Privacy On The Internet

There is NO good reason to post personal information on the Internet about living people, other than yourself.

I am constantly amazed at the detailed information people post in family trees about relatives, who usually don't even know it is posted. In my own experience, I have had altercations regarding the private details posted about my family.

ONE TIME, when I first got online, I mailed our genealogy (USPS) to a Family Society. It is a long-established organization and I didn't think anything about it. Seven or eight years ago, they did not have a website and one could not have imagined that they would eventually put every scrap of information online. - But they did.

My sister had a month-long brush with genealogy in 1997, at which time she sent out our genealogy files with abandon! But, again, at that time, one could not have forseen the countless serious issues, such as identity theft, that have proliferated on the Internet.

YES, vital records are a matter of public record. But that does not mean they should be posted on the Internet! These records, related to living people, should remain at the COURTHOUSE! Some states, as well as the District of Columbia, do not issue birth information to outside parties until 100 years have passed; for deaths, it is fifty years. Otherwise, ONLY immediate family or legal representatives may obtain the information. - This is as it should be!

Divorces, adoptions and other court actions ARE in the public domain in SOME states... but in others they are CLOSED and require a COURT ORDER to access. So why should some distant cousin have the right to post information that is really no one's business? Again, PERSONAL RECORDS should remain in the COURTHOUSE and not be posted online for immediate public consumption by the curious and the criminal.

One of the first forums for posting genealogy information was Rootsweb.com's WorldConnect. Of course, Rootsweb is owned by Ancestry.com, a lucrative BUSINESS that sells genealogy resources and information. They CLAIM to PROTECT PRIVACY.

After finding a particulary disturbing file at WorldConnect that contained erroneous information about my immediate family, I tried to write to the person who submitted the genealogy file. I received no reply so I wrote to Rootsweb/Ancestry. I was told that they do NOT edit or remove files -- EVER. They claim they have NO responsibily or obligation to remove ANYTHING. Rather, I had the responsiblity to track down the file submitter and deal with it. NEVER MIND if the submitter had died or no longer had the posted email address. According to Rootsweb.com/Ancestry.com, it was "NOT" their problem...

Additionally, Rootsweb/Ancestry HELPdesk person, (name provided upon request), stated that people often disagree on genealogical information. When I stated that MY immediate family was the subject of my concern and I KNOW who was married to whom and who was divorced, I was told that they do not have the time and/or the staff to deal with people's conflicts regarding genealogy information; it is not possible for them to sort out who is right and who is wrong. - Each message from the alleged HELPdesk person was more condescending and belittling than the last. It was hopeless.

And the subscription site, Ancestry.com, owner of Rootsweb.com (all under the umbrella of THE GENERATIONS NETWORK) is ONLY interested in how much money they can make from our personal information and genealogies. On the one hand they claim to protect the privacy of children but they post the names, addresses, phone numbers and sometimes ages of members in a family in their PUBLIC RECORDS index, which gives NO specific source for the data. They simply say it came from "public records." It is hard to imagine what PUBLIC RECORDS would contain this much information about a family! I would like to know ONE example......

There is a REASON why the FEDERAL CENSUS records are not released for SEVENTY YEARS! It is about PRIVACY! - So on my sites, I abide by the SEVENTY-YEAR RULE.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE think before you "share" your genealogy file! Sharing information about long-dead ancestors is one thing but consider the LIVING, especially children, before posting information about them.