by Dan Niemiec

A few years ago, I received a phone call from a cousin I had not heard from in some time. Some years earlier, this distant relative and I had been in regular contact while I was working with them on their branch of the family tree. They gave me the data on the descendants and photographs, so the tree would be up to date. I gave them ancestry going farther back than they ever dreamed. Then they called me years later to tell me that they found the same ancestry data on the internet and I should check it out. After I found what they saw, it turned out that someone else had taken the data I gave them and posted it on-line as though they did the work.

This is just one of the frustrations of posting your family tree on-line. Although there are problems with on-line family trees, including but not limited to retaining the ownership, they can serve as an excellent guide toward the original sources. Many people have found their family tree on-line because the person who did the work (or someone who stole it) posted the tree on a number of possible locations. The most likely ones are: Ancestry.com, Familysearch.org, personal web sites.

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Fonte: Fra Noi