From: [email protected] > From: "Peter R Booth" <[email protected]> > > > If looking for living descendants just be aware of privacy > issues.> > > Paranoid nonsense! > > There aren't any privacy issues except those introduced by those who are > obsessed with secrecy and censorship, which has no place in the modern world and > most certainly does not belong in family history > > If family history is not about the living as well as the dead, then > what on earth is it about? How are people supposed to find living relatives and connect with them, > also share their family history and mutual sources, if they are not allowed to connect with > one another? > > Utter, utter nonsense !!!!!> May I be permitted to add a few points? 1) Anyone who gives their mother's maiden name as a codeword to a bank or building society or any other financial institution is off their trolley! If you have done so, then change it immediately. All they want is a codeword that only you and they recognise. 2) There is absolutely nothing sacrosanct about living people. We all appear in telephone books, electoral registers and in lord-knows-how-many databases held by government departments, the NHS, large companies, etc. How many times do you phone a company wanting to order something and a young girl asks you for your postcode and she then tells you who who are and where you live? We all appear in databases everywhere, so why get obsessed with privacy in Rootsweb lists? 3) Should family historians and genealogists really participate in suppressing freedom of information concerning living people? I urge everyone to consider these questions. -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE