I have noted with interest how what you, as a genealogist, were generous to
share with some distant cousin, only to later find that your generosity has
been violated and some other person is now claiming authorship. I found a family
Bible record mentioned  within a web site once and ONLY I have possession of
such Bible and have had for 50 years.  The man posted on his web claiming kin
and there was absolutely no kinship what so ever. That hurts others looking for
that particular family and misleads them down the wrong path. Some people
have no morals whatsoever.

In the Dec 2004 issue of Family Tree Magazine there is an article called
"Hard Copy" and goes into this issue and copyright being legal or illegal and what
justifies such. It goes into rights and possessions, even to photos of people
dead over 100 years and that photographers should be contacted to see if they
give permission. I can tell you that of all the old photos I have, and some
were made well before the Civil War, those photographers are long dead as well.
But I do not share photos with any except those really closely kin.

There are lots of unscrupulous people out there and Ancestry took records
from when we all contributed to each other thru lists and they now charge for
what you and I worked hard to look up. I spent hundreds of hours, in days before
census indexes, going thru every microfilm of every state I was looking for,
as those who have transposed those originals into indexes don't always, and
even rarely , get  the name right as they can't read the spelling or the writing
and don't know children's names, dates, or parents names. Therefore they can't
put 2 and 2 together. BEWARE is all I can say.
Sarah B

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