Photos on my tree used incorrectly by others

[mikki]

On Ancestree I see that some others have copied the photos I uploaded of my Grandparents to use in their own trees, which is great, it's good to find others with the same branches. But one person has them completely wrong - showing them with children they did not have and my Grandad with incorrect parents.

I sent a friendly email to the tree owner, explaining their mistake but haven't heard back. Should I just forget about it, or is there anything else I could do?

Thanks for any advice/opinions.

 

[emeltee]

Personally I would never put my tree online for just that reason - I don't want others taking advantage of my hard work. As this copying has happened and as you have contacted the person to no avail, I don't think you can do much else, apart from take your tree off line so it can't happen again.

 

[Llewred]

You could put a comment on that persons bit of the tree pointing out the errors, for others to take note of.

 

[mikki]

emeltee - Yes I know what you mean. Up until now I've always been happy to share as it means I get to meet extended family members and benefit from their discoveries. It's only because of the photos that I feel a bit unhappy about this. I've seen incorrect information on others' trees before, and that's one thing, but seeing my dear Grandparents' photos linked to children that they didn't have feels more upsetting.

Llewred - Thank you, that is a really good idea.

 

[Bottlabroon]

You could download your gedcom file from ancestry and then create another separate tree with it on ancestry using a different tree name. The new tree will contain all your ancestors without any of the media/photos attached, just the facts.

You could make the new tree without any media 'public' so people can still view your tree and make contact with you and then set your other tree with all your photos as 'private'.

Hope that makes sense

 

[mikki]

Bottlabroon - that is genius! Thank you so much!

 

[solidrock2]

This is why all my tree's on Ancestry are set as private.

 

[mikki]

solidrock2 - I have learned the hard way, for sure. I have made my tree Private now. It does state, in the Privacy Settings, that members can still see results in a search, but must contact me to request to view my tree, so that seems a fair compromise. I do like Bottlabroon's idea though and may work on doing that too.

On the other side of the coin, three years ago I was thrilled to find two photos of my Gt Gt Grandma, whom I'd never seen before, on another member's tree. I was 100% certain she was the correct person, every detail matched my own research, and I wrote a message on both photo's comment section thanking them for sharing the images.

It amazes me that my "offender" just grabbed my relatives and shoehorned them into a totally different tree in such a blasé fashion. They could surely see from my tree that my Grandad's parents were not the ones they went and attached him to. I can't understand how someone can have so little care about the accuracy of a tree they are building.