RootsWeb Review: RootsWeb's Weekly E-zine 17 January 2007, Vol. 10, No. 3 (c) 1998-2007 RootsWeb.com, Inc. http://www.rootsweb.com/ * * * ROOTSWEB HELPDESK: Check here for announcements: http://helpdesk.rootsweb.com/ * * * ROOTSWEB REVIEW ARCHIVES: Current and previous editions: http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/review/2007/0103.txt http://e-zine.rootsweb.com/ ========================================================= IN THIS ISSUE: 1. Editor's Desk: News and Notes 1a. Some Sites Worth Seeing 1b. Using RootsWeb: Private Concerns 2. Connecting Through RootsWeb: Shipwrecked! Proving a Family Legend 3. RootsWeb Review's Bottomless Mailbag: Shipmate Unravels More Than Yarn 4. New at RootsWeb 4a. New/Updated FreePages and HomePages 5. Humor/Humour: Old Age Can Kill You 6. Subscriptions, Submissions, Advertising, Reprints ======================================================= IN THIS ISSUE: Editor's Desk: News and Notes 1a. SOME SITES WORTH SEEING. It's name says it all: Your Guide to Finding and Using U.S. Census Records http://www.barbsnow.net/census.htm Old photos of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, mostly from the 1890s to 1900. http://www.oldukphotos.com/ * * * 1b. Using RootsWeb: Private Concerns Originally published in the RootsWeb Review 13 April 2005, Vol. 8, No. 15. Question. What can I do if I find private information about myself and my living family members published at RootsWeb? Answer. That depends upon the nature of the "private" information and where you have found it. Most information about living individuals is not considered "private" and it is widely accessible. Names, dates, and places are public, not private, information. GEDCOMs (GEnealogical Data COMmunications) submitted to WorldConnect http://wc.rootsweb.com/ are automatically "cleaned" for entries that involve individuals born prior to 1930 -- if there is no information listed in the death field. The submitter of the GEDCOM can elect an earlier date for treating individuals as "living" or can even remove the living individual from a file completely for public display purposes. The 1930 U.S. census is available to the public. Thus anyone appearing in it might appear in someone's posted family tree, even though that individual is only say 76 years young. If you find information about yourself in a WorldConnect family tree file you can contact the submitter at the e-mail address provided on any page of the database and politely request that it be removed from public display. However, unless this information is actually private (LIVING Smith is NOT private) in nature and/or concerns someone born after 1930, it can only be removed through the courtesy of the submitter. RootsWeb does not edit or alter these user-owned and controlled trees. Note: Some genealogy programs allow users to privatize (exclude) certain individuals or data when creating the GEDCOM and prior to submitting it to WorldConnect. However, this approach is not recommended as the data you remove is the very data WorldConnect's filters need to establish whether an individual is to be treated as living or dead. Also, removing data from the raw file you submit to WorldConnect prohibits it from preserving your complete genealogy file to be used by you as a backup should you need to restore lost data on your own computer. If you don't submit it, you can't retrieve it later. Q. I'm concerned about identity theft and worry that if information about my family is found at RootsWeb it could lead to my identity being stolen. A. "Identify theft" has become a buzz word, but it is a misnomer. Actually in most instances it refers to credit card theft and most of that happens offline. A recent survey reported on the Better Business Bureau website indicates that the vast majority of so-called "identity theft" cases involve "paper" theft -- not Internet theft. Even the cases that do involve the Internet are the result of computer viruses, spyware, stolen passwords, and "phishing" scams and are not due to information found on genealogy websites. Genealogy websites do not even represent a blip on the radar of this problem. http://www.bbbonline.org/idtheft/safetyQuiz.asp Q. Banks and credit card companies use my mother's maiden name for identification purposes. Won't having that information available at RootsWeb make it possible for someone to steal my identity? Thieves need more than names to get into your bank account. However, you should not use easily found information for identifiers or passwords for your bank, credit card or other financial account information. If you have previously given your mother's maiden name or your birthdate as an account identifier -- call or visit the bank or other institution where you have the account and change