I have received questions on internet courtesy and ethics, so I am on my soap box right now. I don't mean to give offense or speak to anyone in paticular. please listen, the comment is rather long. If I understand the copyright laws correctly, something written in an email is as protected under that law as something written on paper. Before sharing data received via email please check back with the sender to see if is okay to pass that data to others who were not part of the original address list. Also please don't share information about living people without their permission and don't post that information to the net without permission. Following the Census bureau rules of release of private information is a good rule of thumb. Census bureau doesn't release data less than 72 years old. Releasing private information such as year of birth, locality of birth, and parents can provide enough information on a living person to help someone steal their indentity. Indentity theft is becomming an issue and if it happens to you it will be an issue that may take years to clean up. Idenity theft occurs when someone takes your name and records and makes it their own, Usually fraud is involved and the real person is left holding/owning/owing the bag for what the thief stole. It will be hard to prove that you are not the person who purpetuated the fraud. I know of a woman in Seattle who afters two plus years is still trying to reclaim her indentity. Of course the most commonly cited sources of information for theft are the genealogy boards, mailing lists, and websites. We are such a sharing community that we frequently don't think of the common courtesy of asking permission to share data or the possible effects of free and open data sharing. Please continue to share data back and forth, that is why we are here, just be a little more thoughtful of sharing information on the living. Also think to ask your new found cousin if you can share with someone else the data they just sent. As you share information ask yourself a couple of questions 1) is the information adequately documented or not and 2) whether you are willing for the data to become set in concrete as truth if you are not sure of its veracity. Some with whom you share data that is in the "maybe possible category" will forget the attached "maybe" and make it truth. Deborah Byrd list owner