Dave, I totally agree with everything that you are saying. I think I worded the last paragraph in my post incorrectly. The problem with ancestry is, that with their 2 week free access periods, people start a tree, who then just copy info from other trees, and then it is copied again and again and again by others doing the same. These people don't research at all, they just copy others info, which more than often has been copied as well. I have seen trees with the only source or citation in it, being another ancestry tree. It is ridiculous. My tree is private also, and just like you, there is no way in the world that I will ever put it up for public view on ancestry either. I don't want all my hard work & research, plus the $100's ($1000's) of paid for BDM records taken from my tree without my knowledge or approval. If I share something like a purchased BDM with someone, I always ask them not to upload onto a public tree, unless the info is freely available on the internet or elsewhere. What I meant before, is why would one put up a tree with incorrect information to learn info, when it just contributes to all the other ridiculous trees that are there already. I guess I did not realise that comments made on the list, were about making a *private* tree to learn from. I wrongly interpreted that it was advice given to build public trees with that info. All the family members at the top of my tree are theory. They are theory because there are no records I have found yet to prove them. That is another reason why my tree is private. I don't want my theory people to be copied by others, because I don't even know they exist !!

On 09/03/2015 20:40, Robyn Ritchie wrote: > What I meant before, is why would one put up a tree with incorrect > information to learn info, when it just contributes to all the other > ridiculous trees that are there already On 09/03/2015 Dave replies: Simple... they put their bits up hoping someone contacts them to give them their genealogy instead of doing it themselves!!! Like everyone.. I had to one that got away! No Ancestry hints..nothing. Then I found him, got Will of father in law on PRONI, went to Library for their Ancestry and newspapers, got them all up to mid 1900's (4 generations) including all the kid's marriages. kids, Census, Phone Books, newspaper items... source after source after source... then stuck them on my Ancestry tree where I got a pile of Hints (after putting them in!)... One was of a tree where they stuck their snippet up to be discovered, no sources just the bit they knew!! Now they are waiting for someone to contact them to give them stuff as they are certainly not searching!! If they were they'd get a Hint for each person from my Private tree!!! With Ancestry... one should get a choice of searching only trees with sources!

Yes and it was my advice to start a PRIVATE tree using guesstimates etc! Why? Because if one does, then clicks on the leaf at CENTRE of a person's PROFILE page they get much more accurate hints! Simply because the search might be of that person BUT with the associated names of parents, siblings etc that one does not get by just searching by an individual name. It runs with associated names on tree!! DH On 09/03/2015 20:40, Robyn Ritchie wrote: > I guess I did not realise that comments made on the list, were about making > a*private* tree to learn from.