Hello all, I am amazed at the number of emails I have had re my recent post about sharing and protecting your research. There have been a few on line, but literally dozens off line. What is really sad, is the number of people, good souls like yourselves, who have had their trust betrayed. Firstly, thank you all, and thank you for your support... it is very encouraging. Let me assure all, that no one will ever stop me helping and sharing... it's not in my nature. So if ever you think I may be able to help, please continue to ask, and as always, I will jump in when I can. Though it may not have sounded like it, I am not 'down' about what happened... hard to convey that with the written word at times, though I was and am, totally disappointed by the distant cousin who did this. It's happened before, in a smaller way, and will no doubt happen again... It won't stop me sharing. As I have mentioned to some I got the chance to write to personally, this person took what I thought was private information, gleaned from friendly 'family' discussion emails, where questions had been answered about some of my close family members, and added that to the rest of the information I had sent, then put the lot on line. That was the final straw.. What for? I guess to be able to say that the trees in question had large numbers, larger than many others...so what? When chatting to someone else about this, they mentioned that whenever they share information with a 'new' family member, they always put in a red herring as it were... some false, but not harmful information, like a false baptism with a very unusual name or a birth registered years after the mother had died... In this way, she said she can always know exactly who put what information where. Had to laugh, but I also see the consequences of that. (Please don't berate me... O:-) ) For me, no more shared gedcoms, other than with those very close to me, rather a well edited .rtf or .doc. I have learnt from this and my reason for posting the message in the first place, wasn't to say don't share or don't help, but remember in this wonderful world that is made so much smaller with technology and better communication, privacy, good manners, courtesy and ethics are more important than ever. I still wouldn't swap all the wonderful friends I've made, and all that I would never have thought possible that I could learn, for ANYTHING. Thank you all, Chris G in beautiful Brisbane Part Irish by blood, full Irish by soul...