Share and Share Alike

A blog post by Judy G. Russell on her blog The Legal Genealogist was published in July 2016. Judy's words are important and her post should be read by all genealogists.

The expectation of some genealogists that we must share all research that we do, is something we will all be faced with at some point.  I call that the GIFS (Genealogy is For Sharing) mentality.

In fact it is not incumbent on us to share anything we don't choose to share. My belief is that those who expect or demand full sharing haven't thought about the reasons why an individual may not choose to share their research or a document or a family photograph.

Sometimes I share, sometimes I do not. Why do I not share all the time?

1. Because sometimes I choose to write a book about  my findings. This allows me to spread the information further afield than just one person, and also gives me a small portion of money back against what I spent in time, obtaining documents, travel expenses and so on.

2. Because I have seen my careful, methodical research taken and mixed in with incorrect information, causing a horrific genealogy mess that gets published in an online tree or passed via email to others. In other words, I lose control of the quality of the work I did.

Other times I will gladly share all my research with an interested descendant. It depends on the interaction I have with that person, how willing they are to share in return and what they plan to do with the documents and photos.

I have other reasons for sharing/not sharing but let's hear from you on how you feel about this topic. Meantime please take a few minutes to read Judy's blog post No Right to Sharing

Nay-Sayers of We're Related Need to Chill Out!

We're Related app by Ancestry.com

Ancestry.com's We're Related App is taking genealogists by storm!  As long as you have a family tree on Ancestry you can try it out. You'll be matched up with celebrities and Facebook friends who are possibly related to you. All you have to do is verify that the shared ancestor shown is in both your trees.

Some genealogist nay-sayers have proclaimed the App "trash", "garbage", "a waste of time" and so on. But I (and others) disagree. As all genealogists know you must remember not to accept the findings until you prove the two lines of descent!

It's important to teach beginners the importance of verifying trees found online. What better way to do that than with something fun? That is what the We're Related app is - a fun way to learn and a fun way to see what celebrities or Facebook friends you are related to.

So I say -- Ease up nay-sayers! Have a bit of fun and enjoy yourselves. Methinks you take yourselves just a little too seriously. And the problem with the dismissive manner with which you are treating those who are enjoying the app is that you create the very division you say doesn't exist - "us" against "them" - the "expert" against the beginner. It makes those of us having fun with We're Related feel like there's a snobbier IN group -- and we aren't part of it.

Okay off my soapbox now -- here's how the app works. First, It's free.

You can mark than one of your  trees as "active" so I created trees for my son's father's line, for each of my daughters-in-law and for my husband, as well as myself. So far it's been fun to see what celebrities and Facebook friends I am related to.I've had dozens of possible relatives so far. I've verified about 10 of them and ditched about 6 as they are not correct. I haven't had time to check the rest but I won't be accepting them as true until I do.

So far I've proven that I'm related to several Facebook friends, got a near miss with Cyndi of Cyndi's List (her male ancestor married my ancestor but it was a second marriage for mine and I am descended from the first husband). The funny thing is that one of my daughters-in-law is related to more of my Facebook friends than I am!

As for celebrities, I've proven my relationship to Teddy Roosevelt, Matt Damon, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. One of my sons has a proven relationship from his dad's line to Winston Churchill which I think is very cool.

So go ahead, ignore the nay-sayers and have a bit of fun!

P.S. Massey is my married name.

Do you Love or Hate the New Facebook Icons

If you're on Facebook you have no doubt heard of, or seen, the new emoticon icons that rolled out a week ago.

Now when someone you are friends with posts a status update, you can do more than LIKE, COMMENT, or SHARE. 

Hold your cursor over the LIKE icon and up pops a whole role of goodies, from LOVE, HAHA, WOW, SAD, and ANGRY.

There's been plenty of buzz about the icons. Some love them, saying that now they don't need to find the right words to express sorrow when a friend talks about a sad event for example. Others dislike them and believe the emoticons will only lead to the further degeneration of using words to express our feelings.

I don't care for them. I've used a few and found that if you use the ANGRY icon to express solidarity with someone who is complaining about something, they sometimes think you are angry with them, and not expressing support for their feelings. 

And I think it's a disrespectful cop-out to use the SAD emoticon on a status where a friend is reporting the death of a beloved family member or pet. No one knows "the right thing" to say when someone is grieving but resorting to a sad face emoticon is not the right way to show a person you care. 

