On Fri, 12 Aug 2011 23:46:00 -0400, Brian <drmorrisnospam@comcast.net> wrote: >On Fri, 12 Aug 2011 11:15:56 +0200, Steve Hayes ><hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote: > >>My advice to those who are about to begin their family history and want to >>store their data in an online system like Ancestry.com, MyHeritage.com, >>Geni.com and several others: >> >>Don't. >> >>Online family trees can really mess up your data, and frequently do. > > >I'm not sure if I understand this. Are you saying that someone else >can access my data and change it? I was referring primarily to the fact that the software used by many sites to maintain online trees is defective, and can and does change data. And secondarily that other people are encouraged to copy that corrupt data to their trees, and thus perpetuate the errors. -- Steve Hayes Web: http://hayesgreene.wordpress.com/ http://hayesgreene.blogspot.com http://groups.yahoo.com/group/afgen/

On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 06:34:35 +0200, Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote: >I was referring primarily to the fact that the software used by many sites to >maintain online trees is defective, and can and does change data. > >And secondarily that other people are encouraged to copy that corrupt data to >their trees, and thus perpetuate the errors. I've known about the latter. I have a cousin who keeps posting the same erroneous information even though I've told her that I found the actual death records, etc.