The Genealogy & Family History Social Network
Collectors versus REAL amateur Genealogists
I've just been emailed by a guy I hate, his name is Howard Ulph Smith, and he's a Collector, he takes peoples family trees and dumps them on HIS website and claims them as his own, so that if you do a name search his site comes up. Doesn't matter to him that the information hasn't been checked or is wrong or the fact that people are being shown on the internet who absolutely don't want their names on there. What matters to him is that he has them. He's scum, he takes work from people all over the world and publishes it under his name. I've contacted him and asked him to delete my file but he wont, and what can I do?
He's a gatherer, there are a LOT of them out there, people who just keep adding and adding to family trees until they have tens of thousands of names, and who can claim directly very few. People who think the more the merrier, even if it's your 2nd cousins husbands mothers family. This is not working a family tree, this is collecting. I have only 6800 people on my family tree, most are a REAL connection, most names I know and can say "oh yeah he/she was born in " I've researched about 70% of the lines, of course I do more on some that others, but I have sources for all my worked logged on my tree, they're not guess work, they're proven. On quite a few connections I've found double connections, where you go back and this family married into that family and on the otherside married back into it again. Researching the family is FUN, yes it can be frustrating, but it's FUN. Gathering and dumping someones hard work and then preening over it is not good, it's not ethical, and it shouldn't be allowed. Howard Ulph Smith should be made to take his I was going to say "work" but I'll say collectors site off the internet, because people are taking what's on there as gospel, and it will cause heartache in the long run with months of work having to be re done to fix problems created by his lack of care.
He's a gatherer, there are a LOT of them out there, people who just keep adding and adding to family trees until they have tens of thousands of names, and who can claim directly very few. People who think the more the merrier, even if it's your 2nd cousins husbands mothers family. This is not working a family tree, this is collecting. I have only 6800 people on my family tree, most are a REAL connection, most names I know and can say "oh yeah he/she was born in " I've researched about 70% of the lines, of course I do more on some that others, but I have sources for all my worked logged on my tree, they're not guess work, they're proven. On quite a few connections I've found double connections, where you go back and this family married into that family and on the otherside married back into it again. Researching the family is FUN, yes it can be frustrating, but it's FUN. Gathering and dumping someones hard work and then preening over it is not good, it's not ethical, and it shouldn't be allowed. Howard Ulph Smith should be made to take his I was going to say "work" but I'll say collectors site off the internet, because people are taking what's on there as gospel, and it will cause heartache in the long run with months of work having to be re done to fix problems created by his lack of care.
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Comment
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Comment by Sarah Coles on September 7, 2009 at 6:36pm
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I'm absolutely appalled at what I read here. Doesn't the information he gathers infringe on copywrite rules? It takes all kinds. It's another reason to keep your online tree private. That all boggles my mind but then again there's always someone one thinking up ways to make a buck.
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Comment by Carolyn Ramsbottom on September 6, 2009 at 8:12am
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My problem with his site is that he doesn't show links or verifications for his claimed 80,000 +names. People like him give our wonderful hobby a bad name and make people like me wary of publishing on the web. Victoria I would not consider you a collector, to me that describes someone who just adds as many names as possible to their "tree" without any attempt to verify the information. Like you I find going down the side branches of my tree often more interesting than the main branches.
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Comment by Victoria Turner on September 6, 2009 at 5:52am
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The other thing that I meant to add to my comment is that if people are stupid enough to accept what other people tell them, or copy other people's information without checking it out first, then they are as much to blame for future confusion and wrong information being taken as fact, as the people who published it in the first place.
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I must be considered a "collector" then, an insult I find unacceptable. I totally agree that this bloke's site seems more about commercial advertising than it is about family.
However, I have just over 70,000 names on my tree. Most have been verified with documents and ALL are proven connected in some way with my family. I am a social historian as much as I am a family researcher, and that side of things is fascinating. The people of whole villages in some instances can be shown to be related in one way or another in the 18th/19th centuries.
To quote "your 2nd cousins husbands mothers family" as not being part of family research is bunkum. Of course they are relevant, if you are really interested in how your family spread, its class and financial ups and downs, etc. etc. It all depends on what approach you want to take. Some people, for example, only research the male lines and get very upset when they find an illegitamacy that stops that line.
Others prefer to research only their personal straight lines. I find both those pretty boring.
I have been researching nigh on 40 years in one field or another, 30 years on family research, and prefer to use a blanket approach, although unlike a simple Collector, I do prove my links before adding to my tree.
In the past ten years since becoming computerised I have helped hundreds of people add something proven to their trees, and am always happy to give my sources. Electronically meeting such people is part of the fun although, yes, those who take without giving anything in return are to be abominated. Fortunately, they are in the minority, and you should learn to spot them pretty quickly.
Publishing anything on the net is fraught with risk and people like this Mr Smith are one of the risks. If you have given information directly to him without first finding out what he was going to do with it, then there is nothing much you can do about it. If it has been taken from a published on-line tree belonging to you, then you hold the copyright, and it is up to you to try to prove plagarism. Cost you a fortune and usually not worth the effort.
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I had a look at this guy's site and apart from the fact he claims 80,000 +names !!!, he has links to sites that will charge you a fortune to obtain English or Welsh bmd certificates - be warned anyone can order these direct from the GRO online or by post from any where in the world - and they cost £7 sterling including postage (see www.direct.gov.uk go to government, citizens and rights and follow the links.
Carolyn
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