Terms of Service
Your use of this website constitutes your agreement to these Terms of Service. Don’t agree? Don’t use the site. It’s that simple.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
The most important part of that is NON-COMMERCIAL. I will report content unauthorized use of my copyrighted content copied to sites such as Ancestry, MyHeritage, etc.
FACTS – When in Doubt, Ask.
No one can copyright genealogical facts. “Alvin Benson Cassity left Bates Co. MO abt 1860 [1]” is a genealogical fact which no one can lay claim to own. However, I do own copyright to any analysis of the facts I post on this website. This includes but is not limited to blog posts, histories or notes. Consider this history excerpt:
“It’s possible A.B. Cassity removed his family in 1860 to Texas due to the evolving brutal guerrilla conflict and border wars during the “Bleeding Kansas“ era. The Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854 quickly filled Kansas with pro slavery and abolitionist settlers[1]. Missouri, at that time, was a slave state and the idea of popular sovereignty allowing the Kansas Territory to decide the slave issue made an early violent start to the War Between the States.[2] Bloody conflict ensued in Kansas over slavery and spilled into Missouri. In 1854, 1,700 armed Missourian guerrillas invaded Kansas to elect pro-slavery candidates to Congress.[4] Border raids between counties became common as “Border Ruffians” from Missouri attacked Kansas settlers and Jayhawkers burned farms and slaughtered families in Missouri. [5] The evolving violent and extremely brutal guerrilla conflict, known as “Bleeding Kansas” thoroughly depopulated border counties by 1864.[6] It is possible A.B. Cassity removed his family from Bates County to Texas after experiencing seven years of guerrilla terror.”
The statement above is my analysis of the historical context surrounding Cassity’s move to Texas. I own the copyrights to my published analysis. In order for you to use that statement in your own research you must:
- Attribute me as the source of this analysis.
- Reproduce the analysis in its entirety, unedited.
When in doubt, just ask. I am more than happy to share my work as well as provide you permission or license where appropriate to use my analysis. Heck, I’ll even write the citation for you.
PHOTOS – ALWAYS ASK!
There are many wide ranging issues that come with posting photos to the web but they break down into three main categories:
- Copyright. Copyright in photography is a complex subject full of surprises. That guy you handed a camera to so you could be in the picture? He is the actual copyright holder of that photo. Public Domain, Fair Use, Derivative work, etc. must be considered for each photo in question.
- Source. Many generous contributors have shared photos for this website. Their permission to me does not extend to you through this website. However, I may be able to facilitate your use of those photos through the original contributor.
- Commercial Use. When you take a photo from this site and load it to a third party site, such as Ancestry.com, you are warranting to them that you own the right to do so (you don’t). You also grant them permission to use and disseminate that photo for their own commercial purposes. This type of use is strictly prohibited.
DOCUMENTS – When in Doubt, Ask.
Documents on this site come in many forms such as blog posts, .pdfs or even as photographs. The quickest way to determine which documents may be copied is to check the source citation. For example:
- “South Carolina Delayed Births, 1766-1900 and City of Charleston, South Carolina Births, 1877-1901”, database and digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 17 May 2012), Female Cathcart, p. 175 (penned), citing South Carolina Department of History and Archives.
- South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, death certificate #67-000189 (1967), Hugh 0 Cathcart; Division of Vital Statistics, Columbia. [Issue date 9 Mar 2011]
The first citation lists a third-party subscription service as the source of the image. As a subscriber to this company I am given a limited license to use this document image for my personal, non-commercial use. Unless you also subscribe to this service you may not republish this document. The second citation is for a record copy of a death certificate I scanned to post on the web. There are no third party restrictions on this image. However, as with photos, you may not publish documents from this site to commercial websites such as Ancestry.com or Fold3.com.
Again, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I am happy to give you permission or license to use any material on this site that it is in my power to give as long as your use is non-commercial.
COLLABORATION – LOVE IT!
If you’ve made it here because we share an ancestor in common then I am more than happy to communicate with you and help you as well as I can. I welcome corrections, contrary evidence and any other contributions you may wish to share. The goal is to build on our knowledge of these families and fill in the context of their lives. I’d love to hear from you.
Full Disclosure: I am the owner of The Who Hunter, LLC. I write about local resources and genealogical research tips at www.whohunter.com. I also accept for-fee genealogical research clients. My commercial activity is entirely separate from my personal genealogy. If you are seeking my professional assistance please contact me via my pro site rather than here at my personal blog.
Rorey Cathcart
