By Eilene Lyon
A disconcerting thing happened to me recently as I was perusing photo hints on Ancestry.com. Ancestry is a great place for people to share information about family. Old photos and excerpts from old books, as well as old documents, are all fair game. But things seem to be getting out of hand.
Someone found one of my blog posts about a mutual relative. Then using screen shots, he or she hacked my story into pieces that even a professional jigsaw puzzlist couldn’t make into something coherent, and posted the bits on Ancestry.
Granted, my writings are no Gone With the Wind or Shakesperean sonnet. But imagine someone took one of your paintings or poems and whacked it up, then posted the results on the internet (without any credit to you, of course, but maybe that’s for the best). Yes, I was a tad ticked off. Perhaps I over-reacted. I’m no saint, right?
I’m used to people taking photos from Find-a-grave and posting them on Ancestry – something that goes against policy on both platforms, by the way. I take gravestone photos all over the country and I’m happy to share them, no strings attached.
My writing, however, is different. I explained to this nameless person that they needed to take the images off Ancestry and suggested that if they wanted to share my blog post, that they could add a link to that person’s page in their family tree.
That’s the entire purpose of having the linking feature. It’s the proper way to attach information from outside sources to a person in your tree in a way that doesn’t violate any copyrights.
Then I got to wondering why I hadn’t thought to make links to my blog on my tree. It makes perfect sense. Anyone looking at pages on my Ancestry trees is likely related to those people and interested in the stories I’ve put together here on Myricopia.
Though I have a year’s worth of blog posts, it actually didn’t take me very long add the links on Ancestry. And from now on, I’ll be placing links on my blog to the subjects’ page in my public Ancestry tree. Sounds like a win-win for me and all my distant relations. What do you think?
Myricopia 
I think this is a brilliant solution to your problem. The more people who find your blog posts, even if they aren’t your relatives, the better it’ll be for everyone. Win-win, indeed.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks, Ally. I hope it is good. I doubt people will ever stop copying things and misusing them, though. I mentioned this to Dick Eastman who has a widely distributed genealogy newsletter and he basically told me to get over it – it’s not going to go away, but become more widespread. No way to enforce online copyright.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Using anyone’s material – text or image – without attribution or their permission is stealing; you are entitled to get cross!
LikeLiked by 3 people
Thanks! I didn’t want to start a war or anything, but it was a bit egregious.
LikeLike
Great idea. I didn’t know about that link. Thanks for sharing the info.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I hope anyone who blogs about family and uses Ancestry.com will do this. I look at other people’s trees all the time.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I appreciate your story and suggestions!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks! I hope it will be helpful to anyone using Ancestry.
LikeLike
Wonderful idea, Eilene! I am going to do the same. Even though I add the content as a story with the link listed at the end of the text, some people might prefer the quick link option.
As to the person who failed to give credit for your work, ugh! It drives me crazy how many people think that just because they find it via the internet that they don’t have to obtain permission or give credit where credit is due. 😦
LikeLiked by 3 people
Glad I could make a helpful suggestion. This problem of theft won’t be going away, I’m afraid.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That is the risk of posting on a blog. I suppose, really, anyone can take and use writing and photos. It is upsetting and in many ways feels like an invasion of privacy, like walking into your home and stealing from you. Hopefully the nameless person learned something from you and won’t be up to their tricks again!
LikeLiked by 2 people
He or she could have found a better way to do this. I do hope they’ll think twice before doing it this way again.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Before I comment Eilene it took me a while to find the same equivalent page on my Ancestry account which is different on the web page as opposed to viewing it in the app on my iPad! Anyway, I’m torn but not indifferent to your stance on this. Slightly different topic, but when Dr C and I ran our education charity and NGO in Nepal a few years back and published research papers, school programmes, online courses, we did so to make them available to anyone for learning or use. They were NOT to be reproduced as if they were your own …. It often happened though, that’s the culture in Nepal’s aid environment. We were outraged, enraged, almost aggressively so! Anyway, fast forward to today. We are now older, more passive, and blog for our own interest, we are not trying to achieve anything nor do we feel particular ownership of what we post. Recently for example we wrote a couple of articles about iron and steel occupations of our ancestors …. if you want to use them without credit ….. go ahead …. we couldn’t give a sh1t!
But Eilene, this tale is not a criticism …. if something is important to you then stick to your guns and give them hell. If it’s not so important, relax, keep calm, have another glass of Pinot and carry on. Age changes ones perspective.