What do you think of the emoticons?

Banished Gets a Thumbs Down From Me

Banished is a new 7-part series on CBC Television, premiering July 27, 2015 at 9pm. In 1788, Britain banished its unwanted citizens & convicts to Australia. Last night's episode focused on two convict lovers who are forbidden to marry, and their best friend. 

(Semi-spoiler alert ahead!)

I was looking forward to Part 1 but confess that it disappointed me. It had a very predictable storyline and characters. We had the obligatory evil convict, the hero convict who will suffer death rather than relinquish what he believes are his rights as a human being, the good-guy convict who puts on a good show of bravery but in reality is a coward. 

Then you have the oh-so-horrid soldier, the overly practical officer who sees all problems in terms of what's best for the troops (with no humanity shown), the governor of the colony who is at heart a decent man constrained by rules and laws, the overly sympathetic and empathic minister's wife and on and on it goes! 

Every major character was straight out of a beginner's handbook on writing romance novels. 

Even the costumers and sets were too polished. The convicts' clothing was not dirty or torn enough. The soldiers in the field had immaculate uniforms. Everything looked like a stage set to me. Yes Elizabeth Quinn's hair was matted and rumpled, but it looked like the way we teased our hair with rat-tail combs back in the 60s. It just didn't have the ring of authenticity. 

I was expecting more history, more of a documentary feel, and not quite so much fluff. 

Yes I will watch the next episode (reluctantly) if only because I hope the writing and story line will improve.

What's Your Opinion? Terrible Act of Disrespect or Excusable?

At least 150 grave markers used as flooring (Photo credit WPRI)

I don't want to say too much about this because I'm curious how others feel. 

It horrified me when I read the headline, but then I read the full story and his explanation, and felt a bit more charitable towards this guy. (A bit.....not a lot......)

Read the story then let me know your opinion!

Cemetery Worker Used Veterans’ Headstones As Flooring

Warning! Opinion re Ken Burns Remarks on Finding Your Roots

Watching Finding Your Roots last night (I love this series) I was quite taken aback by Ken Burns comment that he was "more ashamed" of finding out he had a Loyalist ancestor  then he was of having a slave owner ancestor. 

Wow. What a terrible thing to say! Both sides - Patriot and Loyalist  (please don't call them Tories!) stood up for what they believed in and fought for those beliefs. It does not matter whether or not we agree with one side or the other, both sides should be respected and honoured for their strength and courage in holding firm to what they believed in. 

My Loyalist ancestors believed it was treason to rise up against the King. They suffered greatly both in their physical ways and financially with the loss of property. They were forced to flee the country they were born in to make a new life in Canada. Loyalists were responsible for opening Ontario and other provinces in Canada for settlement. They are as important to our history of our country as Patriots are to our American friends and cousins. 

Patriots likewise showed great courage in taking  a huge chance that they would win the fight. That took courage. They too suffered during the war. Both sides suffered atrocities at the hands of the opposing side. That's the nature of war. 

My own Loyalist ancestor was imprisoned and his wife and 10 young children taken from their home in northern New York, set the home on fire, and marched the family into the forest where they were left to die. Luckily Indians from Montreal found them and led them to Quebec where they were taken in by the British government as refugees. But do I bear a grudge against Patriots? NO! Why would I? Each side did what they felt was necessary.  There is not, nor should there be, any judgement on my part. Terrible things happened to individuals on both sides of the American Revolution.

I wish Ken Burns had shown a modicum of respect for the difficult choices his Loyalist ancestor made. I do not expect him to make the man his hero, but how about less judgement and less disdain for the Loyalist cause. His remarks left a very bad taste in my mouth.

15 Genealogy Things That Amaze Me

Image from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I am bewildered and disheartened by those genealogists who

*  ask for help but never thank the person who spent their time to help

* can't copy my name correctly (it makes me wonder how good a job they're doing copying census data and other documents...)

*  asks a question in a forum or on a message board that could be easily answered by doing a 2 minute search online

*  doesn't look at the record he/she found and think about what it means and whether or not those facts fit their ancestor

* merges family trees without checking the sources to verify

*  writes to say they share one of your ancestors and you share all your information but they share nothing with you

*  want your help and send you a 10 page file of rambling sentences that would take you hours to figure out, instead of taking the time to summarize what they need and what they know

*  posts nasty comments, belittles and argues in online forums

*  jumps in with wild guesses instead of waiting to see if someone with actual knowledge will respond when another genealogist poses a question in a forum

* post a question in an online forum or a mailing list that starts with "I know I'm in the wrong forum but...." instead of finding a forum with the appropriate topic.

But it also amazes and delights me to see those genealogists who

*  go out of their way to share with others 

* give their time to help other genealogists

* carefully record their sources and verify "facts" they find online

* feel a sense of community and pitch in when needed

* encourage newcomers

Thanks to the genealogists who are in the Thumbs Up group! You make it all worthwhile.

Panic Ensues! DDOS Attack Brings Ancestry and FindAGrave Down

Screen Capture from
http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/ancestry.com.html

Caveat: This is a personal opinion and a bit of a rant about the nonsense that swept Facebook and Twitter yesterday. If you don't care what I think about it, stop reading now. I won't be offended.

Yesterday saw much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Ancestry.com and it's site FindAGrave site fell victim to a sustained DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) Attack. For those who thought it was their own computer or internet service preventing them from accessing Ancestry.com you can rest easy. You can read updates at https://www.facebook.com/Ancestry.com

Briefly a DDOS attack comes from hackers on multiple computers that send out bots to hit the designated website's servers. Because there are so many bots and they can hit the server in a never-ending barrage, the server is overloaded and can't deal with the requests from legitimate users. Then the site slows to a crawl or stops working completely. It can be difficult for the technicians to figure out where the bots are coming from in order to block them.

 Yesterday saw Facebook and Twitter flooded with cries of "Is anyone else having trouble getting to Ancestry?" It quickly became apparent that none of the people posting knew about the site IsItDownRightNow at http://www.isitdownrightnow.com This site allows you to check on the status of any site on the Internet. That's a much better idea than hundreds if not thousands of people posting the same question. 

But back to the shouting and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. This didn't come from Ancestry (although I'm sure they have been wiping sweat from their brows as they work diligently to stop the attacks). This reaction came from hundreds of people who posted angry messages on Ancestry's Facebook page. The responses ranged from anger ("This is BS - fix the problem!!" "I pay good money for this service!!") to despair ("I was going to do research today, now what?") It was obvious that most of those posting have no idea what a DDOS attack is and how difficult it can be to stop it. I don't criticize them because they aren't aware of these technical issues, but I do shake my head when those shouting the loudest could not be bothered to go and read up about what is involved.

A similar DDOS attack hit Feedly and Evernote last week. It is a BIG DEAL. It can take days to stop the bots from attacking the site. These recent hackers tried to extort money from the companies, with promises to stop the attack if they were paid.

I wish those who were ranting and raving about the problem knew what they were talking about. Those saner heads who tried to calm folks down with explanations of a DDOS attack and links where folks could read about it were shouted down and accused of being Ancestry shills. It was quite disturbing to see the lynch mob mentality that took over.

As for those who were whimpering about not being able to do their research or access their family tree (because we all know how dreadfully IMPORTANT it is to check something on that tree RIGHT NOW!!!!) what about taking a break and doing something else? Phone your favourite aunt or sister. Visit friends. Bake cookies. Read a good book. Play with your kids. DO SOMETHING ELSE!

Good grief! Not being able to get to Ancestry for the day is a first world problem. Think about it! There are children starving in other parts of the world. Women are being stoned for marrying without their parents' approval. People are being shot for being Christians. Those are big deals. Not accessing Ancestry or FindAGrave for a day are small issues in the overall scheme of life.

What Are Your Top 5 Genealogy Websites?

What are the top 5 websites you use most often for genealogy? This was a question posed by a friend on Facebook  and I thought the responses were very interesting. They also gave me some leads on new avenues of research. So here is the question repeated and I hope my readers will comment with their top 5. The sites can be free or pay-to-view.




Here are my top 5:

Ancestry.com I use it daily for American, Canadian and British research and would be lost without it.
FamilySearch - for International databases
British Newspaper Archive for my British ancestry
Library and Archives Canada for Canadian databases
Trove (National Library of Australia) for Australian & British ancestors

It was difficult to narrow my top sites to 5 as I have about a dozen that I use frequently (meaning at least once a week).  They include GenealogyBank.com, FindMyPast.com, OliveTreeGenealogy.com (yep I snuck my own site in this list but I do use it frequently), OurOntario.ca, TheShipsList.com and others.

Credit: "Top Rated Stamp" by Stuart Miles on FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Blended Families, Blended Names - Good or Bad Idea?

Blended Families, Blended Names is the most disturbing trend I've heard of recently. According to the article online, some married couples are inventing a new surname for themselves and by extension their children. The new surname is a combination of the husband and wife's surnames.

This isn't a case of hyphenated surnames. Two of my own grandchildren have a hyphenated name from their mom and dad as their moniker. But that makes it easier for genealogists! Having an ancestor named Smith-McConnell gives an instant surname to the wife and as we all know, often it is the women who are the most challenging to find.

No, this is a case of taking husband and wife named Smith and McConnell and creating a new name such as McSmith. The new name is used by the couple and by their children.

The article cites examples of real couples, for example the husband and wife team of Fitzpatrick and Sawatzky. They now carry the new surname of Fitzky

All I could think when I read this was how difficult they are making life for their descendants who might be interested in genealogy. But I also confess I had a little bit of sadness thinking how that name change dishonoured their ancestors.

In my own genealogical research it was only through sheer luck that I stumbled on the fact  that my Vollick ancestor who I could not find prior to 1786 was in fact born a Van Valkenburg. Sometime during or after the American Revolution his surname became Vollick. His sons used both Vollick and Follick. I would not deliberately wish that challenge on anyone!

What do you think of this trend?

Personal Opinion About Copyright and Plagiarism Online

Today I want to point my readers to two blog posts which discuss what to me is a very important topic - copyright and plagiarism on the internet.

This is an issue that hits home as I have had many instances of my work being copied without my permission and published online. I always fight it. I will not allow anyone to get away with violating my copyright. It is my right to publish original works online and to have them respected.

The most recent episode that happened to me involved a well-known and highly placed member of a North American Genealogical Society. This person also wrote a genealogy column for a large American newspaper. I have never talked about it on this blog, and do not intend to give names  but briefly I will share with you the relevant points.

An article I had written and published on my website Olive Tree Genealogy, was copied verbatim and published in an online American newspaper *and* in print - with my name removed as author and replaced with the columnist's name. No attempt had been made to contact me to ask permission and I certainly would not have agreed to someone else's name being put on my original writing. Had the columnist asked my permission to publish my article with my name attached as the author and a link back to my site, I would have agreed. That's called attribution and is the proper ethical way to behave.

My email (low-keyed and polite) to the columnist resulted in a very dismissive response from her. She told me that she "might consider" giving me credit for the IDEA behind her article. Wow. It was my article word for word except for a 3 or 4 words being changed to a similar word such as "suggestion" now being the word "tip". Even the layout was identical.

I don't deal with unreasonable people so my next step was to write to the newspaper editor. I provided the link to my article and the link to the article in his newspaper. His reaction was to immediately pull the online article while he investigated further. The newspaper ethics committee was called in and after much discussion back and forth with me and with the columnist, they agreed "her" article had been copied outright from mine.  She was then dismissed from her position with the newspaper.

The newspaper then printed an apology and retraction in their print version since it had gone to press and could not be stopped. It reached thousands of subscribers. All in all a somewhat happy ending since this person was held accountable by one segment of her genealogy world - the newspaper.

My opinion is we need accountability! We need to accept that there will be consequences to our actions. Unethical behaviour should not be tolerated. And guess what - copyright does exist on the internet! It is no different than if someone writes a book or a song - it is copyright to that individual the minute it is published online or offline. It's not there for the taking and we genealogists need to respect copyright and read the conditions attached to the website we are visiting.  Do they allow for copying for personal use? Do they not allow any reproduction? We must read the copyright policies and follow them.

 There is a lot of discussion among bloggers and webmasters  as to how to handle the rampant unethical behaviour that often occurs.  I urge you to read the following excellent pieces about unethical practices online.

"Copyright, plagiarism, and citing your sources" by Michael Hait at http://michaelhait.wordpress.com/2013/07/07/copyright/ is a must-read

Please also read Dear Myrt's blog post "Is there such a thing as ethical plagiarism?" at http://blog.dearmyrtle.com/2013/07/is-there-such-thing-as-ethical.html

Update: Please also read other bloggers' posts about this important and disturbing issue

How Genealogy Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement Makes Everyone a Loser by Denise Levenick

Time to Name Names by Michele Simmons Lewis

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

British Newspaper Archives - What I Like and Don't Like About this Site

Today's Featured Database is British Newspaper Archive

I subscribed to the site several months ago and am delighted with the items I'm finding on ancestors. They are busy adding new pages daily and state that they have 5,329,460 scanned pages as of today.

