Dear Washburn List I have noticed a number of people giving out their home addresses on the Washburn List recently. Be very careful to whom you give such information. Making personal information readily available to the public in a forum such as this does carry some risk. Just look up your own name in the Rootsweb Archives (or almost any search engine that brings you back to Rootsweb) and you'll see how easy it is for total strangers - not necessarily even people who subscribe to a genealogical list - to find out where you live once you have posted that information. Be VERY careful to whom you do give this information- you do not know people you meet on the internet....no matter how nice they may seem. Be certain before you give such information that you don't mind ANYONE in a public forum knowing all about you. Genealogy has become a universal hobby. It may surprise you to learn that there are a significant number of prison inmates working on family history: they have the time and the access! (According to several Society Historians' accounts, it is even not uncommon for inmates to apply for membership to heritage societies.) Unable to go to research facilities, they do most of their work through the vast resources of the internet. The dark side of this is that it has become a significant new source of theft - numbers of convicts have been caught networking with crooks on the outside to share and abuse the personal data they glean in this manner. There has been an enormous increase in identity theft lately. Once a thief has your mother's maiden name and your address he or she can easily become you long enough to empty your accounts and destroy your credit. You won't know about it until it's too late. It can take years to reverse the damage. And we are also cautioned about ever sending a personal check to someone whom you don't know. Along with your personal information, the account numbers printed on your checks may enable a thief to make a withdrawal of funds from your account well beyond the check amount. It does not pay to take chances. Just a friendly word of caution. The internet has opened a LOT of doors - good and bad. Don't let a bad experience be YOUR teacher! Barbara Dudley Washburn-Lienhard Woodside@Bicnet.net