On 10/7/03 3:36 PM, "Dusty Smith" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> It isn't in their best interest to have phony information that folks can
> disprove (and we all know that we can disprove it with our years of
> accumulated documents).   They really should be posting a disclaimer (as
> do the LDS folks) that research is voluntarily contributed and should be
> researched before taken as gospel.

We're straying far from discussions of Virginia genealogy here, but
Ancestry.com does post a disclaimer:

"The Ancestry World Tree contains more than 250 million names in family
trees submitted by our users...

"Ancestry World Tree GEDCOM files are voluntarily submitted by Ancestry
users like yourself. We take all files "as is" and cannot guarantee the
completeness, accuracy, or timeliness of the information contained in this
database. We regret we cannot assist  you in your personal research or
prevent duplication of data. Our goal is to provide these user-contributed
files to aid you in finding and/or correcting your family information."

Moreover, Ancestry.com includes in its Submission Agreement
(http://www.ancestry.com/trees/awt/subagreement.htm) with people who upload
data:

"You agree not to submit information that infringes on the copyrights
of others, invades the privacy of others, or is defamatory or profane
in any way. Ancestry reserves the right to remove any information,
which, at its sole discretion, violates these terms."

So there is some assumed trust built in here.

At its worst, the arrangement simply helps Ancestry.com make more money --
the more records they have, the better for them. At its best, this is an
opportunity for people to post their data to the Web.

And let's be reasonable on one point: if people have submitted more than 250
million names in GEDCOM files, there's really no reasonable way we could
expect Ancestry.com to constantly monitor the data in those files (whether
they should or not). I've seen data from my own research turn up there, too,
but I haven't attempted to seek its removal: and the joke's on whoever
uploaded it, because it contains errors I've now corrected.

Ancestry.com's publication of U.S. Census records is invaluable to me, even
though I live just outside Washington, D.C.

Regards,
Tom Moore
http://homepage.mac.com/thomas_moore/genealogy/

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