In my first month of use, I encountered a problem. When I clicked on a "hit" for an ancestor, I could not find his name in the newspaper page that loaded. I read the entire page several times and even clicked back and forth a few pages but to no avail.

So I wrote to explain that I'd been hunting for over an hour and could not find the entry. To my surprise, their customer service responded very quickly and were extremely helpful.  Even after I was given the correct page and URL to view it, I couldn't spot the name. I finally decided I was too frustrated to continue hunting and wrote back to request more guidance. The very patient customer service rep provided me with an exact column number and start of the paragraph containing my ancestor's name. With that help I was able to spot the bit I needed.

Since then I've had no problems with an incorrect link and I've looked at many. With both my maternal grandparents being born in England I've got a lot of English ancestors to look for!

I like their search engine. You can narrow your search with filters for date, region, county, specific place, type of article, public tags, or specific newspapers.  Once you find an entry you want to view, you simply load the page. Sometimes your search term is highlighted but not always. Usually the block of text where your search word is located is a darker grey, but again this does not always happen. The majority of the time it does and that makes finding the entry much easier.

You can order a copy of the newspaper page for a fee or you can download it to your computer. Downloading it does not give you a very clear image so what I do is enlarge the bit I want then do a screen dump. It gives a better image than downloading. If there was something really special I wanted to save I'd pay for a better copy.

The one caveat you should be aware of is that when you purchase an unlimited membership, it's not really unlimited. As the website points out in their Terms, unlimited membership is subject to their  Fair Usage Policy.  This policy spells out that you are permitted to view an average of 1000 pages per month (calculated over a 3 month period). If you get close to the limit, the company will send you an email to warn you.

Personally I don't like paying for something that is called Unlimited when it isn't unlimited. No matter how nicely the site explains it, I felt tricked that they didn't just call it the "1000 pages per month membership" or "Sort of kind of unlimited membership" or something totally upfront and transparent.  

Yes I did purchase an Unlimited Membership but the smaller credit options wouldn't have been enough for me given the sheer number of English ancestors I want to hunt for. And I don't like subscription websites where I have to buy x number of credits and woe is me if they expire before I use them all. Because I'm very apt to forget or get busy and lose credits. 

So the bottom line is that I'm very happy with the site and with my "unlimited" membership (even though it isn't unlimited) and I've never been warned that I'm at my 1000 monthly views limit.  But I still wish they'd come up with a more honest name for it. Or remove the limit.

The Frustration Over Online Family Trees Gone Bad

This morning on my personal Facebook page I posted a rant for my status update. I ranted about online family trees that were rife with huge errors. Errors that included linking a census record for a man aged 29 to a man of the same name who was over 70. And yes, the owner of the tree had his birth year correct in the tree.

A second error involved a marriage to his wife, correctly identified in this online tree. Children born to the couple were also correctly identified with birth years beginning in 1801. But the tree owner linked to a marriage in 1832 stating this was for the man and his wife. Not only is that impossible given the birth years of their children but a quick click on the link showed the marriage to be in a different state and for a man with the same name but marrying an entirely different wife!

And so  I vented, expressing my dismay at the public posting of a tree so obviously incorrect. And the fact that at least six other researchers had copied the mistakes and posted them to their own public trees.

My rant, to my surprise, generated a heated discussion! It's been very interesting and some excellent ideas and suggestions were given for combating these types of errors without becoming the genealogy police.

It's tricky to critique another person's tree. Most of us don't take kindly to being told we're wrong. And it doesn't seem to matter how gently or kindly you express it, the bottom line is - you're telling someone they goofed.

Most of us agreed that the best method is to instruct through online tutorials, webinars, video how tos, to be come a mentor and to lead by example.  I often write  articles that I hope will guide those new to genealogy and help them become better genealogists.  You can find some of these on Olive Tree Genealogy blog under the topic heading TUTORIALS in the right side nav bar.  And there's an abundance of material out there to allow all of us, from the beginner to the experienced, to learn something new.

What's your opinion? 

Credit: Image from Fotolia