It's all about sharing...

Genealogy, in my opinion, is all about sharing. It's about sharing tips. It's about sharing information. You probably do it not just for yourself but to keep the family tree going to share with future generations of your family. Most of my information I've gotten through my own legwork and from vital records and other documents and photos, but many times, I've been able to find that information or a missing link on a particular branch because someone shared that information with me and helped me. I will never understand these people who have private family trees on Ancestry.com. I get that you are the person who put in the hard work and the long hours to put that tree together and you may resent some stranger you don't know (who is probably actually a distant relative, if they're looking at your tree) coming in and taking that information, all la di da, but I honestly believe we can't do this if we don't help each other. Plus, you're going to pass that tree down to your children, right? They're going to have that information without doing all the hard work and putting in the long hours - you're not going to make them start from scratch when you already have the information they'll need.

Anyway, was just thinking about this because of an interesting comment I got on my Ancestry.com family tree (it's called the Gorry-Raynor family tree). Two of my recently discovered ancestors are my 5th great-grandparents on my dad's side, Martin Nehr and Anna Maria Mitsch. Though I was ecstatic to have found out that new information, it had, again, left me at a dead end, just a generation further back. So, on Aug. 3, someone left a comment on Martin Nehr's profile on my tree. I'd never gotten a comment before, so that was kind of exciting. Of course, the comment is also in German, but I'm not sure genealogy would be half as fun if it wasn't so much of a challenge so much of the time. But basically it looks to have birth and death dates and places for Martin and Anna Maria, as well as the parents of Martin, which would take me back yet another generation. But I wonder - who is the guy who posted the info? His profile is extremely uninformative. Where is his information from? How reliable is it? Is he an as yet undiscovered cousin of sorts who also has Martin and Anna Maria on his family tree? So this is the current genealogical mystery I am attempting to solve...