Article: Sharing ResearchBy Helen OsbornThere is no doubt that when it comes to tricky problems in genealogy, two or even three heads can be better than one. More often than not, groups of people working together solve some of the most difficult ancestry problems. Those people may simply be cousins working on their joint family tree, they may be professional researchers working closely with a client, it might be through the joint efforts of a name society, or even the lone researcher who is able to take another person’s research and build on it. However it is done, the process of genealogy continually brings people together and builds new links. There are now many ways of sharing research on the internet, but Ancestral Atlas is unique in having devised a system whereby you can not only share your research, but earn money for doing so with minimum effort. As more and more people contribute their research to Ancestral Atlas, the opportunities for linking with cousins and other interested people grows daily. To participate and earn money, users must first be subscribers and have a PayPal account. More information can be found here. You also need to make sure that your data is made public, not private. This means that other researchers can see your events as blue map pins when they search for a name or place. Most genealogists are fixated on names, but in another clever twist, Ancestral Atlas users can find other people researching not only a surname, but also a place. That might be an Irish townland, a battle site or historic country house. Wouldn’t it be great if you could find someone who has a will, or a family bible relevant to your research or who knows where specialised records for a school, hospital or business are located? The benefits for family and local historians could be huge. Getting together with others researching in the same location, even if you are not related (or at least have not yet discovered the link!) can bring many benefits. Equally, perhaps you have already done a fantastic job of transcribing or indexing gravestones, or parish records, and are not sure what to do with the data. You can now share your hard work with everybody by uploading it and making it public. The more people do this, the better the site will become. If you find information on Ancestral Atlas and you want to know more, simply click on The Contact button at the bottom of the event details box as highlighted below:
If you are not a subscriber, then a message will appear asking you to subscribe. Assuming that the subscription is successfully paid at this point, Ancestral Atlas will pay commission on the subscription fee to the person who has added the data. After subscribing, the contact button will open up the Message Centre screen and the message heading will be filled in automatically for you.
You need not be worried about sharing information privately with others. By using the Ancestral Atlas messaging function there is no danger of disclosing personal details if you do not want to, your email address is never revealed unless you explicitly include it in a message - you remain in control of all your messages and contacts. If need be, you can also make your data private again at the click of a button. The messaging service works pretty much like webmail, except that you do not download the messages onto your own computer. If you can use email, then you should have no problems. Other users will only see your Ancestral Atlas user name. Ancestral Atlas will also email you direct to let you know that a new message has arrived so that you don’t have to keep checking back. The system will store all your contacts and keep track of your in and out box. Sharing information with others via Ancestral Atlas is safe and secure and could bring great benefits, so why not give it a go and see what happens! |
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