Anyone know about Mundia? (American, find, search, world)

[Tracysherm]

I had never heard of this site, owned by Ancestry.com, until yesterday when a woman in the UK contacted me about a shared ancestor, and she said she found me on Mundia.

I went to the site to look into it. It's currently in the beta-testing phase right now, so it's free to join, but in the future there will be memberships fees. What I don't quite understand is what will Mundia provide that Ancestry does not? I read the FAQs and to me it just sounds like with their more "robust matching" we'll get many more "hints" that have nothing to do with our ancestor, and maybe more and more connections to people with un-researched, erroneous trees.

I was a little concerned because even though I have not joined Mundia, someone was able to search my Ancestry tree there. Not a huge problem, as I've made it public, I don't include info on living people, and only include facts I have documentation for. But the FAQs seem to say that once I join Mundia my Ancestry trees will become part of Mundia. So then, how did this nice lady in Yorkshire England find me when I have not yet joined?

Does anyone know any more about it? Have you joined? Pros/cons?

[CMichele]

I don't understand the function and usefullness of this site. It's owned by Ancestry. Why did they need an additional site to serve the same purpose?

[Tracysherm]

Exactly what I was wondering. I just signed up, and it did recognize my log-in from ancestry, but in attempting to upload my tree, it keeps popping up with error messages.
I did at least confirm that if your profile is unsearchable, no one can get your personal info (I worry about DOB and mother's maiden name, as they can be used for ID theft). And like Ancestry, they conceal another who is living or may still be living.
But the usefulness.....not so sure.........

[CMichele]

I found this via Google. No, thanks. It looks like they are saying that they will retain rights to the things you share and they can be repurposed without your consent. This is almost as annoying as 23andMe asking me to share my family story for advertising purposes.

The Website may contain areas where you can post content, such as text, images, photographs, data, files and other materials. For purposes of clarity, as between you and us, you retain ownership of any content that you post, subject to the following paragraph.
For each item of content that you post, you grant to us and our affiliates a world-wide, royalty free, fully paid-up, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, transferable, and fully sublicensable (including to other Website users) license, without additional consideration to you or any third party, to: (i) reproduce, distribute, make available, transmit, communicate to the public, perform and display (publicly or otherwise), edit, modify, adapt, create derivative works from and otherwise use such content, in any format or media now known or later developed; (ii) exercise all trademark, publicity and other proprietary rights with regard to such content; (iii) use your name, photograph, portrait, picture, voice, likeness and biographical information as provided by you in connection with your content for the Service, in each case, in connection with your content. For example, after your registration or subscription has ended, we may continue to use and display any content that you previously posted, and other users may continue may access, change, edit, add to, subtract from or otherwise amend such content. If you do not want to grant us the rights set out in these Terms of Use, please do not post any content on the Website. [Emphasis is as it appears in the original.]

To the extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to waive all moral rights in any content that you post or send whilst using the Website, including the right to be identified as the author of such content.
Source: Ancestry's http://us.mundia.com/TermsConditions viewed 12/14/2009 9:17am Mountain Daylight time.

[Tracysherm]

But isn't that pretty much what Ancestry does? Once people leave their membership, their trees stay on the site.

I'm not too concerned about licensing, it's not like I had planned to make money from my old family photos or stories.

[CMichele]

Can't we delete our trees, though? I don't like the wording here. If I'm not going to make money off my family photos Ancestry sure as heck will not, either.

Let me add a little more here. Further reading I found that even private trees at Ancestry are available at Mundia. It's looking like Ancestry is wanting for users to do all of the work and then they will benefit from it on the backend by having people pay to use their site.

I know that genealogy and DNA testing are a big market at this time. But I don't like this free advertising. Even with 23andMe I guess it wasn't enough that I have posted to several forums and referred people to their services. They will not "pimp out" my ancestors and hard work. I will share that freely with anyone but no one will knowingly make money off of it.

[reed303]

What an odd website.
At first it looked like a re-do of Rootsweb, but less useful. It's stated purpose is "Mundia lets people everywhere create, discover and share their family history in an easy and fun way." It appears to me Ancestry.com decided to create a site strictly for the sharing of user generated trees (like Rootsweb), for use by those who cannot (or will not) do their own research in Censuses, Birth Records, etc. I did not look to see cost of "Premium" membership, but will assume it is way less than Ancestry.com's fees.

Even searching is odd. Searched on family last name, got 10 hits (which appears to be max for any search !!) of no known connection to me. Note on screen says to add more criteria to see more hits. Adding grandfather's first name got 10 new hits, still no connection. Adding birth year finally got 1 direct hit (of 10) , in a tree posted by someone I've never heard of before, and had only 1 of 4 children listed. And that was the 1 girl that died as infant, not my father and 2 uncles !!

I suppose Mundia might serve some purpose, but it won't be my first go-to site.

[Tracysherm]

I didn't even see any actual resources on the site, just other people's trees, which we all know are not so reliable. I figured I'd sign up while it's still free, to see if they eventually have anything to offer, then when they want to charge a fee, delete my profile and un-join. They'll still have access to my public Ancestry trees, but I can control that from Ancestry, by making them private if I choose.

[EnricoV]

My guess, from looking at the site, is this. It was developed initially to be a non-American focused website. Not by Ancestry. I'm guessing that Ancestry bought them out at some point. I'm guessing that because their "trees" are different looking than Ancestry's. If Ancestry developed both sites, why would they totally re-desgin the look of the trees?

As for the language of the agreement - I think that's pretty standard for any kind of a website. You post it to their website, they have the rights to use it.

[CMichele]

@Enrico

What you stated makes sense. I found it odd that a website has been in Beta mode for at least 4 years and owned by a company that already has family trees. I'm guessing the truth is Ancestry bought them out just as you stated.