Paul and All, My understanding is that the current concerns regarding privacy ramifications have to do not so much with legal liability per se, but with "identity theft", the use of mother's maiden names by credit card companies as a "proof", etc. The concern is that, yes while the information is public, generally speaking, persons can easily access or assume identities with knowledgte of name, birthplace, birthdate and parents' name. That in fact these pirates do go to genealogy websites and harvest the information. That the more clever among them can get access to credit card numbers and work backwards. Apparently employees of companies that do a big credit card business (stores, restaurants, etc.) have done this (copied down numbers from credit card receipts.. The issue is to NOT do things that make it easier for there to be credit card/identity fraud. Such Information available on the internet with simple searches is therefore a particular problem. So, yes you can legally put the information out there as identified by Paul on the internet (and searches do hit posts on rootsweb lists), but you have to ask yourself if you want to put others at risk. On one list I belong to, the list administrator is so sensitive to this that she discourages complete transcriptions of obituaries with living descendants. The issue of just "Living" and no name being given for people long dead in gedcoms, is one that I can't answer but have also encountered. I think it has to do with how the information is entered, coded, presented. Some others who may have information at worldconnect in a gedcom would be better able to answer that. I think it is unintentional, but, I know there are people that submit gedcoms that then change email addresses and can't be contacted or are unfamiliar with whatever mechanics that lead to the listing of children born 1780 as "Living". Best Regards, Janet Hunter