* Free gedcoms

[stewartrb]

Am I being cynical when I see links to 'free gedcom checker' or 'free gedcom parser' and feel that these are nothing more than offering you a free report/view/check in exchange for your uploading your hard work to their servers?  In other words: giving away your gedcom file free of charge, that these 'free' service providers can then turn around and sell to ancestry.com and others of that ilk?

I *was* an ancestry.com member, paid good money, provided them my gedcom, and when I stopped paying for the service I realized they kept all my data, offering it as part of their data, to sell to others, and to resell back to me, if I wanted access to it again.  (I've got the original, and updated data.  But still.  I can't cancel my subscription and take my data home with me.)

Once uploaded it's somebody else's to do with as they please, no?

I.e. the recent link here to 'Adam: The GEDCOM Family Tree Builder'.  It might be a nice service to have.  But aren't they getting all my hard work, my gedcom, in exchange?

ID:6744

[Jane]

Obviously it's up to everyone to read the Privacy policy for all sites they are uploading data to.

The Adam PP can be seen here: http://timforsythe.com/blog/privacy/

Personally I never upload my full gedcom anywhere, but I do use a very stripped down version on Ancestry and a fuller version on my own site. As with anything else on the net (or in life) it's a matter of trust, do you trust the person/site you are uploading your file to and in the case of Adam as a publishing tool don't load anything you don't want the world to see.

[tjforsythe]

If I may clarify, Adam builds a website, and zips it up so you can download it to do with as you will. It does not publish the tree online. I state in my privacy policy that no data is extracted from GEDCOM files nor are they shared with anyone. Like Jane says it comes down to trust. I, like Jane do not upload my GEDCOM file to online services, but then again, there are no online services offering me anything I haven't already written myself. On the other hand I do share the entire contents of my GEDCOM file online in the form of a tree, built by Adam so that others may have access to the data. The reason I do not share my GEDCOM file with others directly is not because I'm a data hog, but because it changes constantly. In the past I have given out BAD data without having the opportunity to correct that data. Publishing my tree online, affords me that ability.

I offer several other online services besides Adam as well. They are all meant to be helpful to genealogists and encourage the use of sources to document their genealogy. They are not meant to entice unsuspecting newbies to belly up their data so it can be sold for profit.

I can assure anyone interested in using my free services that they are exactly what they state and nothing more and certainly not nefarious.

[stewartrb]

I paint with too broad a stroke sometimes.  Thanks for giving me something to think about.

[tjforsythe]

No problem. I just thought since you'd mentioned Adam specifically I had better chime in. Cheers.