Monday, June 4, 2012

Musings On A Munday Too Clever

I thought I was being clever, but maybe I am too clever for my own good?


It bugs me to no end that other researchers take documents from my Ancestry.com tree and add it to their own without contacting me. I know it's out there in the public and they are within their rights to add the document to their tree. That's not my issue with this situation. My issue is with the missed opportunity. Genealogy is an extremely time consuming endeavor, I can't afford the opportunity cost of not contacting potential cousins with potential brick wall busters.

I don't put all my documents on my public tree, I pick a few key ancestors and put a document or two out there as bait. My hope is that others will take the document and then contact me. I currently have 7 outstanding emails I've sent after finding documents on other's trees. I'm hoping their replies will be positive, that my family lines expand through the communication and I won't have to duplicate work.

Randy Seaver recently posted about this topic on his blog Geneamusings. I commented on his post, referring to a post I created along a similar vein last year and sharing my latest tactic shown above. This probate document for Samuel Gilpin is FULL of valuable information, including the married names of his daughters and property descriptions. I added the text boxes and the note in hopes of encouraging a potential cousin to contact me. So far, I've not been contacted, but neither has anyone downloaded the image. Ancestry Member Connect shows 10 other researchers with Samuel in their tree.

I could be cutting my nose off to spite my face in this situation. If people do add my documents to their tree, I see that and can contact them. Without the download I don't even have that option. I think I will run a test by putting the un-redacted image up for a week and see if that stimulates any activity. Maybe that will answer the question of if I'm being too clever for my own good.

4 comments:

  1. Hi Jenna, I have had this dilemma since I started collecting documents from the Archives. When I first bring something home, I always add the source information as text to the image(s). Either by hand or with the imaging software. Why not add an additional line that says "Copied by" or "copied for Jenna"? It is not our property persay since it belongs to the archives. But at least you attribute yourself.

    I had one lady tell me something she grabbed from me and posted to her website was not my document. That she had it before I posted it. That she copied it from the archives a couple of years before. But I always mark my docs in a corner somewhere. Just like I always make an intentional error when I transcribe something so I know it's mine. And sure enought this document was mine. But she refused to take it down. What can you do?

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    1. Ah Ginger I like it, just a little sneaky, putting a "secret code" on your docs!! :) I added text to a photo of my Grandmother, I was less secretive about it though. I used 16pt bold font and said this is from the personal collection of Jenna Mills. Another photo of mine a couple of people attached to the wrong person in their tree. I just went into the comments and said, this is not that person, this photo is from my personal collection and should be attached to such and such. Sometimes I don't even bother, I could be policing my documents all day long. Thanks for commenting!

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  2. I smiled when I read this post because I have had the same issue. There is one individual that continually attaches my items on ancestry.com, yet her tree remains private. My theory has always been share and share alike, so I contacted the individual to see if we could collaborate. I continue to wait with baited breath for a response.

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    1. Heather, that exact situation is the biggest mystery to me of all. Why use a public site and then operate in a vacuum?? Maybe Ancestry.com needs to put out some PSA's as to exactly what Member Connect is and how valuable it can be!?! Thanks for stopping by. :)

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