Thanks Ryk. I'll be most interested as my Stewarts are supposed to belong to the Garth family. Virginia

My apologies to the Mod if this is considered off-topic. It pertains to all genealogists who use RootsWeb WorldConnect to host your GED. If you feel it's appropriate, please forward this to your colleagues on the other Rootsweb genealogy list-serves. Twice now, after updating my GED at RootsWeb's WorldConnect, I have been solicited by a new genealogy web site called www.appletree.com. They are asking me to upload my GED to their site. Upon closer inspection of their site I observed that they place a high emphasis on connecting living people to living people, especially celebrities, and they have a naive goal of "connecting every living person" through one giant world tree. I have a personal philosphy (consistent with RootsWeb's policy) of NOT publishing private information on living persons. It appeared to me that Applewood encourages sharing private information on living persons. So I replied to their solicitation email and asked them directly about their privacy policy. Indeed, I was correct. They replied that they see it as essential for their project that it include information on living persons. I indicated that I felt this was a violation of personal privacy and I was NOT interested in participating in their project. Yet, when I updated my GED just a few days ago they sent me yet another solicitation letter trying to get me to send them my GED. It appears right now they are only targetting RootsWeb users who have very large GEDs. (Mine is 20,000+.) If you are concerned about protecting the privacy of living persons in your database then I would urge you extreme caution if you are contacted by Applewood before you send them your GED. I am NOT sending them my GED and I have told them so and I have asked them to stop soliciting me. Ryk Brown Stewarts of Balquhidder Research Group

In one sense it is off-topic but in another, it might be seen as helpful warning to others. I suppose the Appletree folks are paying attention to who has the larger files on Rootsweb/Ancestry and targeting them for their own personal reasons (financial gain). Some discussion of this can be helpful but keeping that to a minimum will also be appreciated by all who do not have such large files uploaded. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We have 465 members on this list so chances are there are a fair number who will benefit because of it. Best wishes, Jim "Pops" Jackson - Perthshire admin -----Original Message----- From: perthshire-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:perthshire-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Ryk & Heather Sent: Monday, August 30, 2010 9:28 PM To: perthshire@rootsweb.com Subject: [PERTHSHIRE] Caution re: Appletree.com My apologies to the Mod if this is considered off-topic. (Snipped)