Many people do not send sources and notes with submitted gedcoms. I personally leave out the notes but share them with others upon request. Most programs have options of what to send to a gedcom file. I think sharing sources is essential to good research. Since we should always check out material before we use it, this aids others, and is the reason I share in the first place. Some people think they will get more responses if they do not supply sources. Personally I rarely look at the websites or gedcoms of others because most do not contain sources and I have no idea where the information came from. My soapbox -- I feel it is important to good scholarship to share sources, particularly since we all make mistakes, and different sources carry different likely weights of accuracy. If the source simply says "Aunt Mary" or LDS source, you at least know you need to do substantially more work. If the listed source is a vital record, or census, you may give that information more weight and can more easily verify it yourself. If course, one should check out all they use since even the most careful people make mistakes. Obviously I intend to leave out the details for living people, although I tend to leave in names. There are programs that assist us in "cleaning" a database before submitting it to an internet database. I believe the Ancestry site has references (at least did in the past) to some of these programs. I do think that Ancestry has recently begun filtering out some details of living people that people left in. Margaret Scheffler ----- Original Message ----- From: <Jawcwarner@aol.com> > For the first time I have downloaded another's genealogy file being that the person who put it out on the web has obvious ties to me. Unfortunately, the person's email address must have changed as my message to them bounced. It looks the same as my own Family Tree Maker version 7.0 but there are no living people shown, no sources shown, no notes re. individuals shown, etc. I have not put my own file out onthe web, but do believe that you can choose not to show living persons (a good idea if you ask me). What about the sources and notes? Did the person who put this GedCom out not put into their file any of their sources or write any special notes? Or did they again choose not to show those as well or do those types of things just not follow when you put your file out on the web? As I cannot contact the person who put this GedCom out, I hope someone else can answer my questions! Carol in Colorado