At 08:46 PM 03/18/2000 -0500, you wrote: >Hi to All, > >Ancestry.com had my name and parents for several generations listed on their web >page. I asked them to remove it and they did within 2 to 3 weeks. There was no >argument, no disagreement. I did not want it there. They took it off. > >ROOTSWEB on the other hand WILL NOT REMOVE my living family members. They >REFUSE! I am mad. Even if information is available elsewhere, why make it easy >for the con artists to rip you off and steal your identity, open bank accounts >in your name, buy things and charge it to your name, then not pay; and ruin your >credit rating (and make you pay for their purchases?) Genealogy is about DEAD >relatives--not living ones!! [snip rest of message] Hi, Carole and cousins: I disagree completely about genealogy being about dead relatives, not living ones. What if the genealogical books we look at today had been written by people that refused to publish anything about the living? But that is not the main point of this message. I would like to think that it might still be possible to keep my personal information personal, but I am afraid that genealogical sites of any kind are way, way down on the bottom of the list when it comes to the dangers of such things as identity-stealing. Birthdates, to take one example, are available to the dishonest in so many ways that you would be amazed. So my "genealogical" information is available on the Web, at: http://home.sprynet.com/~darrellm/ Now before you jump to the conclusion that I don't care about privacy, let me assure you to the contrary. One example: I live in the Chicago suburbs. Two grocery store chains here, Jewel and Dominick's, offer discounts to people who have one of their mag-stripe cards. Although the nearest Jewel to my residence is an easy walk, and I have to drive to the nearest Dominick's, I have a card from Dominick's and not Jewel. Why? Because Jewel required my personal information for me to get a card, Dominick's did not. The problem with privacy is that I desire to be identified and accepted as who I am, so I can do things that are important to me: make purchases on line, have access to my home web page space while preventing its abuse by others, obtain services such as ancestry.com for which I have paid, etc. This is necessary because people cannot be trusted to choose to do only what they ought to, and so I do not like the idea that someone might pretend to be me. How do I balance the requirement that Sprynet, my ISP, know enough about me to let me log on, with my desire that Sprynet know nothing about me at all? At the moment, the answer is a password. Other areas of my life use other methods. At my bank, my mother's maiden name is Smith. Actually, it's something else, but I assure you the bank doesn't think it is Dutton. Next time I change banks, I think I'll use a Klingon mother's maiden name <grin>. I use a credit card to make purchases on line, as a sort of password, but think how much I had to divulge in order to get that card. As long as I do not care if anyone knows who I am, and especially if I do not ask anyone to trust that they will be paid for what they have given me, I can maintain an amazingly high level of privacy. Voluntarily homeless people, for example, have that luxury. Always pay cash, even for a car; pay cash rent to a landlord who doesn't require a credit check; put your utilities under an assumed name; for heaven's sake don't log on to the internet, except through your local library (if your library doesn't require identification in order to get a library card); and shop at Aldi's, which has low prices and no discount card. If I did all these things and more of the same, I could practically drop off the face of the earth. But do I really want to? I am a Christian. Not all of you will share that with me, but you may wish to understand where I am coming from. As a Christian, I am faced with the admonition to "walk in the light." That means to live a life that is not hidden from my fellow human beings. It does not mean that I should deliberately be stupid about my finances, or expose my children to human predators. But God assures me if I will trust, not some civil right but him, that any human action that affects me will be within his permitted plan. Given that, I try to be reasonably cautious but don't get excited about things. "God has not given me a spirit of fear, but has given me a spirit of power, and love, and a sound mind." Just a thought. Darrell Darrell A. Martin until recently proud of my Vermont birth currently in exile in Addison, Illinois darrellm@sprynet.com