I have been writing a dissertation for the last year and have learned a lot about copyright. You have the right to the product you produce. If you use sources, they must be cited, otherwise it is plagerism. If, for example, you use a tax list, you must cite the original source of that list or the source in which you found it. And citing includes personal correspondence, interviews etc. Also, if you get information from Ancestry.com or Genealogy.com, you must cite them. If you are using the information privately, then it doesn't matter if you cite your souces, but it can never be published because you can't make a profit from someone else's work. On the other hand, you should be skeptical of work without sources. A research book is really nothing more than getting the sources that pertain to your subject and putting it together the way you want it to be. In other words, two people can take the same information and produce two different books. If someone is planning on writing a book about their family history, they may not want to share in order to force people to buy their work to find out what they have. And the fact is, that most people are not planning on publishing their findings. I agree that hiring a professional is expensive and often you don't get what you want. They can be very disappointing. I know someone on another list that paid dearly for some information from England that I have offered to her for free. She turned me down, maybe because she hoped to find more information than I had. But that didn't happen. Sometimes it is better to get you information from other listers because they at least have a personal investment in what they have found. I have been very lucky in my communications with other people in terms of sharing information. But I just had an email from someone on another list who said she had been refused information by someone for no reason at all. Luckily for all of us, there are generous people out there and more and more information is being published on the web. Kathryn ----- Original Message ----- From: <Jrcinsd2@aol.com> To: <PA-OLD-CHESTER-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, October 01, 2006 8:35 AM Subject: [PaOldC] sharing info >I would like to add this comment to this line of posting. It is very > difficult for some of us who live on the opposite end of the continent to > dear old > Chester Co., PA. I have several lines that originate there and so have > much > to research. Not all info/data is available online. I am not able to > travel > for health reasons to be in PA to do research in person. So how am I to > continue my research when I have reached a point that requires hands-on > work? > Hiring a researcher is financially too expensive. > > I once paid money to one of the PA Historical Societies, only to receive > tax > records which were exactly "not" what I had requested and did not help me > at > all. So, for now, I have given up on my old Chester Co. lines. I know > that > there are documents available, and listers have copies of such.....here's > an > example......I was told once that I should "get it from the library > archives, just that same way I did" from a lister who thought that I > could just drive > down the road like she did and go to the library/archives. I have never > once hesitated to share whatever info I have obtained, on any person, on > any > list. > > A near-professional researcher told me once that as each new "generation" > of > researchers comes along, it's their job to go over what was done before > them > and correct errors, and then move back to the next generation. If we > don't > share what we learn, how are we all to benefit? I guess if you think you > might want to publish your work in a book at some time, then you would not > want > others to reprint it........but from a copyright standpoint, do we have > "rights" to information that is available from public records?? I don't > know the > answer to that. I just know that if it were not for the incredible > generosity of listers, on this and all the lists, I would not have nearly > half of what > I have now. > > So, anyway, just thought I'd put in a comment from someone from the > far-off > Pacific Northwest corner of the continent. > > Best regards, > Janice > To unsubscribe from this list, please send the one word message, > unsubscribe, to > pa-old-chester-request@rootsweb.com > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > PA-OLD-CHESTER-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >