I agree with Chere, here. First of all, none of us "owns" the information we glean from public records which is where 99% of our information comes from and that is exactly what the information is that we are compiling about our ancestors with the exception of the personal stories that are not in the public domain! I will never understand the possessiveness some people have regarding information they have found in public records! I have subscriptions to Ancestry, Gen.com and several other sites. What I am paying for (with any membership) are all of the local, state and federal records plus the myriad of out of print books and all of the records from foreign countries that they are making available digitally. Those are gold mines! I have never felt that I was paying for any "tree" that someone posted and most of the time when I am working online, I don't even look at that section of information ~ I know it can be loaded with errors. If I've really hit a slump and can't find anything in the records I'm searching for my ancestor, I will take a look at the family trees that are posted for a HINT of where I might go next ~ a name, a location, a possible date, anything to get me going again. Whole new avenues of research can open up in that way. That is the only way that section of information should be used and anyone who is doing serious work be it as a hobby or professionally would know that! But we all know someone who is just about the names and the documentation doesn't matter. None of us will ever change that sort of person no matter how much we try to explain why we do our research a different way. I have never publically posted any of my data but I am more than willing to share it with anyone who would ask me for it ~ with the caveat that certain sections will be noted as "NOT PROVEN YET ~ NO DOCUMENTATION". I don't believe any of us should be about hording the information we find. If you put something online and now it is the domain of Ancestry.com, so be it ~ where & what is the harm (info regarding living persons should never be posted). If someone contacts you through some previously posted info, you just might find a new relative and new information to work with and at the same time you can offer your newer corrected version of information. We do live in the 21st century and the digital age is here ~ once you put something out there, anywhere, you no longer "own" it. Linda ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chere Athey" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]>; <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, June 14, 2009 1:47 PM Subject: Re: [MDALLEGA] MDALLEGA Digest, Vol 4, Issue 154 Call me crazy but Ancestry "owning" my info does not bother me. I'm just glad others have a medium by which to find or get a jump start on their roots; it's how I got started. I do feel badly that some are not able to make corrections in their merged material. That is irresponsible of Ancestry.

Rootsweb thru their world connect file has free family tree information. Ancestry the pay site has the world tree files and most are the same as rootsweb's worldconnect, which can be corrected at the owner's discretion. Before Ancestry moved the World Tree files to their pay site they made an announcement that the owner had a chance to take the file off, before a certain date, otherwise it would be the property of Ancestry. Those that did not remove the files they did not want Ancestry to have, now do not own them. I think world connect has more accurate family trees. World Tree at Ancestry are the ones that are all screwed up. Some of them have parents born later than the children.