) ( ) Good Morning Family! .-.,--^--. ( Come on in. . . \\|`----'| - The coffee pot's on. . . \| |// ...and we even have decaf, | |/ tea, and hot chocolate! \ / ------ Today's topics include: 1. Welcome to new cousins 2. Homeless heirlooms 3. Newbie News a. protect yourselves b. fraudulent/errant lineages If you've been with the family for at least three weeks, you'll probably want to skip the following paragraph… TO OUR NEWEST COUSINS ~~ On behalf of the entire family, I'd like to extend a most hearty welcome to those cousins who came into the family fold this past week. We are very glad to have you with us and hope you'll stay and remain a part of our online family. As soon as you're comfortable with us and the list, please send in your Bower[s]/Bauer or Baur lines so we can all see how we're related to you. We do not have a fancy format for sending in records or queries to the list. Post as many as you wish! If the data has anything to do with Bower[s]/Bauer or Baur ancestors or any of the 81+ variant spellings we research that might help someone, please feel free to post it. Every scrap of information is appreciated. If you haven't visited the homesite of this list yet, you are encouraged to do so. Our home is Bower Community, located at <http://bowercommunity.com>. There, we currently have two sites: The Bower Family Homestead [a.k.a., the Homestead] is our primary homesite and the gathering place for much of our information. It waits to join us all in welcoming you into the family at <http://bowercommunity.com/homestead>. Smaller and just opened this year, our sister site, the Bower Cottage, houses most of our projects including an online GEDCOM fed by quite a few cousins from our lists. The Cottage is still small as far as material goes, however give us time and we'll have it filled really soon. The Cottage is at <http://bowercommunity.com/cottage>. HOMELESS HEIRLOOMS I received a message yesterday from a Brower cousin who told me about an item being sold for auction. That message prompted me to address the issue ~~ It's sad, so sad... but more and more I'm seeing pieces of someone's distant past turn up on eBay. Have you noticed it? This week a 154-year old family Bible is being auctioned... one from 1847! (item #1403632836) Several months ago a wedding gown from the 1880's was auctioned. I find it terribly sad that personal effects of this type are valued in the heart so little. The highest bidder may not be a descendant of the family who wrote in that book... who, with loving tenderness and careful application took care of the article that was destined to become an hierloom. It's also highly unlikely that the "winner" of the wedding gown was a descendant of the beautiful bride who wore it. You've seen these priceless treasures not only on eBay and other online auction sites, but at yard sales, second-hand and antique stores. If you should happen to see an heirloom being sold as a casual item and can afford to it, why not rescue (buy) the item if you have the money and see that it gets a good home.... possibly at your local historical society or museum?... even better, to a descendant who would love to own it. In the case of the Bible currently on eBay, can you imagine the awe that family's descendants would feel to receive something like that? I'm sure they'd be grateful enough to recompense you. A rocking chair or an early iron is one thing... but personal effects like Bibles and wedding gowns? To me it's tantamount to the box of lost souls (unmarked pictures jammed in a box) found at nearly every second-hand or antique store. ...*sigh* NEWBIE NEWS For most of January I'll be using this section as a way to help and teach our newbies (and maybe some novices) a few of the ways of computing genealogy. It's really exciting to come online after hearing so much hype about how much information there is ... and it's true! There really IS a load of information on the Web. To this end, today I'll pass along two very important guidelines all online genealogists need to know. First, foremost and utmost... protect yourselves and your family. When you took up doing your family history you assumed a responsibility. As never before is attention to this responsibility more necessary than now. With the advent of cyberspace came identity thieves who before the days of computering, would walk through cemeteries to get information about people. Now, all they have to do is go online to get it. However, now they're handed full histories through unwary family historians. What is the most common password your creditors ask for? ...isn't it your mother's maiden name? With that alone, a good identity thief can compromise your entire credit history. With your name and birthdate an identity thief can get a birth certificate, a social security card, a driver's license and ... well, you get my drift here. As genealogists and Web researchers, it is our responsibility to protect the data on those relatives who are still living. Online family histories and queries for more information never need to include living relatives because we don't research the living. When we publicize personal data about those still living, we inadvertenly compromise their security and THAT isn't what we're all doing research for. Does this stuff REALLY happen? You bet it does! If you'll do a little Web surfing you'll find warnings are out regarding this. To read more on the subject of identity theft, you might want to start here <http://www.nevans.freeserve.co.uk/rules.htm> with two messages from one of our own, genealogist Myra Vanderpool Gormley. Also, you might want to read this one as well <http://www.consumerinfo.com/n/su98_d.htm>. Afterwards, do a Web search for "identity theft" +genealogy. I think you're going to be quite surprised if you're not already up on the subject. Family IS what we're all about. However, let's not be careless with what we know about those still with us. Secondly I want to address the excitement of finding your entire ancestry (or a good portion of it) splayed out on a website... the very lines you've been working on for so long... and there it is! But cousins, it's important that you keep a tight rein on yourselves and never take any genealogical data you find online as THE final word. Like never before it's important that you remember to fall back to the Cardinal Rule of genealogy - "Believe NONE of what you hear, only HALF of what you read. PROVE EVERYTHING!" Do your own research and use what you find on the Web as a guide. Newbies especially, should remember this one. The abundance of data on the Web coupled with the hunger of an untrained family historian is like a traffic accident just waiting to happen. He/she comes across a site and copies all the pertinent material into his/her records, neglecting to fall back on the Cardinal Rule. "Well, it's right there on the Web! It MUST be true!" What this new historian has just unknowingly done is copy material that was already documented as being fradulent or is full of errors. The new historican takes the data in pure faith that it's correct and proceeds from there. Not bad enough already, our new researcher later decides to "share the wealth" and his/her new-found material. Bad material being spread like wildfire.... Case in point... "genealogist" Gustav Anjou, who generated 192 genealogies and supporting records for price tags nearing $9,000. The problem is, Gustav Anjou was NOT a genealogist; he wasn't even a good researcher. However, Gustav Anjou was an excellent forger of genealogies and occasional supporting documents that are still being passed around today as fact. His only published work "Ulster County, NY Probate Records" contains valid wills and totally unacceptable abstracts that he himself created, mostly out of thin air. His other works were compiled privately and all are frauds. Anjou's material has been copied into numerous published genealogies by unwary historians who were blinded by the dazzling lineages they found so much that they neglected to check the sources for themselves. Less this section gets too much longer, I refer each of you to a Website with a great deal of Anjou information (including the names of the bogus genealogies) as well as data on some of the other famous fraudulent writers. Go to <http://www.linkline.com/personal/xymox/> and halfway down that page click on the Fraudulent Lineages link there. This is a very worthwhile read for everyone. The obvious warning here... NEVER, but NEVER assume anything on the Web (or in a book, for that matter) is correct. Just because it's printed, does NOT make it true. Fall back to the Cardinal Rule and draw your own conclusions after gathering your own evidence. A genealogist you may intend to be or already think you are, but it's the good one who follows through on lessons learned... Family... it's what we're all about. I really enjoyed this time with you. It was so nice. Thank you for sharing it with me. I hope your upcoming week is filled with health, fun, productivity, and above all, filled with love. ) ( ) _.-~~-. (@\'--'/. Colleen ('``.__.'`) `..____.'