I would just like to say that websites such as Ancestry and Genes reunited are excellent for research. However there are pitfalls and I would like to point these out to everyone who is serious about genealogy and tracing your family tree. If like me you have been researching your family tree before there were facilities like the internet you will know how hard and time consuming research was. I invested a lot of time in my family tree and I am very proud of it.

When these online sites became available I was overjoyed not only was it helping me with my research but now I could also showcase my work and maybe find relatives out there with a similar interest. With this in mind I uploaded over fifteen years of family history research on to Ancestry and unfortunately made it public. Since then my tree has been canabilized by people with, it appears, no serious interest at all in family history!

They latch themselves on to your ancestors the result being that your research becomes distorted as your ancestors acquire several spouses making them bigamists. They acquire children that they could not possibly have biologically conceived and they can also bilocate. One of my great uncle's was apparently in New York and Glasgow at the exact same time!

So be warned. For research purposes they are absolutely wonderful. For showcasing your work or sharing your data a total unmitigated disaster, especially ANCESTRY. If you do upload your family tree KEEP IT PRIVATE! Invitation only

"Invitation only" still allows any invited person to copy all of your data/docs/pics/stories to their own *public* tree.

I've been lightly "bitten" once by an "invitation" and have become extremely judicious since then in issuing them.

One important criteria, at least for me, is the quality of the inquirer's own genealogical handiwork. If it looks at all flighty or if the individual appears to be terribly unschooled, e-mail exchanges of info will just have to suffice.

Yes that's true but you can be more careful and selective about who exactly views your tree. Generally speaking, if you know who has access and you request that they do not make your info public they will usually respect that.

I think if Ancestry wants some credibility then they need to address the problem of people who have no serious interest in genealogy or think that this is a short cut to building their family tree. I don't really know how that can be done but as long as people can just dip into other peoples research and pick and mix what suits them then the whole this is just a farce!

It's not these websites are simply research tools

I don't think Ancestry cares about credibility or how serious anyone is about genealogical research. It's a business and is all about making money. The enticement in the ads to find your family history already researched and waiting for you is drawing new customers which equals more money. Some of the new people will be 'bitten' by the genealogy bug and go on to do in depth research but I suspect most will not. I just saw a comment on the boards about how useless Ancestry will become if the "epidemic" of private trees continues, as if the trees are all Ancestry is good for.

I think you have hit the nail on the head. Genealogy has become big business but it really is a shame because Ancestry could be so much more than just a money making machine!

JoMac, you are so right.

Brennancasss summed up Ancestry's main marketing plan well: "I think if Ancestry wants some credibility then they need to address the problem of people who have no serious interest in genealogy or think that this is a short cut to building their family tree." This is because Ancestry.com actively promotes this method of creating and expanding trees: taking what others have posted.

You observed, "I just saw a comment on the boards about how useless Ancestry will become if the "epidemic" of private trees continues, as if the trees are all Ancestry is good for."

Many who think 'research' is plucking 2 or 10,000 plums from others' trees resent not being able to lift some of the less accessible cherries. They think Ancestry.com has told them they have a "right" to all the fruits of others' labor, without ever having to go to the actual records themselves, or even having to ask if they may incorporate an actual researcher's write-up of evidence.

I am delighted to assist anyone who shows some sign of wondering about evidence, wanting to do the research, questioning Widely Held Mistaken Beliefs. But I don't have to publicly post the golden nuggets found in the musty 40-pound Court records books and spidery basement files.

This may make me sound like an absolute masochist but here goes. I am speaking as someone who has actually got her hands and her clothes dirty looking through old volumes of poor relief records, census records, church baptismal registers, school registers from the early 1900's, etc. Who has waded through nettles and long grass in old grave yards and spent countless hours down the years in national archives, libraries and public records offices with my nose stuck in some old volume or getting tangled up in an antiquated micro film viewer often lamenting my fruitless labour. Then jumping for joy when I would find even one snippet of information on a long dead relative.

Speaking as this masochistic die hard genealogist I just want to say that all of this activity has brought me a lot more joy and satisfaction than just sitting in front of a computer and typing names into an online database or search engine.

As I said before these websites are very usful research tools but they should be cross referenced and they are no substitute for good old fashioned footwork.

A salute from an armchair researcher to those who searched through dusty records in spidery basements.

"We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours."

John of Salisbury, 12th century theologian and author.

what a great tribute!
and to the lazy ones who insist upon perpetuating downright impossibilities-why bother, when u obviously dont really care who you were related to-just make up any old names, who cares? when i pointed out to several researchers, who had oviously all copied the same Big Fat Mistake, that a woman could not be the daughter of a married couple who were born after she died, i recieved back various responses, incld one lady who said she had heard of stranger things and if she changed this one thing on her tree, the whole thing would be ruined-well change it or not, your dad cant be born after u die, and even if u didnt do any of the work yourself, when u "borrowed" the screwed up version, u shouldve been able to see that. what a mess it has all become - - -