Well, it sounds like plenty of us have had similar experiences...thank goodness the careless and lazy researchers are the minority. I soon learned not to make my tree available to anyone who asked...apparently 'can I view your tree' means 'let me copy your tree' to some people. Until this week I hadn't really explored the public trees on Ancestry.co.uk but having just started my own tree on Ancestry with a few names, I am receiving 'Hints' from them and can understand how a newbie might think the 'expert' site has found a bona fide ancestor. The 'hint' I received today has found my great grandmothers death on the GRO index based on the date I entered...but this death is in her maiden name so what use is that? My next task is to delete the names I've put on Ancestry. Sue Surrey _________________________________________________________________ Celebrate a decade of Messenger with free winks, emoticons, display pics, and more. http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/157562755/direct/01/

while I agree with ALL of the downsides expressed regarding public trees I have to say that as a result of exploring other public trees and hot contacts I have been able to contact some living relatives which otherwise would probably not have happened. My mother in particular who had not seen her family since she was a child has found this very rewarding. There are other ways of finding lost living relatives which I use but thought it worth mentioning in the interests of a balanced view ........ I still get annoyed a worthless 'hints' and 'hot contacts' but can always ignore them. Dave Carr Paignton On 17 Aug 2009, at 11:51, Sue Miller wrote: Well, it sounds like plenty of us have had similar experiences...thank goodness the careless and lazy researchers are the minority. I soon learned not to make my tree available to anyone who asked...apparently 'can I view your tree' means 'let me copy your tree' to some people. Until this week I hadn't really explored the public trees on Ancestry.co.uk but having just started my own tree on Ancestry with a few names, I am receiving 'Hints' from them and can understand how a newbie might think the 'expert' site has found a bona fide ancestor. The 'hint' I received today has found my great grandmothers death on the GRO index based on the date I entered...but this death is in her maiden name so what use is that? My next task is to delete the names I've put on Ancestry.