Question about posting your family tree

Have any of you posted your family tree online? I belong to ancestry.com and that is an option to do so. In fact, I've found information on several branches of my tree this way (all info to be confirmed of course). Any thoughts? Suggestions?

Yes, I've posted my family tree at RootsWeb. I post all my notes/sources so folks have a clue where the information came from. I don't show anyone born after 1915 for whom I don't have a death date.

I post for three reasons : to help other researchers, to get help from other researchers (they'll send me information to correct and add on to my tree), and to serve as a back up for my file.

The last two reasons are the most selfish :) but I do get help and it is a free back up!

I have limited downloads. I limit how much is shown at a time. I really don't want someone downloading the whole thing (or big portions) and pasting it into their tree.

I appreciate other folks who post their trees. I also really value those that post their notes- nothing worse than a tree with names and dates but no sources that can be verified.

>2 Stirkk: "I don't show anyone born after 1915 for whom I don't have a death date. " - I wish I was related to YOU!

I've found it quite difficult in recent years to preserve the basics of managing my identity in terms of anti-credit card fraud etc.
I have a plethora of unknown 5th or 6th cousins - who have no problem publishing my full name, date and place of birth, mothers maiden name etc etc on _their_ family tree projects.
googling my actual name just serves it all up on a plate for ANYONE and I have no way to stop it. sigh

I agree with both of you!! I have found some wonderful information online and am able to solve a chunk of missing branches on the tree. I have noticed, and appreciated, that those I have looked at write "living" and the last name. No other information is offered. I believe that is a great idea and I would do that if I decide to post my tree.

Thanks for your thoughts!!

I have posted a limited amount of information online, nothing after 1900. On one occasion a fourth cousin found me that way and we exchanged information, which was wonderful.
Several times I have found my information on other websites as if they had found it. In the case of errors I have written with correct information and the website owners have quickly made the corrections but I am still not given credit. I prefer to share with sites that footnote their sources so that you verify them yourself.

I have posted my lines for years. I used Rootsweb then when Ancestry took over I was corresponding with a distant cousin. She subscribed to Ancestry and even though I had set my specifications for my file to not show living people apparently unbeknownst to me if you subscribed this information was available. She sent me several nasty e-mails and finally contacted Ancestry sevral times to get the information taken off.
I have not heard from her since.
Does anyone know if Ancestry still does this?

Since then I have tried to clean all the living people out of my files before posting which is a real pain.

My site of choice for posting has been Gencirlcles.com. There I could post my whole line and be assured that no living people would be displayed. Now, they too have been taken over by another company and I am not sure that the same thing is not happening again. I do like the fact that about once a week they send me matches to names in my files. I have filled in a lot of gaps that way. If anyone knows what is going on at that site let me know.

Oh wow!! That's awful!! I have no idea if they still do this. I do subscribe to Ancestry, but do not post any tree items yet. I haven't decided if I will or not, but if I do I will definitely look into that information first!!

For right now, I'm just sharing with my cousin, father, uncle, and brother. They seem to be the only ones that care, so I'm just printing off the tree information and going from there.

I will check out Gencircles.com

I'm interested in all of your posts because I, too, am a member of ancestry.com. I started out posting directly to their site, but then downloaded the file and only now add information on the file I have on my home PC. I, too, am afraid that too much information about living people will be made public.

One exciting discovery I found on ancestry.com were some ships' manifests with the names of my parents and maternal grandparents when they immigrated to the United States. The ones of my grandparents were especially touching because they both returned and died in Nazi Europe. What an amazing resource we have today with our internet connections!

I belong to three that dont allow *living* peoples names on there, just the last name is there. They are tribalpages.com (free but there is a payable expanded package), Mytrees.com, but I cant remember if there is paying option or not.
Dang, cant remember the third one, I havent belonged to the third one very long.
I do have my name (full first and last name) on my ex husbands family website, with birthdate, but even if you do put my name into google, you will just find ALOT of ancestry posts and look ups looking for my family. It doesnt lead anywhere else. Oh and if you put my first and last name in, you will find my cousin, who has same name/spelling etc. She is an artist for differnent companies, and her artwork is on alot of cds and stuff.
So I really dont mind my name *being online* because my cousins name is the first ten options, lol.