However, please don’t take this as a criticism of your stance, I support and agree with you at this stage of “your life”. But when you reach our stage, you’ll probably just laugh at them and think … “they’ll never learn, experience, create anything for themselves, how sad, who cares.”. Be gentle … B.
LikeLiked by 3 people
I did chastise myself for my knee-jerk reaction. As I said, people take my gravestone photos all the time and that is fine. I just feel that there are appropriate and inappropriate ways of using someone else’s work. This one was clearly inappropriate.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes! And oh boy am I currently confused, blinded, brick walled in Wisconsin! I think migration should be banned 😂😂
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’ll have to explain how these people came to the US and ended up being your ancestors. Did their descendants go back to England?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Many families were split, some remaining in England, some migrating to Wisconsin with some getting off in Canada!
LikeLiked by 2 people
It is never okay to cut and paste without attribution – but links are the most sincere form of flattery. Links are also more honest too. It is a way of saying, this is interesting but I can’t vouch for it.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Yes! “Here, look at this and see what you think.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
I understand your frustration. A few years ago a poem I wrote was the monthly winner on poetry.com. For years afterwards, I would find it on people’s blogs with either no credit or even occasionally passing it off as their own work! Finally, I started commenting. Your solution to linking your own blog is brilliant! Congrats on being proactive. I think your decision will ultimately be a helpful one for Ancestry users seeking info.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks, Zoe. I do hope Ancestry users will follow this example.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I just followed by your example and linked in a few of my blog posts to my Ancestry tree. SUCH a good idea!! I wish more people did that, too! It would make finding those trees even MORE fun! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes!
LikeLike
I’m sure that was an infuriating experience for you, too.
LikeLiked by 1 person
To cut something up from a blog post and do what that person did is wrong, wrong, wrong! I’d have contacted the site… but that’s just me.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I gave them the chance to remove the images. If they’d refused, then contacting Ancestry would have been the next step.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I myself have had many photographs that I have posted on my blog used without permission on ancestry and other places. I could watermark them but in truth I really don’t mind. I do wish I would be given credit for my work. At times the stolen work was not mine but something I used with the owners permission. However I take the long view in that I do this so information about my family history will find other family members so maybe it is for the best.
I really like your suggestion about adding the web links to our tree in ancestry. This is something any blogger of family genealogy should do. I think this is a great way to spread the word about our family and share information that cannot be found in old records.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Much of that stuff is not copyrighted in any way. I don’t watermark old family photos. They are meant to be shared. I still like to ask permission to use something on my blog, not that it’s necessary. To me it just shows respect. Thanks for adding your thoughts.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Cool idea – I hadn’t thought of that! And what that person did with your work is reprehensible.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you.
LikeLike
That’s crazy!
LikeLiked by 2 people
As Archie McNally would say, “My flabber was gasted!”
LikeLiked by 1 person
😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good ideas! I wrote an IMBD biography many years ago for my father who was an actor. It has been reproduced numerous times with other people’s bylines. It is thoroughly annoying that people lift this information (often word for word) and then have the gall to say they wrote it. Here’s the link to the bio: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0729843/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
LikeLiked by 2 people
Interesting story! What did he do after his acting career?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Married my mother, raised a wonderful family and never looked back!
LikeLiked by 2 people
An early day Mr. Mom!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Eilene,
Yikes! People really do consider the internet to be a license to steal other people’s intellectual property. In this instance, your personal property as well!
That’s a great idea you have as far as linking to the site. Way to go in coming up with the silver lining to this episode. 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
It was a learning experience for me in a lot of ways.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I would have had the same reaction. But you did something constructive with it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Great idea to add blog links to Ancestry – thanks for sharing. It gave me a ‘why didn’t I think of that?’ moment! And sympathy for the blatent plagiarism of your work – I’d have been annoyed too.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I know, why it never occurred to me before!
LikeLike
Adding a link to your blog was brilliant! I hope the idea spreads – another tool to go get more evidence, when available! Thanks!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you. It’s true, since I don’t attach all my resources to Ancestry. If they read a blog post, they can learn much more.
LikeLike
Holy cow, that had to be shocking! Pretty sure I would have been fuming over it. Did the nameless person take it down?
Anyway, brilliant idea on your part. I hope it brings you many more readers, too. 👍
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes, the nameless person removed the images, but not without giving me a lot of grief about it. Anyway, hopefully we’ve both learned something from the experience.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I always add the link to my blog to the record on ancestry so others might find it and also so that I know I’ve written about them already lol
LikeLiked by 3 people
Oh good! I hope more people will do it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Such a great idea–off to add links to my public tree!
LikeLiked by 1 person