Topics:
1) Sharing research
2) Reviewing research travel options
1) Sharing Research
Thomas MacEntee provides a list of Do's and Don'ts of collaborating and sharing. He advises people to treat others as one wants to be treated. If you expect others to give you credit for your research, you must be prepared to do the same for the research you receive from others. As well as walking the fine line between oversharing, risking being taken advantage of but not falling into the "tit for tat" game.
In my sources, I cite where and who I obtained the information from. In the case of images and photos, I try to routinely note where I obtained the image. It may not be up to GPS standards, but I try to acknowledge the source of the item.
I do have a public tree on Ancestry, but it is certainly not my prime tree. Although it does serve as "cousin bait", my prime reason to maitain the tree is to have Ancestry provide the hints for me to save me time from doing manual searches. As a result, almost all of the information (at least the sourced information) is from Ancestry.
I have only been contacted by people a few times wanting additional information and/or share information. Unfortunately, the person(s) they were interested in was either an in-law in my tree, or individuals that need pruning from my tree as they are family members of an in-law and have no other connection to my lines. They appear on the Ancestry tree because I haven't always taken time to evaluate a hint to determine relationship to me. So I have allowed Ancestry to flesh out individuals that I would not normally spend time researching beyond making note if they were in the same household at the time of a census of someone who eventually married into my family.
On the rare times that the person who has contacted me is reseaching someone who does belong in my tree, I have shared what additional information I may have. Unfortunately, I usually don't have too much more in my database. I share the information without expectation of payback. And as most of that information is from Ancestry or FamilySearch databases, I haven't been concerned whether I get proper credit for the information or not.
2) Reviewing Research Travel Options
Although there are various repositories I would love to visit, at some point, I currently do not have the time or financial means to do so. I do not feel that I'm at the point in my research that I need to do such trips. I will surf the internet from the comfort of my home searching for official documents on Ancestry, FamilySearch, as well as online newspaper, funeral home and cemetery sites.
Several years ago, I did have the opportunity of spending a day at the Historical Society of Herkimer County. I spent the day scanning documents in one of two vertical files on the Schell family. I had started out trying to enter information into my database as I handled each document, but I quickly realized it was too time consuming and I started scanning the documents.
Have a ever evaluated and entered the relevant information into my database once I was back home? I had to admit that I only did some. I guess as part of this Do-Over, I will need to locate the data and record the information. It has been a low priority as the information would pertain to the Schell lines prior to emigrating to Ontario, or the lines that stayed in the Herkimer area. I have been focusing on the Ontario lines and haven't tried to revisit the more distant lines.
Over the years, I have made stops at cemeteries pertinent to my ancestors and have taken photos of the headstones. I have not shared them to any of the websites for headstones as I leery that the quality of my photos are good enough. In some cases, others have already provided photos of those headstones anyway.
Summary
I have no objection to sharing my research. I have benefitted over the years from others and am always willing to assist others.
At this point in time, I have no plans on doing research trips as I'm still finding more than enough relevant information via the internet. With my subscription to Ancestry, I have access to vital records from Ontario - which covers a good portion of my ancestors. And I have access to online newspapers covering many of the areas where my ancestors lived. I try to maintain Research Logs to have lists of obituaries, etc to search at the Barrie Public Library for dates not yet avaiable digitally. OurOntario continues to digitize more and more of the Barrie Examiner, so it remains to be seen whether I'll have a need to search the microfilm at the library or if the pertinent issues will be digitized.
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