) ( ( ) 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. Protecting yourself (and your loved ones) from the Web 3. Protecting your genealogy from the Web 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, Baur or Bowra 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, Baur or Bowra 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 is our sister site, the Bower Cottage, which houses most of our projects including an online GEDCOM fed by cousins from our research groups. Find the Cottage is at <http://bowercommunity.com/cottage>. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ January is the month I dedicate to our newbies. I chose January simply because after Christmas all those brand-new computing genealogists are donning their Web bikinis and jumping in to try out the cyberspace waters. Their eyes are wide with the excitement of all this new technology and information directly at their fingertips. But, our newbies (and maybe some novices) need to learn 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. For those experienced computing genealogists, simply consider this Coffee one for you to think about... PROTECTING YOURSELF (AND YOUR LOVED ONES) FROM THE WEB Read this: "I believe in free genealogy and sharing as much information as I have with others." Now read this: "When I bought my first computer I had put together "books" on each family line. Foolishly, I sent copies of all my research to anyone I could find also working on these lines. Even people I have never met. I printed out copies of everything I had, including all living relatives, (aunts, uncles, cousins, my children, etc..) never dreaming it would be misused. "I often send unfinished manuscripts to people because they contain my notes which substantiates what I've claimed and tells them where I've already been. I never thought about someone using my mother's maiden name for illegal means." "Not long ago I found a webpage with information that had been copied from my private research. Back in the mid 1980s, I was collecting everything I could find to put together a book ... This web page contained relatives I had been able to trace, through years of going to MS, interviewing people and reading court records. It also included my living relatives, even giving my own maiden name, which I have never used, having been raised by foster parents." The statements you have just read above are not hypothetical, but were made by victims ~ genealogists just like you and me. Their messages are in Rootsweb's archives. It is one thing to believe in free genealogy and sharing it with others; I do. However, it is totally another story when it comes to passing information around about you, your children and other living relatives. Once someone has taken information about you or your living family, you are then at their mercy ~ hoping that person is wise enough not to pass your information around. Sadly, many times that isn't the case. This Coffee could be one of _THE_ most important lessons you learn regarding computing genealogy. 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 or dig through trash cans to get information about people. Now, all they have to do is go online to get it and 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? And didn't you, in all truth and innocence, give your creditor that name? With that one piece of information 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 inadvertently compromise their security and THAT isn't what we're all doing research for. At no time should any of us *ever* publish material on the Web about our living family. A good rule of thumb is to stop at your grandparents ONLY if they have passed on; otherwise stop with your great-grandparents. It is of little benefit to genealogical research include information about your parents or your children on the web. We're all taught and drilled to research the historical; let's keep it that way on this list and at all our websites. 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.consumer.gov/idtheft/>. Afterward, you might consider reading this one <http://www.consumerinfo.com/n/su98_d.htm> and this one <http://www.senioranswers.org/Pages/aarp_iqtest.htm>. Following that, 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. It's true ~ unless we live in a vacuum, none of us will ever complete control over our personal information, so we'll never be totally immune to fraud. But why help things along and make it easy for someone to impersonate you? If you wouldn't post your background on your local grocery store's bulletin board, don't put it on the Internet ~ the world's bulletin board. Con artists are checking it out, whether you choose to believe it or not. Family IS what we're all about. However, let's not be careless with what we know about those still with us, including ourselves. PROTECTING YOUR GENEALOGY FROM THE WEB! Now, 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! EVERYTHING ~ the dates, places, wives last names .... THE WHOLE WORKS! WHAT A GOLDMINE! Dearest Newbie: It's crucially important that you rein in that excitement you're feeling at that moment and remember this next critical lesson: just as you would in a printed book, 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. 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 to a new driver. 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 computing 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. To our January babies, we wish you a very happy birthday! You are loved! :) I really enjoyed this time with you. It was so nice and I 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 ('``.__.'`) `..____.'