On Reading, Writing, and Comprehension

The following lines were copied from the “bio” section on the member page of a Find a Grave (FaG) contributor and veteran who shall go unnamed. I enclosed the term “bio” in scare quotes for reasons you are soon to learn.

At one point in time, I was open to sharing my images on FAG. However, due to people coping[sic] and posting them as their own, I no longer allow anyone to copy my photos without my permission. Images on Find A Grave and most other websites are copyrighted. Please get permission before coping[sic]. Transfers- if you are not closely related and do not plan on updating, correcting, adding to the requested memorial, please reconsider your request for transfer. I will not transfer memorials to hoarders! These memorials are where our loved ones rest. Those who have gone before us who are patiently waiting to be found by someone who can tell their story so they won’t be forgotten once more. They should be treated with the utmost respect! They are not numbers for collecting!

My purpose in posting those lines is not to call anyone out by name (else, I would have named the person who wrote them); it is, rather, to shed light on several glaring problems and mistakes contained within that are fairly commonplace in today’s world, and to attempt at least to identify the probable cause(s) of those problems/mistakes. NB as well that the above-posted lines form the whole of this person’s “bio” information included on her FaG member page.

Privately and within my own thoughts, I jokingly refer to the person who wrote those lines as “the Debbie Schlussel of Find a Grave members.” That you might “get the joke,” and banking on the probability that you don’t know who Debbie Schlussel is, I will inform you briefly that she is a “conservative” blogger/writer who long ago developed a reputation for being something of a paranoid schizophrenic when it came to her writing/investigative reporting and what she, unilaterally and without much evidence to support the accusation(s), denominated “plagiarism” of her work. What Miss Schlussel could never seem to figure out was that her attempts at setting herself up as ‘judge, jury and executioner’ in her accusations of plagiarism leveled against others tended more to undermine her credibility and purposes for doing so, than to ameliorate the situation as her imagination conceived it. But Miss Schlussel is not the focus of this write-up.

The immediate and most obvious problem with the quoted lines above is that they contain precisely zero biographical information concerning the person in question. Now, I needn’t, I trust, define the descriptive terms, “biographical information” for this intelligent readership; you all know what those terms in combination mean. It is, nevertheless, important to point out that what we’re subjected to in those lines amounts to a lecture, not a personal bio. Either this person (1) doesn’t know or understand the difference between (personal) bio information and a lecture, and/or (2) she doesn’t care what the difference is. I’m betting it is a combination of the two, but I wouldn’t want to get into a discussion about the psychology of all of that, so I will leave it be.

A second problem with the above “musings” is the fact that, in spite of her declaration stating that, “I no longer allow,” this person has precisely the same ability or power to prevent or stop someone from copying her original photos and re-posting them “as their own,” as I or anyone else has of preventing her from (mis)using the “bio” section of her Find a Grave member page as a personal “soapbox” from which to lecture the rest of us. Which is to say, none, zero, nadda. I’d love to see her try to exercise that non-existent power, though. Wink, wink. There is no law that says I have to *like* that she chooses to misuse the bio section of her member page as a platform for lecturing us all, anymore than she has to like someone reposting her photos “as their own”; but whether either of us likes either of those things or not, we are both equally powerless to prevent their happening. Which is the point.

Contrary to what she writes (and apparently thinks), photos (of grave markers, cemetery entrances, historical markers, etc.) contained within the Find a Grave database are not automatically “copyrighted” simply by virtue of the fact that one person took them exclusive to all other persons. That belief is, one supposes, a product of this woman’s overactive imagination. Besides, there is nothing wrong with copying and reposting someone else’s photos; whether or not someone or other does so without giving proper attribution is something of another story, but even doing that is really just a “common courtesy” that it is completely up to the person in question to extend (or not) to the original photographer. By which I simply mean this – one certainly *should* extend that courtesy to the original photographer if (s)he is going to copy and repost another’s photos contained in the database, but one is certainly under no legal obligation to do so. In other words, her phrase “I no longer allow” simply amounts to empty words strung together; I could write, “I no longer allow” people to lecture others in the bio section of their pages, but saying so won’t change the fact that the likes of this woman will continue to do so. Hence, it would be absurd, and, well, asinine of me to make such a statement.

A third problem with this “bio” consists in the several sentences this woman dedicates to the question of what she calls “transfers.” Beside the fact that she is again violating the basic rules of decorum in this setting – i.e., presuming to lecture fellow members on what they ought to be doing and why they ought to be doing it, within a platform simply not intended for that – she demonstrates her penchant for setting herself up as ‘judge, jury and executioner’ in these matters, in the same spirit of her protege aforementioned, Miss Schlussel. You’re beginning, I trust, to gain a fuller understanding of why I dubbed this woman “the Debbie Schlussel of Find a Grave members” soon after having first read her bio information misplaced lecture months ago.

Don’t get me wrong – I can certainly agree with some of her points. E.g., that the stories of our ancestors and their lives ought to be told, and as accurately as possible; that they ought not be forgotten; that they should be treated with respect; that their memorials are not numbers for collecting. And so on. After all, I’ve written about those very things and from the same perspective any number of times in the past. But the question again is, what has any of that to do with this woman’s bio information? And the answer of course is that none of it has anything to do with her bio information, nor mine, nor anyone else’s. What is really at issue here is this woman’s inability, and/or refusal to exercise self-restraint – the self-restraint that it takes to recognize that, there is a place for her lectures and questioning the motives of others, and the bio section of her FaG membership page ain’t it.

Let us study another bio – a real bio – and its contents, within the same database and by direct contrast to the above. Consider:

My name is Joanna Gentry. December 29, 2014, I retired from local government after 28 years. I worked in data entry, construction survey, and GIS. My married name was McIntyre. I was born in Visalia, CA, and I am a first generation Californian. Both my parents were born in Oklahoma and I have many ties to that state. I’ve been working on my family tree in a serious way for a couple of years. Just recently I found several generations of my family buried in Paradise Cemetery, Paradise, MO. My mythical Irish ancestor became my very real Irish 3rd greatgrandfather! Through DNA I’ve proven that I am 1/3 Irish. I’m working on finding my greatgrandmother Alfar Breashears Whitley who died in 1913 after giving birth to her 5th child. I know absolutely nothing about her parents. I’ve added a few memorials, and I’m just learning what a great tool FAG can be. And, I’m “meeting” some really wonderful caring people who are FAG volunteers. At the request of a Gentry relative who I’d never met before and is a very very distant relative, I visited my Santa Paula cemetery and got information about her great uncle. Because of that work, I’ve recently “met” this man’s granddaughter. It’s a small world, isn’t it?

I am willing to transfer most of the memorials that I have created for the Santa Paula Cemetery. Researching: Gentry, Whitley, Smith, Trammell, Brashears, McIntyre, Moen, Fursman, Skei.