the identifying password to one that is not publicly available. Even if you do not post genealogical information on the Internet, your birthdate and mother's maiden name may be publicly accessible in various places and they should not be used for identification purposes. Heed the advice in these articles: http://www.creditreporting.com/id-theft.html http://www.aarp.org/bulletin/yourlife/Articles/a2004-01-28-8tips.html Safeguard all data which is actually *personal* and should be kept private -- such as your Social Security number, bank account and credit card numbers. Do not include this type of private information in any of your genealogical records -- on or off the Internet. Q. The SSDI (Social Security Death Index) at RootsWeb includes the Social Security numbers of my deceased family members. Won't this put them at risk of having their identities stolen? A. On the contrary, the publishing of the Social Security numbers and names of deceased individuals enables businesses and other interested parties to verify whether or not a Social Security number is active or whether the account holder is deceased. This actually serves to prevent identity theft by publicly posting a list of deceased individuals. Social Security numbers are not re-used. Ever since we saw the first "cries of alarm" over someone stealing your identity because you put your real name on one of your e-mails, Richard Pence, a newspaperman and long-time genealogist, has been challenging the various newsgroups and mailing lists to provide him with authenticated information showing that genealogical information was the underlying cause of an identity theft. No one has seriously tried -- except Pence claims that he did get an e-mail from someone that claimed "that it actually happened to a neighbor of my cousin." Further questioning revealed that that one statement was the extent of the sender's knowledge about the fate of the neighbor. Pence reports, "So, although I have made repeated challenges it is now approaching 20 years and no one has provided a documented case ("documented" meaning verifiable by police or court records) yet." [Editor's note: Richard Allen "Dick" Pence is one of the pioneers of computer genealogy. He was among the first to see the value of personal computers for genealogical recordkeeping and began organizing his records with one of the earliest of these machines in 1978. http://www.pipeline.com/~richardpence/ http://www.pipeline.com/~richardpence/twolongs.htm] * * * * * * * * * * Advertisements * * * * * * * * * * REQUEST A SEARCH FOR YOUR ANCESTORS AT THE FAMILY HISTORY LIBRARY ANCESTOR SEEKERS researchers at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City will search this vast collection for your ancestors from the USA, Canada, England, Scotland, Australia, Ireland, Germany, Poland, Russia, Holland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Italy. Prices start from $55 (US). For a FREE! initial e-mail consultation visit http://www.ancestorseekers.com/research.rwr/ Or join us FEBRUARY 18 -23 AT OUR SEVENTH SALT LAKE CITY RESEARCH TRIP -- THE IDEAL GENEALOGY VACATION! - a whole week at the Family History Library, accessing the world's largest collection of genealogical records with help and advice from accredited genealogist professionals. * * * * * * * * * * * * * End of Advertisements * * * * * * * * * * 2. Connecting Through RootsWeb: Originally published in the RootsWeb Review 12 March 2003, Vol. 6, No. 11. Shipwrecked! Proving a Family Legend By Margaret Woolley Gaven margaret.gaven@alumni.yorku.ca North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada My great-grandmother, Esther HENDERSON GREEN, told her granddaughter, my mother, Elsie BROWNSCOMBE WOOLLEY, why she was afraid of water. She told a story of having been shipwrecked when she was five years old, along with her parents and siblings on their emigration voyage from Scotland to Canada. Esther had to climb a ladder over open water to move from the sinking ship to a rescue ship. This event scared her so much, she raised my grandmother to be wary of water and hence my grandmother never learned to swim. My grandmother in turn raised my mother the same, but my mother determined this chain would be broken and that her children would learn to enjoy water and swim if they wanted to. Despite her personal fear, she allowed my father to teach us four children how to swim. I was always curious about the shipwreck, but did not know exactly what year my great-grandmother journeyed from Scotland, nor the name of the ship. My great-grandmother died when my mother was 10, so although she knew the story well, she did not have any more details. Over the past few years, I managed to figure out the approximate year the family must have emigrated. Last year, I spent two days at the Ontario Archives with my sister and we laboriously waded through all the microfilms of ships passenger lists looking for the family. Eureka! We found the family on the "Minerva" whose passengers arrived in Quebec 28 July 1871. That passenger list was handwritten on plain paper with only the names and ages of the passengers recorded. All the other passenger lists were on pre-printed forms, with many headings covering many other pieces of information. This seemed to confirm the shipwreck story, as presumably the original passenger lists filled out at the point of debarkation were lost along with the ship. Armed with this information, I began a search of the "Minerva's" fate. Well, there have been many "Minervas" over the years and even many "Minervas" that have been shipwrecked. However, with the help of a kind soul on the Internet, whose ancestors were also on this voyage, the actual events were finally tracked down. On July 15 1871, the "Minerva" struck rocks in heavy fog near St. Paul's Island, off Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada . . . according to a local newspaper's account the "ship struck first rock at 10 minutes to 4 p.m.; fog very thick. The boats were immediately put out and loaded with women and children; could not land where ship struck, but landed at light- house about a quarter of a mile distant. Passengers all landed safely and lighted fires on the rocks to sit by for the night." The 272 passengers and 33 crew were shipwrecked for 10 days. The first night they endured a thunderstorm as they waited on the rocks. During the time they were stranded they fished and caught cod fish and roasted them on the rocks. The steamer "Merritt" was sent to rescue them and on 24 July it picked them up and left for Quebec. However, on the way up the St. Lawrence, the "Merritt" struck a rock, but the boat slid off and it finally arrived in Quebec late on 28 July. The newspaper accounts raise more questions though. --Did the passengers lose all their belongings that they had brought with them to start a new life in Canada? --Did they live only on fish for the entire 10 days they were shipwrecked? From all accounts, including the reports of a devoted granddaughter, my great-grandmother was an amazing woman. Interestingly, she never mentioned being shipwrecked for 10 days, only that she had to climb a ladder from one boat to another over open water. Although her father was below to catch her if she fell, the event was traumatic enough for her to bring up her children to avoid water and for those children to bring up their own children to avoid water. * * * 3. FROM ROOTSWEB REVIEW'S BOTTOMLESS MAILBAG [Editor's note: The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the editor or of RootsWeb.com]. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Originally published in the RootsWeb Review 20 October 2004, Vol. 7, No. 42. Shipmate Unravels More Than Yarn By Kathy Dracup Several years ago, just after our father passed away, I was cleaning out his things and came upon his old address book. In looking through it, I discovered a person listed by his Navy rank, complete with his name and address. We knew my father had served in the military during World War II, but it was before we were born. One day I dropped this "Navy man" a note, letting him know that our father had passed away and mentioned that we had no information about his time in the service. A few days later a reply arrived, advising me that we were invited to the ship's reunion to be held in a few weeks. Also enclosed was a photograph of our father receiving the Purple Heart on the deck of his ship, along with the man from the address book and a photocopied page out of the Navy's newsletter telling about the heroic actions taken by these two men on the day. The kindness of this stranger brought tears to our eyes, and a most treasured photograph to our family. This only goes to show again, that important genealogical information can come from the least expected places. * * * 4. New at RootsWeb 4a. New User-Contributed Databases at RootsWeb http://userdb.rootsweb.com/submit/ ---------------------------------------------- The following databases have come online recently. They are searchable, but not browseable. Search: To look for specific data or occurrence of text in a file. Browse: To view the entire contents of a file or a group of files. No new Web pages were created this week. ALABAMA. Houston County. Cemetery Survey of Columbia, Alabama 1,179 records: Janie E. Wood, David L. Smith, Allen W. Smith, for the Friends of Columbia http://userdb.rootsweb.com/cemeteries NEW YORK. Genesee County. Batavia 'Daily News,' Genesee Co., New York - 1944-1945 10,429 records: Leilani Spring, Volunteer