Gosh, I haven't read my E-mail for 2 days and now I have 59 letters to read. But, everyone is talking about sharing or not sharing information and I'm sitting here "WISHING" I had something to share.....sob,sob Bob Kena159@aol.com wrote: > In a message dated 12/14/98, 9:15:35 AM, TNMAURY-L@rootsweb.com writes: > <<I am always very willing to share my information, because, > with many people working on the same or similar lines, more > information is found. That I feel, is of importance in doing > genealogical research.>> > > And sometimes one researcher will have access to information that no one else > could ever find. This recently happened to me. Having hit what seemed like a > dead end on my maternal grandfather's line, I found a descendant of his > brother online, the only member of this family I have ever found. I had a > sister of my grandfather in my files that she had never heard of. This child > has no documentation--no birth certificate, no death certificate, no census > record because she was born and died between censuses. I knew about her > because my mother's oldest sister is named for her. > > My sources are not on my Web, but I make it clear that anyone is welcome to e- > mail me for sources, and I am scrupulous about documenting where I get > information. I also make clear that my information came from many sources and > that some of it I have not personally verified. It would be very difficult to > put only research that I have personally done into tree format because there > would be gaps. If I didn't enter data received from others in my Family Tree > Maker, there would not be much point in seeking the data, some of which it is > geographically possible for me to personally confirm. Before I post my files > on my page, I run them through Gedclean to eliminate personal information > about living individuals. > > I love to share information and will even volunteer to do lookups for people > if I don't have the person they are looking for in my data. If I add data to > my files that I get from a Web page, I try to e-mail the person and ask their > permission. When I first started, I did not know anyone expected me to do > that, however. I think it would be ridiculous to go back and remove all that > data from my files. It is my impression that most people's pages contain > substantial amounts of data that they obtained from other people, and I have > never had anyone tell me that I could not use theirs. Most people who post > data on the Internet do so in order to share it, I believe. > > Now, it is one thing to add names, dates, and personal information about > ancestors to one's page. Presumably this is public information available to > everyone. It is another thing to appropriate more creative uses of this data. > I wrote a brief sketch of my fourth great-grandfather for my page and was a > little disgruntled to find it posted verbatim and with no source on the page > of someone I had shared data with. I pondered what to do and decided, for the > sake of good will, to say nothing, particularly since he had put a link to my > page on his. And, it's not as though I am going to publish this sketch or win > any literary awards for it. > > I think we need to keep a perspective about why we are doing this research. > As someone else said, most of us are doing it for fun; and I know that many of > us enjoy finding distant cousins online almost as much as we enjoy finding > another piece of our ancestral puzzle. Also, I think that since online > genealogy is so new, the rules are still in a state of development and it is > not clear to most of us exactly what they are. > > Sara Binkley Tarpley > > ==== TNMAURY Mailing List ==== > Maury County Historical Society > Contact: Mrs. Alice Algood, President > Address: 804 Athenaeum St., Columbia, TN 38401 > Phone: (931) 388-5373 > > MCHS, founded in 1964, meets every odd month on the third Sunday. A quarterly publication is issued. Membership dues are $10 per year. > > Visit the Maury County Historical Society Web Site at: > http://www.maurywebpages.com/mchs/index.htm