Hi Laurie,

I completely agree with you, when putting trees on internet (geni, myheritage etc …) there are plenty of people who think they are smart in adding anything in order to get a huge, but mostly fabricated, tree.  I have my family tree privately build and once a cousin asked me to forward him my gedcom file; I send it to him with the explicit demand not to put it on internet.  This ‘idiot’ did it without my permission (I had to respect privacy matters with some family members) and at the long run my tree became a mess with shulent, kigel and kishke mixed.  I was really furious on that cousin and decided that I never again will give a gedcom format to any one, only a PDF descendant format tree to family members.  It does not mean that geni and myheritage have not positive effects in researching.  I do researching through this channels, but try to be very careful with the information on it.  Most of the information is more or less correct, but with experience you might find mistakes and completely invented pieces, like a son who is born 30 years after the death of his mother, as well as putting wrong information through different trees and mixing them together.

It is important to keep track of correct records; for example I found yesterday somebody who stated that her grandfather was born in London, what was absolutely impossible; but she did not know and supposed that what she decided was correct … and this information will on the long run be kept as correct.

My conclusion is : you can research all kind of records anywhere, but keep it in mind that any record where ever you find it can be right or wrong, not only geni/myheritage, but also civil records anywhere.  Use common sense and then you will be able to detect most mistakes.

Marcel Apsel

Antwerpen, Belgium