of the Genesee County, New York, Historian http://userdb.rootsweb.com/news NEW YORK. Genesee County. Batavia 'Daily News,' Genesee Co., New York - Jan-Dec 2006 10,059 records: Leilani Spring, Volunteer of the Genesee County, New York, Historian http://userdb.rootsweb.com/news 4b. New/Updated Freepages and Homepages -------------------------------------- Can your cousins find your website at RootsWeb? Has it ever been mentioned here or do you have a new, updated, or substantially revised website at RootsWeb (it will have "freepages" or "homepages" in the URL)? Send the URL (its Web address), along with a brief description, including the major pertinent surnames and what is available on your site, to: Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com * * * If your genealogical or historical related site is located somewhere other than at RootsWeb.com, you can add the link here: http://resources.rootsweb.com/~rootslink/addlink.html * * * No new Web pages were created this week. * * * To Request a Free Web Account: http://accounts.rootsweb.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------- Some of these webpages might not yet be accessible. They are created by volunteers, so if one that interests you isn't up yet, please check again in a few days or next week. http://www.rootsweb.com/~xxxxxx[accountname] U.S.A. azcglend -- Glendale City (Arizona) azcmesa -- Mesa City (Arizona) azcpeori -- Peoria City (Arizona) azctempe -- Tempe City (Arizona) cahags -- Hayward Area Genealogical Society (California) njcapema -- Cape May County (New Jersey) ohwgg -- Wellington Genealogy Group (Ohio) tnthbusd -- Colonel Thomas Hart Benton (Tennessee) Chapter USD ITALY itacaver -- Aversa City (Italy) itaccaiz -- Caiazzo City (Italy) itacsanm -- San Marcellino City (Italy) BOLIVIA bolwgw -- Bolivia World GenWeb * * * New Mailing Lists at RootsWeb Request a New Mailing List: http://resources.rootsweb.com/adopt/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- For information and an index to the more than 30,000 RootsWeb-hosted genealogy Mailing Lists and for easy subscribing (joining) options go to: http://lists.rootsweb.com/ No new mailing lists were created this past week. * * * 5. Humor/Humour: -------------------------------------- Thanks to Marilyn (strout99@hotpop.com); who writes: I've been transcribing county death schedules from New Brunswick, and discovered that: Sarah died in 1891, she was a 67-year-old housekeeper, and cause of death was "worn out," length of illness, 2 months. Then there's Margaret, she died in 1888, she was 92 years old, cause of death "old age," length of illness, "1 week" Phoebe, on the other hand, was only 88 when she died in 1888. She too, died of "old age," but she had it "several years." William died in 1888, at 84, of "old age," but he had it "not long." Mrs. Seeley, age 91, died in 1888 of old age, she only had it "one day." * * * Found a funny or "proper name for the job" in old records or an amusing entry in census, parish, church, etc. records? Send them to: Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com 6. Subscriptions, Submissions, Advertising, Reprints ----------------------------------------------------- SUBSCRIPTIONS. To manage your e-mail communications (i.e. to subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter, or to sign up for others), visit our newsletter management center any time at: http://newsletters.rootsweb.com/ If you use a spam-filtering program, in order to receive the RootsWeb Review please make sure that you're allowing e-mail from: newsletter@reply.myfamilyinc.com The RootsWeb Review is a free publication of MyFamily.com, Inc., 360 West 4800 North, Provo, UT, 84604 * * * The RootsWeb Review does not publish or answer genealogical queries, and the editor regrets that she is unable to provide any personal research assistance or advice. RootsWeb Review welcomes short (500 words or less) articles, humor, stories, or letters, and reserves the right to edit all submissions. The announcement of books and products is provided as a community service and is not an endorsement in any way. All mail sent to the RootsWeb Review editor is considered to be for publication -- send in plain text (please, no attachments) to: Editor-RWR@rootsweb.com and please include your full name and e-mail address in the text. * * * ROOTSWEB REVIEW ADVERTISING CONTACTS. Ad Sales Worldwide: Shana Davis, creative@myfamilyinc.com * * * REPRINTS. Permission to reprint articles from RootsWeb Review is granted unless specifically stated otherwise, provided: (1) the reprint is used for non-commercial, educational purposes; and (2) the following notice appears at the end of the article: Previously published in RootsWeb Review: 17 January 2007, Vol. 10, No. 3. * * * *