Have you listers heard about the OBIT ban just announced? As of now, not only is it forbidden to REPOST published obits ( that means you Evelyn, and Ivy and Bill) but it's also verboten to even READ them in the first place. The purpose of the ban is to protect the privacy of the deceased as well as their family.This makes a lot of sense to me as they're the ones who pay for the publication of the obits in the first place. Assuming that there's always people out there who don't have proper respect for the dead and who would perhaps cheat on this ban and read the published obits anyway I gather that there's a move afoot to publish future obits in an encrypted format. That would preclude anyone not having the decryption key from reading these death announcements. Such decoding keys would only be held by the immediate family, the RCMP, CSIS and certain chartered banks. So a warning to listowners Sue and Vera: If you don't want to offend the sensibilities of these folks and perhaps even incur their wrath in the form of a lawsuit, I'd suggest that you institute a rule forbidding the mention of any specific person (living or dead) on the lists - starting immediately. I appreciate that this would perhaps somewhat limit the value of the lists but perhaps this could be compensated for by more emphasis on living people. And names are not really necessary. For example, genealogy software companies, well known for being ahead of their time, must have been aware of the possibility of this ban because, in the past few years, I've been sent genealogy files by various people with portions that look like this: DESCENDANTS OF JOHN SMITH 1 - John SMITH b: 1900 d: 1980 + Mary JONES b: 1905 d: 1990 2 - Living + Living 3 - Living + Living Just think how simple it will be when whole trees look like this with no mention of people's names or relevant dates or places at all. That'll make future research a snap. I can hardly wait. Regards to all. Matt (whooooops!) Change that to: Living

Come on folks, Matt's pulling your leg. Matt (or should I say Living #23,567 - as identified by my genealogy program) behave yourself :-) Regards Gordon Lane Vice Chair - Facilities Editor Chinook Alberta Family Histories Society http://www.afhs.ab.ca Family website http://www.rumbolt.com > -----Original Message----- > From: Matt Mullaly [mailto:2matt@rogers.com] > Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 1:31 PM > To: NFLD-LAB-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: [NFLD-LAB] IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT - OBIT BAN > > > > Have you listers heard about the OBIT ban just announced? > > As of now, not only is it forbidden to REPOST published > obits ( that means you Evelyn, and Ivy and Bill) but it's > also verboten to even READ them in the first place.