More on the frustations of Family History research
Rockborne38
The other thing we have found amazing about the years we have spent researching the history of the families on both of our sides, is the secretive attitude of some family members, they just will not give us info when we ask questions, even about their own branch of the family, and especially about their close family in current generations
we have no trees on any site which is open for view by others, we just keep our family history files on our own computer, back the files up regularly onto an external hard drive, and happy to share all the info we have with any other family member, provided they will give us info about their own branch to fill in holes in our trees
Last year (2012) we wrote a book, all about the family of John James Shufflebottom who came to Australian in 1829 at a convict, we wrote the book in conjunction with a cousin in the family who is also a serious researcher, and it covers the generations as far down as his great grandchildren, and not further, as that would involve details of so many living family members. Because of the cost of printing being so expensive, we only put it on a disk, and then told all the family members with whom we were in contact that it was finished, and would cost them the price of registered postage to send them a copy, so they got more than 50 years of research for a very small cost.
We sent out 156 copies of the disk and refused to send a disk to only two family members, and we would not send them a copy because they would not even tell us the names and details of their own children and grandchildren, told us it was a privacy issue, and that the Privacy Act prevented them from telling us. That is just so much rubbish, the Privacy Act does not cover family members giving family information to other family members. The Privacy Act does cover the release of information to professional researchers who are being paid to do the research, but NOT family members sharing information
Have others had this same thing happen to them, it is the cause of so much frustration to us.
by Rockborne38
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My husband and I are interested in tracing the roots of our family and have been doing so since 1956, so we now have about 25+Gb of info on our computer about the families of both of us, and we are interested in making contact with any member of any of the families we are researching to share information, looking also for photos and certificates for any family member to add to our huge files on those families. After all these years they are still a "work in progress" and we would like more please