Hello everyone. Here's some food for thought that I received on another list. I am sorry if this is a duplicate for you, but I think it touches an aspect of genealogy that some may not be aware of. >Are you putting out information about yourself, your children, and other living relatives over the internet? If so, this message is for you!!! > >Missing Links, Vol.2 #22 >Where Are Your GEDCOMS Tonight? > > By Myra Vanderpool Gormley, CG > >Is personal information about you, your children and living >relatives posted on a web page where any crook or kook can find >it? It may be if you have shared your genealogical data via >GEDCOM, pedigree charts or family group sheets. (Use any search >engine and look for your names and check GenDex >(http://www.gendex.com/ ) as well as visit some of the commercial >vendors' websites who encourage software owners to contribute >their GEDCOMS.) > >Are you guilty of invading the privacy of others, such as your >living relatives, by passing along their genealogical data to >someone else without their expressed written permission? You are, >if you have shared your genealogical databases or research notes >with a third party. The dead do not have a right to privacy, but >the living do. > >Genealogists are sharing, caring people, and most of us think >nothing of handing over all of our genealogical data to distant >cousins, even strangers. "We should start thinking," says a >Prodigy member in the Genealogy BB's COFFEE SHOP topic under >"Sharing Data on the Web." > >The idea of sharing is good and technology has made it easy. >However, technology is not an exclusive tool for honest people. >If detailed personal information about you and your living >relatives is on the internet, crooks can and do find it, and some >scam artist may use it to hoodwink your grandmother into giving >out the secrets that will open her bank account. It has happened. > >Your relatives have the same rights to privacy that you do and >among these rights are: > >1. Appropriation of one's name or likeness by another without >consent; > >2. The right to be free of unreasonable and highly offensive >intrusions into one's seclusion, including the right to be free >of highly objectionable disclosure of private information in >which the public has no legitimate interest; and > >3. False light in the public eye -- the right to avoid false >attributions of authorship or association. > >Publishing (and putting it on a GEDCOM, chart or on the web is >publishing) genealogical information about a living person >without their consent may involve all three aspects of their >right to privacy and they may be able to seek legal relief >through a civil lawsuit. > >What can you do? > >-- If you find someone has posted information about you or living >relatives on the internet, ask them to take it down. Be as >forceful as is necessary. > >-- Exclude information about any living persons from your GEDCOMS >and charts before sharing with others. Most genealogy software >will allow you to exclude all persons born after a particular >date, which you can pick as 1920, 1910 or 1900, for example. Or >use a handy utility program called GEDClean >(http://members.aol.com/tomraynor2/gedclean.htm). A copy of this >freeware (Windows 3.x or Win95) is posted in the Genealogy File >Library or your can download it from the above web site. > >-- Educate yourself about privacy issues on the internet: >(http://genealogy.tbox.com/jog/aug96/advanced.html) > >Share your genealogical data, but don't intrude on others' >privacy and do not allow them to violate yours. > Judy Judy Arnold - [email protected] Judy's Place - http://www.flash.net/~judyad/