Frank B. Hean.

by Terry Foenander.

Hean, whose first names, at death and burial, are somewhat different from that shown above, was the original research project of Mr. Barry Crompton, of the American Civil War Round Table of Australia, based in Melbourne, and totally unassociated with the American Civil War Round Table of Queensland.   When Mr. Crompton first commenced research on Hean, he only had a few basic facts on this veteran of the American Civil War, who is buried in Australia, and, as with this author, we had inadvertently provided data on the many veterans of that war buried in Australia and New Zealand to James Mason Gray, a member of the Queensland group mentioned above.   At this time, in early 2005, when Gray first contacted us, we were totally unaware that his intentions, which were exposed very shortly after, were to misappropriate all this data, as well as documentation and images, and use it at a web site, and for which he would try to claim full credit.   Despite his original claim that he intended to help us in our research work, it became fully obvious, by mid-year of 2005 that he had no such intentions at all, and furthermore, his attempts to include all this on his web pages would result in a major amount of damage to our original work, as he would add details that were inconsistent with the facts on the veterans, as well as other bits and pieces of data that would be shown to be incorrect.   His knowledge of the Civil War, as we would eventually learn, was totally inadequate, and he would include incorrect dates of battles, assumptions that were wrong, and other details not shown elsewhere, but obviously all part of Gray’s guesswork.   When asked not to use our work, he at first removed it briefly, then placed it back on the Internet, and had removed the names of the original researchers, and claimed that he was doing all his own work, and was not copying or plagiarizing any of our work.   However, even a twelve year old child could see that many of the statements, and sometimes full paragraphs, were taken, word for word, from our own published work or from our web site pages.   He just continued to ignore all our pleas not to use this data, and just continued to plagiarize and copy, and then add further details that were mostly incorrect, thus compromising all our twenty or more years of hard work.

On November 29, 2006, Gray, after having obtained the basic data on Hean from researcher Barry Crompton, placed a query message on the Ancestry message boards, stating that he was disabled and unable to work, and had created “a memorial web site for all the American Civil War veterans buried throughout Australia and New Zealand”.   Further along he states that prepared memorials for some 140 veterans on his website, and that he was recently “given information on a son of Lebanon, Pennsylvania who is buried here.   His name is Bvt. Mr. Frank B. Hean, born in Lebanon to John and Francis Hean in 1840” and including some other details on Hean.   Then, towards the end of his query, Gray states that Hean “is buried in Australia and we are now working on acquiring a headstone for his grave.   If you would like all the information I have for your records, I would be most happy to send them to you at no cost.   I do this to honor our veterans, not for anything else.”   It is fairly obvious, from all these statements, that Gray not only gives out false data, but tends to alter the facts to suit his own interpretation of a persons biography.   At that particular time (in 2006, when the query was placed), Gray did not have “some 140 veterans on his website” as the number was far, far less.   Additionally, as would be shown, many of these were either not veterans, or never served in the units indicated (e.g. Graydon, Hill, Yeatman, Cunningham, Bates, McBride) and several others, whose biographies have now been removed, as they were proven to be false and incorrect.   When he was given the basics on Hean, by Mr. Crompton, at no time at all was permission ever given to Mr. Gray to use that data in any web site, or was permission ever provided to allow Mr. Gray to pass such data on to others.   In fact, Mr. Gray is well known for ignoring all the proper protocols between researchers (not that Mr. Gray is considered as a true ‘researcher’ anyway), and to respect the research work of others.   There is good reason why we now refuse to pass on further data to him, and have kept the names of a large number of recently located veterans of the Civil War in and from Australia to Gray, because of his notorious activities.   Thankfully he seems unaware of the actual name of Hean, and that the ‘Bvt’ he places in front of Hean’s name is actually an abbreviation of the word brevet, placed in front of a rank, during the Civil War, to indicate it as a temporary rank.

As well, he indicates his dishonest nature in stating that he is working on acquiring a headstone for the grave of Hean, because, if the grave is already marked by a headstone or marker, the Veterans Administration specifically state that no application is to be sent, in such a case.   His final dishonest words are when Gray states that he is doing this for the “veterans, not for anything else,” yet it is well known that he was caught, on several occasions, placing requests for finances, on his web site, and also trying to gain finances for a book on the veterans.

There is good reason for all of us not wanting to send any further data to Gray, as he has been found to be a most dishonest and deceitful person, and who is arrogant to the extreme, using the work of others with reckless abandon.   Thankfully the numerous other veterans recently located in Australia have not been passed on to him, and his own research has been exposed as faulty to the core, as he never indulges in obtaining the proper documentation to support any claims of Civil War service.

Page Created September, 2008.