I agree with Gordon. Online collaboration is fraught with issues in the business world with people not liking it when someone else edits their text in a way they disagree with... Tracking changes gets complicated and messy when you have too many people working on the same thing. Consensus building is something that is rather new to a lot of people and when it comes to their family identity they tend to be very protective of it. Much more so than a business presentation or brief. Having said that, I am not adverse to doing it, just want to go in with my eyes open and with everyone else having an understanding of how it works and what level of control you have and you give up. What I do is list my sources on every entry. If I have an entry that does not ring right with me, I will list it with a note stating why I have an issue with it or that it disagrees with another researcher. Then I try to get all of us to talk together via email to resolve the question. This helps correct multiple trees that are hanging out there that are just dead wrong. We have all made a mistake because someone we trusted told us something they believed to be true and it wasn't. How many of us have grown up hearing a favorite family story only to find out it was completely untrue once we stepped into the real world of genealogical research. I discovered one of my great grandparents was adopted and no one in the family knew it. The family stories were so entrenched they were sure I was making this up until I literally presented the paperwork. But I research both the birth family and the adoptive one because both shaped my great grandfather. Family is traditions it is not horse breeding and genealogy has room for both views in it. For me, what I do is a family narrative that is not just a collection of facts like names and dates and places, but a living breathing document that tells my contemporaries and those who will come after me the life stories of these people. I want to bring to life how they lived, what they endured, what they celebrated, and literally who they were as much as I possibly can. To do that you have to blend some fact with some assumptions that help to round out the facts. Speculation is fine as long as it is listed as speculation and not as fact. Hence I add the source info and try to add any historical references I have used besides the normal vital record stuff. I use the genie programs to create charts but I write narratives to explain them. The worst thing is to take a chart that has no sources and no notes along with it. By citing the sources I know who to go back to and where the information came from. I also can tell where I have blended in historical references to help me understand these folks. Families are wonderful. They all have their share of saints and sinners and those of us who deal with this a lot have found our scoundrels and have found those people we wish we could sit down and have dinner with...to get to know them better. To me these folks are like different spices...sometimes they blend well and the aroma and taste of the stew is wonderful... and sometimes there is an overpowering spice...that can spoil a given batch...people and families are a lot like that. We have sugary folks, peppery folks, fiery folks, soothing folks, folks with a lot of taste and style, and simple folks. Your question is a good one and as more and more improvements get made to cyberspace, and more and more young folks who are adept at the cyber world start researching their roots we will see more of this because they are used to online living and sharing at a level many of us have trouble even thinking about even though it is available today. But just because it is on line does not make it true or real. I think it is important to look at what we want as a final outcome and let that guide the level of interaction. It is neat to be able to compare what you have to others like GenCircles does, but there is bad data out there too. I have found many cousins via that, Geneanet, LDS, and a host of other family web sites. All of this is good because it allows for interaction of family members. Laura > [Original Message] > From: Gordon Johnson <gordon@kinhelp.co.uk> > To: <aberdeen@rootsweb.com> > Date: 11/19/2009 9:59:08 AM > Subject: [ABERDEEN] Online collaborative family tree tools > > Suzanne - you are assuming a consistent family, and consistent levels of > expertise/research ability/cooperative approach. > Everyone has run accross family members either uninterested in family > history OR want to do their own thing in their own way OR has "found" > relatives (they were the only candidates on the online indexes) and > don't want to be told they are wrong OR don't want to reveal > illegitimacy/crime/scandal in the family line OR (and so on). > The next problem is that any person has two parents, and so two lines to > research, and unless you are both siblings, these lines are at least 50 > per cent different. The only way you can get a "central" database is by > building up a massive file that includes thousands of people as > contributers, and even the Mormons have found difficulty in guaranteeing > data provided by their members. > Really, the only way you can ensure reliability of data input, to an > acceptable standard, is for one person to control it, which effectively > means your own direct family database. You can put this online in a > number of ways, for other people to connect with their own databases, > but as soon as you connect with another database, one of you loses > control of the quality assurance of the data. > There are so many aspects to this type of discussion that it always ends > up - do it yourself! > Gordon > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ABERDEEN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message