[or-roots] I need the help of all of you

Tue Apr 7 13:07:08 PDT 2009

Hi all -

I also wrote to Find-A-Grave & told them how I/we felt about Stephenie's 
hard work being copied & pasted to the unknown? person's information --

Find A-Grave is a wonderful site though as my daughter found my father's 
real family on there by clicking on this little flower & there was a poem 
written to my dad from my real cousin who lived in Washington state.. I knew 
nothing at all before because my dad was adopted out at the age of 7 & all I 
knew was his last name of Bromstead. Now I have lots of pictures, family 
history & much more. His family goes back to the 'Mayflower' which I never 
knew of course & a few famous people.

I also had this happen to me on my McCubbins & more. I did not have as much 
hard work into mine that Stephenie has done even though I thought it was a 
lot for me & took a long time to put together. I did expose her name on 
'or-roots' to all & told my story of how she stole my work, copied/pasted to 
her  family history & even had the gall to use my name & my email address 
for others to contact with me out asking me first. That is totally wrong!!! 
I am still bitter to this day about it & what has happened to Stephenie 
brings it all back to me. I am so upset to who ever did this to our 
Stephenie & would love to know there name.

Nancy Lee Adams
St. Helens, OR

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <wm0g at comcast.net>
To: "or-roots mail list" <or-roots at listsmart.osl.state.or.us>
Sent: Tuesday, April 07, 2009 12:04 PM
Subject: Re: [or-roots] I need the help of all of you

> Hello listers,
>
> Having also been the recipient of the same sort of plagarism from my 
> genealogy info, I certainly understand how you feel. I think the best 
> thing you can do at this time is to give your plagarist his/her "fifteen 
> minutes of shame" and let this list know who it is by name, so we may be 
> able to discount their work. That is the only way we will be able to fight 
> this sort of thing from happening to others.
>
> Just my .019999 cents worth.
>
> Jack Ciaccia
> Boulder, CO
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: cklooster at aol.com
> To: or-roots at listsmart.osl.state.or.us
> Sent: Tuesday, April 7, 2009 1:37:14 AM GMT -07:00 US/Canada Mountain
> Subject: Re: [or-roots] I need the help of all of you
>
>
> Stephenie, I'm appalled that this has happened to you after all the years 
> that you have dedicated to researching and preserving Oregon history. 
> Yours was the earliest and most comprehensive website that I found listing 
> the families traveling together in various wagon trains. I have used your 
> website many times to clarify points in my own family research and I've 
> been contacted a number of times by others researching my same family 
> lines who found my name and e-mail address on your site so I know others 
> have used it as well. I wish I could say that I'm surprised by the 
> plagarism, but I know that it is a common occurence. I've pulled up family 
> trees on Ancestry.com and similar websites and recognized my own research 
> copied and posted. I gladly share research with others who need it...it's 
> just that I find that I mind not being asked before it is contributed to a 
> commercial website. I've had to develop a philosophy about the whole 
> thing; reminding myself that I'm researching for the sake of the history 
> itself and when the research is posted to any website it becomes 
> accessible to those who might otherwise never have access to it.
>
> I believe some of the cavalier attitude arises from the tendency of many 
> family historians in this era to just cut and paste the work of others and 
> never acually do the research. It's the time of instant gratification a'la 
> Google. No need to slog through the poison oak in old cemeteries. No need 
> to follow a visibly annoyed c ounty clerk down into a musty basement 
> looking for old files. Just slip into one of the ancestry websites and 
> download whole huge branches of the family tree. I find myself wondering 
> if the person who appropriated your research even has a clue about the 
> impropriety of her actions.
>
> Just last week I boxed up my collecion of publications by the Portland 
> Genelogical Forum...I have almost all of them...Washington County 
> Marriages; 1870 censuses; etc. I don't use them anymore and so I'm looking 
> for a library or genealogical society that might want them. As I was doing 
> this, I could not help but think of the hours of transcribing and 
> researching that went into each publication and what a God-send these 
> books were to me thirty years ago. With the searchable data base of census 
> records on Ancestry.com, I simply don't use these books any more. Now it 
> is all so much easier to access online.
>
> I have followed your suggestion and written to Find-A-Grave. It will be 
> interesting to see how they respond. In the meantime I would like to thank 
> you for your assistance over the ears and for all the work you have done 
> to advance the understanding of Oregon hisory. I also appreciate you 
> taking this stand to stop the willy-nilly online publishing of research 
> without establishing an existing copyright or obtaining permission of the 
> author or original researcher. In the long run this will help assure 
> accuracy and will encourage people to keep compiling.
>
> Carla
>
> < br>
>
> -----Original Message----- 
> From: Stephenie Flora <slflora47 at msn.com>
> To: 'or-roots mail list' <or-roots at listsmart.osl.state.or.us>
> Sent: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 6:21 pm
> Subject: [or-roots] I need the help of all of you
>
>
>
>
> I need your help! Some of you know me through my Oregon Pioneer website, 
> some of you I have helped in the past, some of you I have never met. 
> Besides being webmaster for my Oregon Pioneer website, I also am webmaster 
> for several cemetery sites, including Lee Mission Cemetery. In 1996 
> Sherrill Hochspeir, Jean Custer and myself researched and compiled a book 
> on Lee Mission Cemetery that was published by the Willamette Valley 
> Genealogical Society. A few years ago I joined the board of Lee Mission 
> Cemetery and put the website online so that it could be updated and kept 
> updated.
>
> Recently it came to my attention that a local individual went onto my 
> website, cut and pasted all of the information including obituaries, 
> notes, etc to her computer, added photos that she had taken herself and 
> donated it to Find-A-Grave as her own work. She also abstracted the 
> obituary information and donated it to the Oregon Gen Web. It took 
> Sherrill, Jean and I over five years of research, typing and compiling of 
> information to complete the publication. I was later to find out that this 
> was her pattern as she had already done the same thing with Salem Pioneer 
> Cemetery. Tracy Saucy, Ferne Hellie and Addie Dyal Rickey with the help of 
> others have been working on that site for years.
>
> Many of you know Tracy Saucy and the wonderful work she does. She does all 
> her own research, walks the cemeteries, photographs them and seeks out 
> additional information. But the bottom line is, who is going to want to 
> put years of work and research into a site that someone can come along and 
> cut and paste, donate and claim as their own work. The fact that there are 
> so many cemeteries to be done and the fact that she only chooses those 
> that are easily accessible online speaks volumes.
>
> I have contacted all of the individuals in question and quite frankly none 
> of them appear to be willing to correct this injustice. I am now asking 
> each and every one of you who work on cemeteries or are concerned about 
> this type of blatant disregard for the work of others to contact 
> Find-A-Grave, put “Copyright” in the subject line and send an email 
> voicing your concerns to all of the administrators listed below. Please 
> mention the cemeteries in question and request that action be taken. I 
> would ask that you include in your letter a request tha t they make 
> available a special email address or link where copyright issues can be 
> reported and investigated. If you have others in your address books that 
> might be concerned by this issue, please contact them. I doubt that this 
> is a problem to only our area.
>
> jim at findagrave.com ; russ at findagrave.com ; AJ at findagrave.com ; 
> katrina at kindagrave.com ; info at findagrave.com ; robert at findagrave.com ; 
> deb at findagrave.com; info at findagravecom
>
> Thank you so much for your time,
>
> Stephenie Flora
> www.oregonpioneers.com/ortrail.htm
> www.oregonpioneers.com/marion/LeeCem.htm
>
>
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