Bob you mention your use of Ancestry Member Tree hints and finding (and sifting) “member Public Trees. You imply your tree is also public and if so how do you feel about people using or misusing your data?
Thanks you for the question Kirsten, and many Forum members will guess my response as I tend to stand out with my views on Ancestry Public Trees, which in many cases are the polar opposite of others; particularly, but not exclusively, Peter. However no bad thing to have differences of opinion and just as in politics, there are others who share my opinion; so here is how I answer the question.
Yes my Trees (I have more than one) on Ancestry are Public and have always been so. I began as did many others using Genes Reunited, but a cousin of my first wife's was well into Ancestry and suggested it as a better medium for research. She had a Public Tree and once I found the Ancestry fee affordable I subscribed with a general subscription. The cousin shared her Tree with me so my wife's Tree was far more advanced than my own, and I knew her research was top notch and indeed had access to elders in the family at the time who were able to corroborate information. So I uploaded a Gedcom (not that I understood what that meant at the time) from Genes and began to develop my own Tree which grew exponentially as my understanding of Ancestry (and the many other free research sources) grew with it.
I do not deny the place for a private Tree -and here I do not just mean on the PC where I have a very old genealogical data base program called 'Family Tree Legends' - but an online one at Tribal pages on which I have written over 100 stories, uploaded over 800 photos (including scanned BDM certificates) and as it includes the various branches, twigs and leaves of my combined families (including from a second marriage) over 6000 entries. That is completely private but can, and is shared with close relatives by use of a passcode.
But Ancestry warmed itself to me once it began to provide hints and allow searches of other Trees, both Public & Private. Did my 'William Edward Somebody' relate to someone of the same name, dob and birth place with related parents, spouses and children. This was deduced by Ancestry (not Tree owners) based on a search algorithm which to be honest was not that good at the beginning, but surely and slowly improved over time as its own data bases grew. Of course it came up with a mixed bag of 'matches' many of which I learned to dismiss almost at a glance; but every now and again I struck oil and often make contact with the owner, and not just because the Tree was private; I chose to. This worked both ways as others latch on to my own Tree(s) and message me with questions. I enjoy every minute of this symbiotic exchange and mind not one bit. I am a big fan of Ancestry and whilst I know others prefer to keep Trees private, for me my Trees are Public and will remain so.
( I know, I can almost hear the sounds of disbelief echoing across the vastness of space). My family tree is a private one on Ancestry and after reading of the problems much more computer literate people on this forum have had with uploading their trees to FMP, I was rather nervous to try, but blow me down I followed all the instructions on Ancestry and FMP and to my disbelief, after two failed attempts it worked 
which just goes to show that the old saying "if at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again" can sometimes actually be good advice.
