Friday, February 8, 2013

The Addiction of the Shaking Leaf

Let me start out by saying how thankful I am for the internet and online genealogy sites like Ancestry.com. They have given us access to more information easier than ever before, given us an easy way to link up with new relatives, and all in a short amount of time.... no more waiting for the mail.
The other information online genealogy has given us is a plethora of family trees.... some sourced and some not. Some carefully researched and some not. What these sites do not do in their "Getting Started" videos is discuss how to evaluate the data being presented.
It is easy to accept what someone else has added to their family tree as truth. I have found several family trees online that have copied information from my tree that is in the public realm which I know has no public sourcing. How do I know it is my information because of the pictures I have added to the tree. That's not to say my tree is not supported by proper documentation but just that I have not posted it into the online version. So people have accepted this tree and others have accepted the information from other people and so on. It is the addiction of the shaking leaf.
My husband also a genealogist has encountered a similar problem tracing his family line. Several people have the same person as the progenitor of one of his lines. But no one has the proof to support the progenitor as they found the information in a tree online.
I like many people are addicted to the shaking leaf but I remember my tree is only as strong as my documentation.

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