I had a similar thing happen but before all these online trees. About 18 years ago I exchanged info with a cousin. I had created a small family genealogy based on my great grandmother's stories and sent her a copy. About 10 years later another cousin said she found this booklet written by a well know local genealogist that included our family. She bought a copy for me at $15. When I got it is was a copy of the booklet I had sent out with all the spelling errors I had. The only change was the title page which now bore the name of the other genealogist with no mention of me or my grandmother. I contacted the woman and she said she had no memory of corresponding with me. When I sent he copies of her letters including the one acknowledging the receipt of the booklet. She simply refused to talk to me. I often wonder how much of her reputation was built on work of other people. They only way to keep people from claiming your work as their own is to share with no one. And that negates the very reason we do genealogy. You cannot copyright dates as they are facts of records. You can copyright your narrative and try to sue anyone who used the narrative without your permission but that is extremely expensive and you would have to prove they had your work before they wrote theirs. Not easy. Julia [email protected]