Or
Rednecks, Cousin Tyrel and Sharin my Research
Cousin Tyrel is a real nice guy abut sometimes I get the feeling all his cows didn't come home. I been working with him off and on for the last few years on our research. When I first met him (Online) we had both just started doing our research and we tended to make more than our fair share of mistakes (Now Yall stop laughing. I don't make a complete fool of myself anywhere near as often as I used to.)
At that point in the game we were both sending out any info we could find "Willy Nilly". Never paying attention to sources, documentation, or to how much the other feller offored in return. Well this went on for about a year every time we would get "Wet" with information we would be a shakin like a huntin dog coming out of the lake. Then Cousin Tyrel got burned. This fella in North Carolina told him he would only send Tyrel his info after Tyrel sent him his. So Tyrel sent him a Gedcom (Bet yall though I couldn't spelt it) And sat back to wait, and wait, and wait, and wait. After about a month Tyrel had reached the boiling point, so he sent this feller an email demanding he either cough up some research or he return Tyrel's gedcom and not use any of the info.
Another couple of weeks went be and Tyrel was so mad he couldn't even sit down and watch Hee Haw. (I mean h e was so mad he forgot he had tickets to the Saints-Cowboys game). SO he wrote a real mean email to this guy and told him he thought he was lower than a bucktoothed Rattlesnake.
A couple of days later this guy wrote back and told him he had deleted Tyrel's gedcom cause he didn't have sources and he wasn't gonna waste his time on someone who didn't know how to do genealogy. (At this point I would like to interject a thought. Instead of swatting away those that are new to the hobby, we should work with them to help them learn.)
Tyrel was devastated but he didn't give up. He went back and retraced his steps adding the necessary sources to document his stuff. After six months of hard work (You gotta give the boy credit he got it done.) he once more went out there and tried the online pool. He wrote that snotty guy in NC and offered to trade again. This time he pointed out his stuff was documented with Primary and secondary sources. Well like I said Tyrel aint exactly a truck mechanic. He trusted the guy a second time to send him copies of research. To put it mildly he got burned a second time.
I am not trying to talk yall out of sharing. Sharing is the grease that keeps these big old genealogical wheels rolling but I would strongly suggest you know the person you are sending info to. Ignoring the obvious dangers of computer viruses (Yall aint suffered till you have stayed up all night tending to a computer with a cold in its monitor.) The fact is that some folks just flat out take advantage of ya. So please be carefull.
Adios and Keep Smiling
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