Hi Leon, Your letter touched me and feeling the same as you do on sharing our endless hours of work, I felt I should write. Everything you have done I have also done except posted my genealogy to the Web. And I just might do that also, in the future. I admire your honesty and I hope for all the best for you and your wife. Lynda In a message dated 6/21/2004 8:31:18 PM Eastern Standard Time, LMorris116@aol.com writes: > > Dear Cousins and Friends, > I always seem to start my letters by apologizing. I owe many of you a reply > > to emails that you sent me that I could not answer at the time. I am sorry > for the delay but if you will write again, I will try my best to reply even > if I > can’t help your research. > I think it was Norman V. Peale that said, “Don’t tell people you problems. > > Eighty percent of them could care less and the other twenty percent are > actually glad to see that you have more problems than they do.” So to get > even > with you 20% I will say that I am doing a little better health wise and my > wife > Carol is improving from her cancer surgery and the compilations of the > radiation treatments. > I have tried to read most of the emails from my main lists but for the > first > time in my nine years online, I delete, without opening, those emails with > subjects that seem be outside my interest. The problem there is that I am > interesting in almost everything and I save all the good stuff! > In January before my world went into a tailspin I sent out what I had on > the > direct lines of my eight great grandparents. I thank all of you that replied > > with help or comments. One email was critical of my posting to these lists. > This is part of that email. > “Leon, I admire your desire to publish your data on these sites, but you > must be aware that when we do that, the information is then sold by the > parent > of Rootsweb, and any errors by anyone posting the data is further put out > to > the public as gospel truth, and many of the people on these lists just keep > on > spreading the errors. > > It is not a perfect world, but your books should be purchased by people and > > not be given away for another entity to SELL. That's my view and I know at > least 500 others that share that view. > > (a friend)” > To this friend and all those that feel that way about sharing their > research, I respect your right to do with your information as you see fit > but this is > how I feel after 23 years of fun doing family research. > 1. The greatest fun for me has been the hundreds of wonderful new contacts > that I have made > with others as they help me by sharing their family info or as I helped > them > by sharing > what information I had on common family lines. > 2. I believe that every new researcher should be able to tap into the > information found by > earlier researchers and that they should not have to “reinvent the wheel.” > > Their time can be > spent finding new information to add to the great pool of knowledge. > 3. The internet has a lot of wrong information on nearly all of my family > lines. I believe that > people will compare notes and sources and correct what can be corrected. > 4. I love books and have bought many for my library but I will share any > info I have and help > anyone I can without them buying my book. I have copied thousands of pages > from > other people’s books in libraries without buying them. > 5. It is OK with me if Ancestry. Com or any other pay service uses my > information. They can > only use parts of it, not the whole book. Even if I could still travel like > I > want to, it is faster > and cheaper to pay them than to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to > find that next big > breakthrough. > Once again I must apologize. This time for being long winded but a lot has > built up in 5 ½ months. These are the jobs our ancestors had. > _http://www.genealogyinc.com/descriptions/job-A.htm_ > (http://www.genealogyinc.com/descriptions/job-A.htm) > Best Wishes, > Leon Morris > 70646 Hilltop Dr. > Union, MI 49130 > http://users.beanstalk.net/rokadane/morris/ > 269-641-7071 (Call anytime, it is easier for me to talk than to write.) >