October 9th - Are you a generous genealogist?
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| Photo by Jonas Jacobsson on Unsplash |
Are you a generous genealogist? Are you willing to help others who might not know as much as you do - whether that is helping with a record set, a gadget, a technology, or a difficult question? Are you willing to share information you have found with other family members and/or strangers (who might become friends) online? Do you share any portion of your family tree online, not only in hopes of finding those elusive cousins but also to help someone who might be stuck?
It is pretty easy to share only what you want with Legacy - using focus groups and placing those abbreviated trees online OR printing out family group sheets and providing them to family and, even better, sharing them with local genealogical societies where those family members lived. Legacy has lots of great options for sharing - including group sheets, pedigree charts and narratives (those ancestor or descendent books). Why not give some thought to sharing - you could send your gift off during the Thanksgiving holidays because we all should be thankful that we can share our genealogy finds.
Now if you are on the receiving end of this generosity - you need to say thank you and you need to respect the giver's work product. Give credit where credit is due - be sure to share the author or preparer's name and get permission before you pass it on.
Sadly there is a bit too much "lifting" going on in the genealogy community and those who don't respect other's work product often ruin it for the rest of us. Don't go there - remember the golden rule and treat others as you wish to be treated. I don't know about you but if anyone out there has my Michael and Honora Murphy - please be generous, I swear I will be thankful!
Today - spend 15 minutes thinking about what you might share and with whom. I am almost finished putting the families together for my Swedish grandfather's extended family - so the genealogical society in Wright County, MN will be receiving a copy this Thanksgiving (all done in Legacy).
How about you? Why not share your plans below.
All very good advice Tessa Keough especially saying thank you & 'lifting' of other peoples research. I used to be a BIG sharer of info but sadly I will only EXCHANGE info these days as I have had too many 'takers' without even a word of thanks or recognition. This is not how I like to be but have become weary of people and their promises as I have been let down just too many times, although I will gladly offer my 'right arm' to anyone who is prepared to share.
ReplyDeletemichelle kaplan - I know how you feel, whether it is someone who "takes" your information and it forms the basis of their online tree, or you work together as a team on a project and someone takes all the credit - these "lifters/takers" are who bring down the very generous genealogy community.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of sharing - when there is something that both of you can provide maybe a bit more care with the gift is taken.
I always express my gratitude for any help in my research. Sadly, I have not posted any of my research on-line for the benefit of others. My experience with the "takers" has spoiled my attitude. In the past, I shared my research only to have it posted - usually on Ancestry on someone's tree. What really bothers me is that if I discover an error in my research, the erroneous information stays on-line.
ReplyDeleteI failed to mention the wonderful "cousins" who have collaborated with me in our research of our common surname. Those relationships have been great!
ReplyDeleteJudy Burns That's why I took all the descendant charts off my site. People only took instead of giving back and it was copied to other places. I'd rather not be the source for errors. I'm constantly updating and improving my knowledge.
ReplyDeleteThis may be petty, but I've pulled all photographs and original documents held by me (or given to me) from Ancestry and my web site. It is tedious, but each one is going into Photoshop and I'm adding a small text line that says "Photo (document, etc) owned and submitted by D. Nissen" or "Photo(document, etc) owned by so-and-so and submitted by D. Nissen". Those photos, documents, etc will be the ones I again upload to my web site and Ancestry. I've been appalled at the photos that actually had my name on them - even ones that my camera put a date/time stamp on - that were attributed to someone else If the photo is owned by someone else and I'm using it, I am very careful to give them credit.
ReplyDeleteI actually have a professional genealogist relative and while I try not to take advantage of her, any data that she sends me is carefully attributed to her.
The internet is a wonderful thing - but as we've all seen copyrights and original work do not matter to a lot of people. So - do whatever you can to put your copyright/watermark/etc. on whatever you publish.
Donna Nissen Although I've taken all my charts down I've left up some photos with large orange watermarks across them saying, Unidentified. Because they ARE unidentified. I put them up originally hoping someone might know who they are. I do know, in most cases because I know where they came from, who they AREN'T and yet people have taken them and put their own identifications on them. Not contacted me as I requested but just taken them, put names to them that I know are wrong and uploaded them to other sites. The human race really sucks at times.
ReplyDelete