G-0LM5LRNCVT

Public or Private

April 4, 2025

Genealogists often debate whether online family trees should be private or public. The choice is personal, and neither is better or worse than the other. However, there are pros and cons to each choice.

 

There are several good reasons to have a public tree. One of the benefits of online trees is the opportunity they present to connect distant family members. Whenever I’m beginning a new search on an individual, my first step is checking public family trees to see what’s already been done.

 

Over the years I’ve connected with many distant relatives who had more information on my family lines than I did. Sometimes I’ve found never-before-seen photos of ancestors and learned about heretofore unknown relatives. Distant cousins have also contacted me because they found my public family tree. I’ve sometimes been able to fill in blanks for them.

 

I have heard genealogists complain that public member trees get copied with no credit given to the original poster. They feel that their hard work to find the info on the tree has been “stolen.” It can be frustrating for your work to show up on another tree, but it’s important to remember that you can’t copyright a tree. Names and dates are not private, no matter how much time and money you’ve spent discovering them.

 

No one owns his or her ancestors. Deceased people have no right to privacy. Your fourth great grandparents most likely have many descendants that you’ve never heard of. Those descendants have as much right to the information you’ve found as you do.

 

I do think there is a place for private trees when it comes to living relatives. If you want to include a lot of living relatives such as grandchildren, nieces, and cousins on your tree, you might want to keep your tree private. However, as far as I know, no reputable genealogy site will ever publicly post living individuals, even if a tree is public. If you are concerned about private information being shared, it might be best to keep a tree on your own computer instead of online. Programs such as Roots Magic and Family Tree Maker are good choices to do this.

 

Another potential reason to keep a tree private is if you use it as a tool to explore potential family members and relationships. You might post information on such trees that is unverified. Anything that is posted publicly online is likely to be copied. A private tree can be a way to protect your theories from being posted as verified information.

 

You might also want to keep a tree private if there is information on it that may be sensitive for still-living people. This doesn’t mean that you can’t post about your fifth great grandfather who was a slave owner. It may mean that you keep information about your grandparents’ shotgun marriage private if some of their children are still alive.

 

Even if you decide to keep your tree private, it is a good idea to make a bare bones tree that is public. This can be used as “cousin bait” to help you contact distant relatives.

 

Carol Stetser

Researcher

Larimer County Genealogical Society

Enos G. Stetser

March 28, 2025

Thirty years ago, when I started doing serious genealogy, I began with my husband’s New Jersey family. Very little research had been done on the Stetser’s at that time. My husband’s family knew little about their roots.

 

One of the first ancestors I discovered was my husband’s second great grandfather, Enos G. Stetser. Enos was a farmer, and his entire life was spent in Gloucester County, New Jersey. He was born, married, raised his family, and was eventually buried there.

 

New Jersey kept good records in the nineteenth century. Gloucester County has a wonderful historical society with an expansive library. I rapidly found dozens of documents for Enos. These included censuses, marriage records, records of his children’s births, death records, and lots and lots of deeds.

 

When I began researching Enos, the internet was new. There were few copies of original records online. There were, however, message boards. The boards were a good way to contact other genealogists.

 

I found a Stetser board and was thrilled to post some of the information I’d found about Enos. Someone raised a question concerning Enos’s middle name. Although I’d found many documents naming Enos, none of them contained his full middle name. Only his middle initial was given.

 

Trying to be helpful, I posted that I’d seen Enos’s middle name mentioned on another board as George. In those days, I was a new genealogist and didn’t worry too much about sources. I didn’t have one, and I thought I was just passing along a suggestion for more research.

 

That post to a long-defunct message board had long-lasting consequences. Today, Enos Stetser’s middle name is listed as George everywhere from Family Search Family Tree to dozens of trees on Ancestry.

 

Over the years I’ve found more records for Enos G. Stetser. None of them give his full middle name. I have found deeds that indicate Enos’s mother’s maiden name was Hannah Gibbs. Hannah had inherited land from her father, Enos Gibbs. The Gibbs Family were early Quaker settlers in Gloucester County. They were large landowners and two towns, Gibbstown and Gibbsboro were named after them.

 

I believe that Enos G. Stetser’s middle name was probably Gibbs. After all, it was his mother’s maiden name, and the family was a prominent one. It would not be unusual for Hannah’s son to be named after her father.

Maybe one day I will find a record that contains Enos Stetser’s full middle name. I believe it will be Gibbs, not George. It won’t matter to the internet, though. Once something is posted, it’s there to stay.

 

Too bad I wasn’t aware of the internet’s permanence back then. I never would have suggested that George might be Enos’s middle name without any proof. At this point there’s not much I can do. I still don’t have definitive proof that Gibbs was Enos’s middle name. Although I think it was, I won’t be posting it online. I won’t make the same mistake again.

 

If there’s a lesson to be learned from Enos’s story, I hope that it’s “Be careful what you post online. Once posted, it’ll never go away.”

 

Carol Stetser

Researcher

Larimer County Genealogical Society

 

 

 

 

 

Probate Records

March 21, 2025

Probate is the process of the settling of a deceased person’s estate. Probate records can provide important genealogical information. This can include death dates, names of the decedent’s heirs, married names of daughters, and other details about the deceased person’s life.

 

You will not find a probate file for every ancestor. Those who lived into old age may have distributed their property among their heirs before their death. No probate will be found for them. Probates are more common for men than for women. In earlier times, married women did not own property. Everything belonged to their husband. However, single, widowed or divorced women controlled their own property, so there may be probate records for them.

 

Probate records are usually kept at the county level in the United States. In earlier times, when an estate was settled, the records were compiled and filed in an envelope or packet. Many courthouses will have file boxes of stored probate packages. In some states, older probate records may have been sent to state archives.

 

Most probate records are considered public so access to them is straightforward. In the last few years, many probate records have been digitized. Ancestry and Family Search both have large collections of online probates.

 

Otherwise, state archives and county courthouses are the next step in the search. State archives usually have online indexes detailing the records they hold for various counties in a state. If you find that the records you need are held in an archive, a research visit may be worthwhile. If a visit is not possible, many state archives will search their files for records and make copies. A fee will usually be charged.

 

Some probates may still be at a local county courthouse. If that is the case, it is usually best to visit the courthouse in person. Older records may be held in offsite storage so a phone call in advance may be worthwhile. Sometimes the courthouse staff may be willing to find the records you need and make a copy. A charge will usually accompany this service.

 

If you request copies of a probate, be sure to request the entire file. For example, my great uncle’s probate file included a copy of his long-lost sister’s will which had been filed in England. Until I saw her will, I had no idea what had become of my grandfather’s older sister. She had been left in England when the family immigrated to America, and my generation had lost any contact with her. I didn’t even know this great aunt’s married name until I found her will among my great uncle’s probate papers.

 

Because they can hold so much genealogical information, probate records are always worth searching for. Don’t assume that your ancestors were “too poor” to have left an estate. If an ancestor left any property, you may find a probate package for him (or her).

 

Carol Stetser

Researcher

Larimer County Genealogical Society