Sadly, the Genealogy of the Long Family has had to be removed...
... an explication and some words of thanks to all who contributed to it.
By Christopher Long
First, we owe a huge debt of thanks to the scores of cousins and friends who, over the past 24 years, have contributed so generously to the Long family genealogy – a copy of which used to exist here. From about 1995 these contributions, in text and images, formed the basis of a rich and useful set of pages that apparently interested several thousand visitors each year, many of whom became contributors.
Sadly our younger cousins will no longer have this opportunity to discover their roots. These pages were withdrawn following receipt, on 21st August 2011, of a hectoring message from a Mrs Daphne Lott, a descendent of the Long family, who claimed that certain information was incorrect (errors were not specified) and that we had not sought permission from "any of us" to post this information online. Mrs Lott, it seemed, was writing on behalf of numerous people. Regrettably she was apparently unaware that most of the information she objected to had been supplied voluntarily and with enthusiasm (mostly in 2003) by many members of the families and individuals she supposedly represented.
In a subsequent message dated 25th April 2017 Mrs Lott went so far as to specify the family names of cousins whose interests she purported to represent, which was also unfortunate since these same people have been keen voluntary contributors to the genealogy and, in several cases, were surprised to find that she claimed to be speaking on their behalf and had caused an interesting amateur family history to be suppressed.
For some years we published Mrs Lott's first message on this page in order to explain why the genealogy had been withdrawn. But it seems that even Mrs Lott found her message "insulting" and uncomfortable reading because, by 2019, she was threatening us with legal action (through quite irrelevant British and EU legislation) if we did not withdraw it.
She's lucky that we did not think to publish some of the other unpleasant messages she has sent us over the years... including one dated 7th July 2001 in which she told the author of this page, two days after the death of his mother, that he would not be welcome at his own mother's funeral reception.
The irony of this sad little saga is that the self-same Mrs D. Lott is the author of a Long family genealogy which she has, in recent years, published and distributed widely, both in both print and digital formats. Perish the thought that she or her professional researchers might have acquired useful information from the Long family genealogy that once existed here and which she subsequently sought to suppress...
What is certain, however, is that she never sought my permission to include me in the data she publishes and distributes!
One day, the pages that were once here will reappear... perhaps quite soon. But, in the meantime, we are most grateful to everyone who helped make them so interesting. If we choose not to publish them here and now (anything for a quiet life!), the fruits of all this work remain of course well-known, easily accessible and well-archived elsewhere! [e.g. 'Way Back Machine', the British Library web archives, the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Library of Congress, other related genealogies, etc...]
C.A.L. (09-07-2019)
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