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Archiver > SOUTH-AFRICA > 1998-12 > 0912760158


From: Lesley Robertson <>
Subject: Re: PLACING INFORMATION ON THE WEB
Date: Fri, 04 Dec 1998 08:29:18 +0000


Morning all!,

> In similar vein, I've read of several horror stories where genealogists have
> sent a new contact large amounts of information only to find it later being
> passed off as the contacts' own research (without acknowledgement). Galling
> in the extreme BUT:
> (i) more contacts by far will respect and acknowledge the help, so let's not
> clam up because a minority have no integrity or honesty (aka thieves);
> (ii) by refusing to share our data, we lose the help and information we
> might gain from others, so we will lose out as well;

And I agree with the rest, but my mailer doesn't like such long
"old" bit in messages! It has happened to me twice that I know of.
Someone has placed a massive file including a lot of my S.African
data on one of the gedgom deposits, under their own name. I know it's
mine because it dates from just before Lorna played Tree Surgeon, and
helped me correct a big error, which is in this gedcom. The other is
a Web Page on one of my scottish lines, where I'd been playing
central clearing house for data, all of which someone has put on his
web page without reference to the rest of us. As a result of all
this, I have modified my activity a little - I now share data, but
not on living people - I've never put data about living people on the
net myself, but used to innocently mention them in what I thought was
private exchanges. I think that if someone has given me data on
themselves in good faith, it's up to me to respect their privacy.
Lesley Robertson
(in a Delft hit by sleet!)

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