info from a public tree, then you should allow them to pull some info from your tree also. it should be a give and take situation. everyone should be willing to share their information, if not, that is just plain selfish.

Reply

David Graham 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Wordpress

Thanks again for everyone’s comments. I just wanted to follow-up on a few of the items raised here.

Information on living individuals – Thanks for sharing your concerns about how information about living individuals is displayed. If we can tell that a person in a family tree is living we do hide their information. We are also trying to find even better ways to do this when there is not enough information provided about the person to tell if they are living or not. If you find that you are publicly listed in a family tree on Ancestry.com, please contact us at customersolutions@ancestry.com to see if we can help.

Jo (#14) – Sorry for the confusion with the changing comment numbers. We had gotten a few spam comments on this post (with links to non-genealogy commercial sites) which we had to delete.

Jeannine (#15) – There are actually two ways that you can make a connection with a matching individual in another member’s tree. One is through the Member Connect area and clicking “connect” on a suggested connection. The other is if you save information from another tree through Ancestry.com Hints or when finding the match when searching. It may be that you had saved information from these matching trees in the past and that is what got them added as a connection for you. If you find that you have connections made when you didn’t save information from them or connect yourself, please contact us at MemberConnectFeedback@ancestry.com with more information so that we can look into the issue. ... See all content Hide content

Reply

Janice 3 months, 2 weeks ago on Wordpress

Forgot a sentence.

In paragraph two of my #16 comment.

I meant to say: Our family tree is public, we are proud of it and to those viewing it, I really don’t even care if they are related.

Reply