In a message dated 10/28/2002 7:35:58 PM Central Standard Time, robinsnest@centurytel.net writes: > Should you or anyone else have a right to take > for free what we have paid for? NO! And, it is people like you that are > causing many of us NOT to publish on the Internet. You think because it is > on the net it belongs to you? Guess what, copyright laws DO apply and you > cannot legally take the information without asking the author first..... > Even if it were not against the law to take and publish others hard work, > what about the moral issues? Perhaps you can sleep well at night knowing > you stole something that did not belong to you, but I sure couldn't. > My grandmother and her father were researching their family as far back as 1906, according to letters I have in my possession. I can't begin to imagine the monies spent on documents, postage, copying, etc. On my grandfather's side, I have cousins who have been researching that family for thirty years. ALL of us share our information freely. My $1000 investment in research is traded off by my cousin's $1000 investment in research. What I see going on is a "sea-change" in genealogy from the old "each researcher travels and spends" to "coalitions travel and research in their area and share." Some adapt well to change; others don't. I understand both sets of feelings, while I endorse the latter. I understand charging for books, as the publishing costs are separate from research expenses. We are solving that problem by putting ours onto CD's ($1 a CD and cheap postage) and everyone is getting credit for their work. Since we are scattered across the nation, we have a wider access to more repositories of data, including private caches of family letters, obits, wedding announcements, photos, certificates -- birth, death, marriage, yearbooks, etc. This allows us to SAVE the thousands of $$$ and hours it would cost EACH of us to travel to all the libraries and archives and collect all the information individually. Genealogy is about FAMILY. FAMILY, as I was raised, is about cooperation and sharing. My 8th cousins belong to me as much as my direct line belongs to my 8th cousins. I do not feel I have the right to POSSESS the information about my line and the sources of the documentation nor to keep it from interested parties in order to get credit or make a profit. To me the goal is to have the information available instead of lost in time. I spend lots of hours and money on research trips myself. My attitude is the money buys me the pleasure of DOING the research in the archives in those locations, to SEE the land my family owned 150 or 200 years ago. It also BUYS me the PRIVILEGE of giving a GIFT to my family at large -- including those members who may not, through health or financial reasons, have the liberty to travel to those locations. I find I get enormous payoffs -- the joy of meeting a distant cousin in a Louisville, GA library, of spending three delightful days as the guest of a phenomenal genealogist/cousin in Atlanta, corresponding with cousins all over the country who enrich my life with travel photos, family photos, seeing the portable organ my ggggrandfather gave his daughter c. 1846 and playing a tune on it, learning from the archivists and librarians and historical or genealogical society members I meet, and, yes, the thrill of occasionally finding something that verifies an oral tradition or a theorized connection. I also spend hours and money doing lookups for people and copying and transcribing and scanning documents, photos, pages from books. From this I get the pleasure of HELPING SOMEONE ELSE. Now, as a matter of the Southern manners my grandmother taught me, I ask permission WHEN I CAN REACH THEM. Even if I cannot reach them, I credit them with the information, thank them for making it available and invite them to contact me. One such person has contacted me, and was completely gracious. In return, he got the information I had added to his original document. Occasionally, I have been "ripped off." ::Shrug:: I don't own the FACTS. I only own the words I use to describe the family beyond the FACTS of births, marriages, divorces, remarriages, and deaths. While I do not condone plagiarism, I recall that "imitation is the highest form of flattery." If my words are so compelling and perfect that someone feels they wish to "steal" them, I am honored. The thief will be shown to be what he/she is in the long run. I get leads from websites totally unconnected to my family, because someone has posted a deed or court document on which my family member appears as participant or witness. I try to contact them --some don't have a contact address or email at all, and others have outdated ones -- to thank them for posting it and ask permission to use the information. Whether or not I am successful in contacting them, I credit their website. Remember that it is not stealing or plagiarism or unethical if the original person is credited. Even if the document is quoted directly. Manners and proper citational form are all that is required to solve this conflict. It also will make our research more credible and scholarly. What I think BELONGS to me are the pleasures and memories of the hunt. The rest BELONGS to my family.

At 02:07 AM 10/29/02 -0500, AWNRDC@aol.com wrote: >[snip] >My grandmother and her father were researching their family as far back as >1906, according to letters I have in my possession. I can't begin to imagine >the monies spent on documents, postage, copying, etc. On my grandfather's >side, I have cousins who have been researching that family for thirty years. >ALL of us share our information freely. >[snip] > >Remember that it is not stealing or plagiarism or unethical if the original >person is credited. Even if the document is quoted directly. > >Manners and proper citational form are all that is required to solve this >conflict. It also will make our research more credible and scholarly. > >What I think BELONGS to me are the pleasures and memories of the hunt. The >rest BELONGS to my family. Hi: Exactly! I have a genealogical register that was handwritten, in a lined notebook of the kind a student would use, in the mid-1800s, along with many letters and notes taken at that time, and a nearly continuous record of the family researches ever since. The "mass of documents" has changed hands twice. "Quoting" my own web site with editorial insertions: My DUTTON ancestry is taken from years of research, much of which came into my hands after the death of my grandmother Ruth (WILLIAMS) DUTTON (1908-1975) of Springfield, Vermont. That which she did not discover herself was given to her, probably sometime in the 1930s, by my first cousin thrice removed "Myra" (SEVERANCE) JACOBS (1875-1958) of Saxtons River, Vermont. She in her turn had research notes and documents that were gathered in the mid to late 1800s, by whom I do not know. Someone much wiser than I am once said, "Scatter your bread on the water; it will come back to you." He also recommended, "If a man takes your coat, give him your shirt." Following these maxims will certainly not help you keep the results of your research to yourself, but it will most likely help control your blood pressure. Darrell Darrell Allen MARTIN a native Vermonter currently in exile in Addison, Illinois darrellm@sprynet.com www.darrell-martin.net/genealogy/