Enhancements to Member Connect

By: Joyce

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!

By: Andy Hatchett

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”.

By: Tony Cousins

Joyce #39

I agree with everything you’ve said, apart from Andy being married to his Aunt

I’ve seen trees where dead people are having children a few years after they and their spouse died, also 2 year olds having children, and too many other ‘bloopers’ to mention.

The sad thing is that given the way that Ancestry works and the low mentallity of the name gatherers who do no research on the information, there will never be a solution. Except not to allow anyone else to see your tree, which goes against what we are all trying to do.

Personally I don’t have a tree on Ancestry, I keep it on my PC but we publish the tree every few months on our own web site – where we can control the data we want to keep private. Also people cant just merge from that tree, they have to do the unthinkable – type it in if they need it

Keep digging – TonyC

By: Janice

Wow!! It seems like Joyce and Tara are the only ones that have valid information and the only ones that do any research at all.

Joyce, you have a huge 15 years of experience. Gee, my Mom started gathering information for our family tree in about 1940!!! That’s 69 years of handwritten research, interviews, and courthouse legwork. I started helping her in 1960!!! We have an entire room that has so many documents, I have had a hard time deciding where to start putting them on ancestry.com. My version of family tree maker is #5 (I just upgraded to 2010. But Mom keeps plugging along with release #5). So get a grip on yourself, you aren’t “the guru”!

We just very proudly published a history of the St Paul West 7th Street, Monroe High School area and presented it to the Mancini family. They are long, long time Italian residents. Story is complete with names, dates, pictures, and newspaper clippings my mother has saved since 1940, of living and deceased individuals. It is on display in the Mancini restaurant if you want to look at it and scavenge any info!

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??

Just who are you to tell anyone “hands-off unless it is yours”?

Funny how you contradict and justify your actions. If you took anything even one fact, from mine or any public tree, how did that info get to be yours??? Who gave you permission to use it???

Plus all of our info is junk anyway with all of our mothers, sisters, brothers, and cousins married and born after they existed. Why do you even want any of our research??? Don’t you have enough to do without spending time “correcting” other family trees?

Direct your relatives to your perfect tree, create your own webpage, keep your tree private, don’t take anything from our trees, do all your own research, whatever makes you happy.

Stop trying to belittle those of us that want to share our family histories. The integrity of my own tree is all I care about. What you do with yours is your business.

I am not happy about the name gatherers, but I am not losing sleep or research time over it.

I sure hope you two are not my 12x removed cousins! Especially with that tombstone picture that you only shared with a few, now showing up in thousands of family trees.

I still 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.

Grow Up!

By: Tara

And again I say…HUH????
Janice, I’m praying for you.

By: Janice

Tara: Quote from you: I would like to see an option to “opt-out” of Member Connect. I’d love to have my trees public, but I’m keeping my trees private now because in the past I’ve had several people take my data which is correct (because I actually do go to courthouses, libraries, cemeteries, interview old-timers, etc.), and these people proceed to add a bunch of mess that’s way off the mark, to what they’ve scavenged from me, and then they list ME as their source for their bad data!

No, I am not confused. You pretty much attacked all of us that do research and put our info in public trees as being scavengers and idiots that twist your perfect data.

Have gone back and read all of your posts. You are pretty arrogant and thoughtless of others. And yes, I do take offense at your comments. There are thousands of ancestry.com users that are only trying to enjoy searching and researching histories. Each family tree just as important as yours.

While we would like it to be a perfect world, it is not. So kindly address your issues to those that you really do have a problem with and leave the rest of us out of it.

Direct your relatives to your perfect tree, create your own webpage, keep your tree private, don’t take anything from our trees, do all your own research, whatever makes you happy.

Stop trying to belittle those of us that want to share our family histories. The integrity of my own tree is all I care about. What you do with yours is your business.

If you can’t take the heat from comments you make, then don’t make them. The only drama here is what you have made yourself.

By: Tara

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.

By: David Graham

Danielle (#43) – Great question. If another member connects with your tree you will not automatically be connected to their tree. In most cases we will include them as a “suggested connection” for you, but it is completely up to you who you connect with.

By: Daneille

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.

By: Heather Erickson

Ancestry.com has decided to remove some of the comments that were previous posted on this blog, due to disrespectful comments between a select group of blog readers. We are happy for people to share any thoughts they have about Ancestry.com or their approach to family history, but this is a form for sharing ideas, and inappropriate comments, including personal attacks, are not accepted. We appreciate your understanding and look forward to your continue constructive comments on this blog.

By: Tara

Yes Bernice, see Jo’s message # 10. You can change your preferences in your profile. I’m still on the fence with this, but at least we do have the option to “opt-out”.

By: Bernice

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?

By: Jo

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?

By: Tara

One more thing…please promote the “Web Link” feature better on the trees. I don’t think a lot of people are aware this exists because it appears way down at the bottom of the tree profile page where most people don’t even look. If more people knew they could use Web Link to refer to a website rather than just copy copyrighted items as their “stories”, then the violations could be reduced quite a bit.

By: Tara

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.

By: Jim

Two complaints about recent changes in format:

1.) When the ‘quick edit’ boxes are initially opened from the profile screen, they’ve been relocated further to the right and the menu options are now unavailable without side scolling, even when working in full screen. This little detail becomes a major pain in the *** when sifting through records making little touch ups. Either put them back into the main screen or move the menus to the left side of the box so they can be accessed.
2.) Many of the ‘hints’ now come up with no option to ignore. These are typically just references to a general publication, or collection, and when the ‘attach’ option is selected (the only choice provided) brings up another search screen for that collection. If I choose not to add the information or can’t find what I’m looking for, or havn’t subscribed to the european records, the only option is to leave the ‘hint’ by canceling and letting it remain flashing it’s little leaf on the record, aggrevating the hell out of me, for the rest of my life I guess.

Two programming decisions that appear to me to be truly brain dead. Sometimes it’s the details folks.

By: Janice

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.

By: Andy Hatchett

Tara Re:#49

Why even have a way to ask permission to copy. Ancestry should simply not allow coping of *anything* from one tree to another-period.

If someone wants to take the time to download/edit out copyright notice?and then upload to their tree there isn’t too much that can be done about that but most namegatherers won’t take the time.

If Ancestry did dis-able the copy function most peaple really interested in genealogy would praise them. The namegatherers would, of course, set up a howl that would shake both heaven and hell,..and that would *not* be a bad thing imho.
*GRIN*

By: Susanna

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.

By: onelayperson

Firstly I would like to say is that I am a guest to the site but I administer around 160 message boards
and although the new system may have it’s benefits there is one draw back which hinders those in my position. That is if we attempt to contact a member who has a key locked we are unable to contact that
member. Even when in administering mode. So there could be a case that we should advise the poster that there posting is being deleted or moved and at the moment this is not possible.

Also I would like to draw your attention to the Administers information board within the web page for the board they administer eg, my own board. Board name, surname MASSEY. my e-mail onelayperson@googlemail.com is displayed with the dropdown box “board information”. I believe that this box can either be removed or in place of the e-mail contact address should be replaced with a link via there user name onelayperson to the internal online Messages feature. This would allow a punter to contact the board administrator without seeing there e-mail but also ensuring the safeguards of the board administrator. I also not if the key to a members e-mail is not showing the e-mail is displayed.

I take on board all the issues you have shown in the blog and agree this is the problem that are associated with the message boards.