Hi Rae, and others, I think I was probably very fortunate that the first (and almost only) reference I found online to any of my family was quite brief, not in gedcom format, and hopelessly inaccurate with generational slips caused by duplicated names. It immediately became clear that here was a good lead (information from a will), but the information as a whole needed to be kept well separate from my own research. I'll happily share the results of my research with those who are interested, usually in the form of family trees or reports. I have enough problems with dulpicated individuals (mostly arising from wildly fluctuating surname spelling the person's lifetime) not to desire to increase them with attempting file merges. My small transcription contribution to the Poznan Marriages Project has made me aware of how difficult it is to read old records with names that are not in one's own ancestry, and appreciate what a wonderful resource such databases are in helping locate family records. I don't wish to return to preInternet days - I have made far too many wonderful contacts I would otherwise have had no hope of meeting. However for the non-dedicated genealogist it is possible to assemble some kind of 'impressive' family tree with minimal effort. Hey - this perhaps keeps a lot of folk happy, and those who understand how research should be done can keep beavering away in the background? It can be almost impossible to convince a 'name-collector' that they need to at the very least check and verify sources. Rae, you mention some very familiar ships :) My ancestors were from around Bomst (now Babimost). Bronwyn. On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 2:05 AM, Rae Harvey <[email protected]> wrote: > I have to say, I'm really appreciative of the work done my others online. I > certainly don't take it, but I refer to it as a source to give me clues. As > a beginner it's been invaluable but I DO wait until I've proven the link > myself. It has caused trouble too. I've seen 10 family trees online with my > ancestor Johann Carl Liebich who came to Australia on the Sophia. All the > trees state his father as Wilhelm Liebich who arrived 3 years earlier on > the > La Rochelle but I am yet to confirm this relationship myself so I'm > refusing > to add Wilhelm to my tree for now. > > When I first started I put EVERYTHING online including the death > certificates etc I purchased. I'm now working offline but will continue to > add names (without the proof) to my online tree for others to refer to in > future. > > I'm blown away by how lazy some people are though. Name collecting at > ancestry.com seems to be out of control and it's funny when you look at a > tree and see the same person added in 3 times with three different mothers > cause they've just added willy-nilly. What a waste of time and how > unrewarding it must be. Rae > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message >