Joan, "all of my data posted on his website" - This is legal. Facts cannot be copyrighted. "my private e-mails to him are posted as well!!" - This is not legal. Since 1978, as soon as you write something you have a copyright on the 'creative' portion of what you wrote. In genealogy, it is common to quote your sources, so whole emails are sometimes used as proof, at least in your own private records. Without your permission, the facts from the emails could be extracted and put online. Under fair use, three or four sentences could probably be quoted from your email if the email was as long as the one you wrote below. In his own words, he could tell about the quality of your work, your standards, your theories, the general information contained in each email, the date of the email, etc. He would need your permission to post entire emails that were written privately to him. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Concerning standards of genealogical proof, very strict standards will not allow you to construct a family tree. How many of us can be positive that we were not adopted? If we were, but weren't told, we will be researching the wrong ancestors. How many of us can be absolutely certain that our father is really our biological father? Before DNA tests, you couldn't prove it. Any direct male in our heritage could have been wrong when he thought he fathered all of his children. There aren't many relationships that can be absolutely proved in genealogy. We assume that a baptism record proves parentage, but wouldn't an adopted child also get baptized? The fact of adoption might be ignored in the church records or by the person transcribing thousands of records. The 'adoption' may have been unofficial, like a nephew coming to permanently live with a family after its own family had one or more of the parents die. It is common to assume that the man and woman living together in a household in a census are man and wife, and that they are the parents of the children living there. But, are they just the children of the man? Did the marriage take place after the youngest child was born (then the wife isn't the mother of any of them)? Could they all be her children from a previous marriage, and this husband adopted them all? Could they just be using his surname out of convenience? Are some his, some hers, some born to both of them? Exceedingly strict standards pretty much prevent entering names into a database. My database has two categories of names: those for which I have reasonable proof, and those which are uncertain. I code the latter a different way. You construct the tree the best way you know how, as long as each link is reasonable. I code the weak links. Then, you keep looking for confirming information. When you get back earlier than 1850 with censuses (only the head of household is named), and if people were married at the Justice of the Peace (no record), and the children weren't baptized in a church (no record), you are in trouble. There is very little "proof" of family relationships unless you can find something in a will or land record. Obituaries before 1900 were often very short, in which case they did not name the children or parents of an adult. Most wills were not probated. If they were not, the government did not preserve them. They don't exist in NY unless the families preserved them. Land records seldom tell family relationships, but can hint at it if the properties adjoin each other (not good enough if you have strict standards). Many church records have been lost or not yet transcribed or microfilmed. Real proof seldom is extremely hard to find. You either make no progress, or you learn which circumstances give you the most reliability. 100% proof is hard to find. Cliff ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jma8763@aol.com wrote: > >Hi all, > > I've run into a bit of a "situation", and was wondering if I had ANY >recourse under copyright laws. I exchanged a series of e-mails with a guy who was >researching some of the same family names that I was looking for, and now I >find, not only all of my data posted on his website, but my private e-mails >to him are posted as well!! > We had stopped corresponding when he asked me to co-author an article on >these families, but since a LOT of what I had was speculative, I made it clear >that I was not comfortable portraying it as fact. He got upset, claiming >that I had too high of a standard for what consists of "proof" of a >relationship, and he finally stopped writing when he couldn't persuade me to lower my >standards to meet his, so he was VERY CLEAR on the fact that I did NOT want my >data published ANYWHERE yet! BTW, HIS standards, according to him, are: Come >up with a best guess theory, and if you can't find anything to disprove it, >it's more likely than not to be accurate......HUH??????? > Anyway, when he sent me an e-mail regarding updates to his website, I was >SHOCKED to find my e-mails to him copied into the notes section of various >pages! There was nothing earth shattering in there, but there was personal >information that I would never have wanted posted on a website! A couple of >examples....he asked me who I was and where I lived, which I replied to, and >it's now posted on his website. I forwarded him an e-mail that I had written to >another genealogy friend of mine who is legally blind, so I added a note >apologizing for the font size, and why it was so large....THAT'S posted on his >website!!! > I wrote to him and asked him to please remove my e-mails, as they contained >personal information, such as my name, my former occupation, as well as >those of LIVING people in the family, my e-mail address, the town where I live, >and personal information on some of my research contacts. His response was >that, unless I give him permission to use the data contained in my e-mails, >that he HAS to keep them posted in order to publish the information they contain >while preserving MY copyright?!!! > SO, does anyone know if I actually HAVE a copyright to my e-mails? And if >so, can someone publish them to the internet without my permission???? I >almost feel like I'm being blackmailed here....give my permission, or live with >my e-mails being published!!! PLEASE understand that I KNOW he has a right >to publish the public record data, even though it isn't his research, but >does he have the right to post my theories and other personal information, >verbatim, without my permission????? > In all fairness, he did say that he would remove some of the "personal" >information that he didn't feel was relevant to "telling the story", which in >my humble opinion was never HIS story to tell!!! BUT, he said that I have >only found a portion of my e-mails so far, and that he will only remove >information that I specify, and then only IF he deems it unimportant to the story! >He has some 60,000 names in his database, and now he's claiming that the only >way I can have ANY of MY information removed, is to go through all of the >entries that pertained to the people we discussed, which are HUNDREDS, and read >through ALL of their notes, to see if my information is there, and then beg >to have it removed?!!! > Am I really at his mercy here, or do I have any recourse to have this >information removed, without giving him my permission to take credit for my >research and theories?!!!! Any and ALL advice on this matter would be GREATLY >appreciated!!!! > >THANKS!! >Joan > > > >