Free Family Tree Sites Some Rules of Use

I mentioned in previous post that I have had good results using Google to find leads on difficult to locate or follow ancestors. It's seems like a shot in the dark kind of strategy that requires patience but occasionally you will be led to a family tree that mentions your ancestor. If you are really lucky you may actually be led to a site that is specifically about one of your surnames and links you to one or more generations. Hallelujah!! These sites are free to visit and often represent years of research. There are some unwritten rules of etiquette to using this research of which you should be aware.

Even though offered freely on-line the information on family sites should be respected in that same way of any published material. Often the researcher has placed a copyright notice on the site and this means that the material must be treated in the same way as any copyrighted material. Nothing can stop you from taking notes off these sites for your own personal information and including it in your family files.

However, if you are going to include research off of one of these sites in your family files you should always document the source. You may need to double check it later or want to confer with the researcher. If you are at any time going to publish your own tree and research on-line or in a book you should credit the researcher whose site was the source of your information.

If you are going to use a description, impression, opinion or speculative statement of the researcher in your own family tree or book of family history, you should first ask permission to quote them. Usually you can find a contact email on the site in order to make contact. If you are unable to get a response and permission to quote the individual researcher, you can still use the statement, but you must credit the individual.
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