Well, its been a while, I had decided to take a few months off of my genealogy research, I was driving myself crazy, not to mention in circles. But I am back at it now, I've dug out all the papers, the forms, and all of the other required equipment, my table and desk look like a cyclone hit them. For some reason I always end up back at the family tree work around the holidays, maybe because it's a time to spend with the family, who know, it's just my internal clock. So, I told my self that I would finish entering info from the spring into my laptop before I would allow myself to look up any new info, well didn't last too long because I found myself surfing the Rootsweb Message Boards today, which is what prompted this post.
I was looking through all of the recent posts for my numerous families and I came across a post that just irritated me. I will not mention which message board it was on (it is one of the surnames mentioned by me in my first post), anyway there was a researcher we will call "Person 1" who had posted a post listing who she was looking for and asking for help.
The next post was a response from "Person 2" attempting to assist by offering to look info up in a book they have for Person 1. And this was Person 1's response to Person 2's attemp to assist them:
"Hi,I have the book you mentioned, along with a few more. I have collected, and in many cases documented, about 6300 names of descendants of John and Mary, son of Jacob and Maria Magdalena. I also have another 5500 names of descendants of John's brother, Michael, and nearly a thousand descendants of the younger brother, Jacob. The H... book is somewhat helpful, but has many errors in it, so don't take it too seriously. I've been working on the family lines for about 12 years, and have found a lot of information that is available to anyone who is interested enough to look for it. I have also found a lot of cousins I never knew I had, and have enjoyed meeting some of them."
I was offended when I read this, I mean here is someone who asked for help then when someone offers to help them by looking up information in a family book, the person who needs the help answers back talking about all of the info she already has and doesn't even thank the person who offers to help her. If she knows so much about this family then maybe she shouldn't be posting questions on the message boards since she knows everything already about that family, and then after someone has taken them time to respond to you question you don't tell them thank you.
It is researchers like this that give us all a bad reputation, please remember that when you ask for help be respectful of the person who offers to help you because they don't have to help and if they offer you info from a source that you've already search in, just say thank you, an autobiography of your genealogy expertise is not required.
The person 1 in this story is actually writing a book on this family, I am tempted to post which family name it is on so everyone will know before they purchase her book, I will have to keep thinking on that one, I know I won't be purchasing it even if she is an expert.
Well, that I my rant for the month, I promise only happy thoughts.
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