Greetings List Members, The following is a very relevant item I received from one of my other lists, which is so very important to all of us, so thought I'd share with you... People are having their identities stolen daily by well-meaning relatives posting private information about them on the web. PLEASE be careful and considerate! Thanks. FROM ANCESTRY: <<A major concern with putting a Web page online, is that you should not include information on living individuals on the page. Providing too much personal data can be dangerous. Mother's maiden name, birthdays, and other biographical information is often used by banks, credit card companies, and other institutions for identification purposes. Making personal information available online can expose your living family members to possible fraud.>> And from Missing Links: [email protected] in Missing Links, Vol. 4, No. 12 writes: << Technology enables us to share genealogical information easily and quickly via e-mail, mailing lists, chat rooms, bulletin boards, Newsgroups, GEDCOMs, CDs, and Web sites, but it has created a monster. In our eagerness to obtain and to share information about our families we are forgetting that our living family members have a right to privacy. We should obtain their permission before sharing any information about them with others -- in any format via any means. One researcher reports, "In just one file that I downloaded . . . I found more than 200 names of persons born within the last 70 years . . . " Another notes, "I was shocked and dismayed to find that someone had copied my entire GEDCOM and put it up on their Web site. While I have no objection to anyone using my dead ancestors, this person had included the living as well, right down to my six-year-old niece." In preparing a talk for my local genealogical society on this subject, I searched a number of home pages. At one I found the names of everyone in the family, when and where born, right on down to a month-old-grandson -- including the hospital in which he was born. Some genealogists have written to me claiming it does not matter what we put up on the Web since "this information is all public information, anyway." When I queried several of them to provide the source of birth information posted on their home pages, it turns out in every instance that the data were either supplied by a cousin or they obtained it from a GEDCOM. In other words, they had not found the information from a public source at all. The following policy is posted at "Don't Mess with the Living, Texas" <http://home.sprynet.com/~harrisfarm/warning.htm>: "It is the policy of the Texas GenWeb Project to protect the rights and privacy of our living relatives. We strongly encourage all involved to do their best not to place information on the Internet about anyone who is still living, unless you have their express permission to do so." Among the suggestions for ways to protect living family members are: -- When requesting information (via e-mail, chat, queries, etc.) do not include personal information on living persons. -- When responding to requests for information, especially to someone you really do not know, do not provide them with personal information on living persons. They could post it on the Web or do who knows what else with it. -- Before sharing GEDCOM files with others, remove information on all living persons. Programs such as GEDClean, GEDLiving, and GEDPrivy will do this for you. -- If you have a genealogy Web site, be sure to remove information on all living persons. (Cyndi's Genealogy Home Page Construction Kit <http://www.cyndislist.com/construc.htm> has tips and links to the GEDCOM utility programs that will exclude information about the living.) British genealogists are using the "GEN100" logo to signify that their Web site respects a cut-off date of 100 years, and to advise that information which is less than 100 years old will not be divulged. Many Americans use 1920 as the cut-off point, since that is the most recent census available to the public. There is an excellent article by Candace L. Doriott on this subject in the recent issue of "Genealogical Computing." (Winter 1999, Vol. 18, No. 3). It is entitled 'Competing Values: Privacy Issues in Genealogy." Subscription information to this periodical can be found at Ancestry's Web site: <http://www.ancestry.com/> * * * * * Written by <[email protected]> Previously published by Julia M. Case and Myra Vanderpool Gormley, CG, Missing Links: A Weekly Newsletter for Genealogists, Vol. 4, No. 12, 19 March 1999. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------ Permission to Reprint aricles from MISSING LINKS is granted unless specifically stated otherwise, PROVIDED: (1) the reprint is used for non-commercial, educational purposes; and (2) a copy of this notice appears at the end of the article: Written by <author's name, e-mail address, and URL, if given>. Previously published by Julia M. Case and Myra Vanderpool Gormley, CG, Missing Links: A Weekly Newsletter for Genealogists, Vol. 4, No. 12, 19 March 1999. Please visit the MISSING LINKS Web page at <http://www.rootsweb.com/~mlnews/index.htm>. Good Hunting, jannette