Below is an email I just received from a friend/cousin researcher. After that is my answer to her. I want to share this to clear up misconceptions some researchers have. >>>>>>>>>> Gordon, I have received 2 nasty e-mails today from a researcher saying that I should not include information in my database that comes from other researchers and that I should only include the information that I have been able to verify with solid source evidence myself. I want to apologize to you if you also find my source information offensive considering I just recently sent you data from my file. I have been working under the philosophy that information from other researchers can be used as a stepping stone in my research. Please let me know if you would like me to take your name out of my database because I definitely don't want to upset anyone else!! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> My answer to the person who wrote her the above email.... There are quacks in everything we do in this world. I do not believe anyone can stand on a pedestal and make the statements these two poor souls have made. This world is made up of information gotten from someone else. We all learn from our past and get our information from the past and it is all free to be passed on to someone else. If you got this information that you are passing on from the internet, then I would write back to these poor souls and let them know that since they published it on the internet it is now public domain. There are no copyrights on the internet of information posted there, it is PUBLIC DOMAIN and if someone else takes this information and publishes a book to sell to others there is nothing that can be done about it. I should know. About a month ago I got an email from a cousin in Pa. They had gotten a letter offering them a book on the OUR genealogy for $39.95. Their statement was that someone stole it. What is published is mostly my work and other cousins. The information in the genealogy book is what we had gathered. When I looked into it, I found a publisher in Denver, Co. who has been gathering public information for 40 years or so and selling books from the public domain information. Since I posted that information and you wanted it and it is yours to do as you see fit. I will just remind you again, in friendship, that when you use it, only about 50% is documented and what is documented I have not published what is or isn't. I can only say that from the 1850's on, most is documented thru census. Some is documented by other family researchers and others. Deaths after 1906 by death certificates and some birth certificates.