Re: Find Out Anything! Sort of.

On Wed, 26 Sep 2007 00:38:26 +1000, John O <ohnjay@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Ye Old One wrote:
On Sun, 23 Sep 2007 17:35:05 +0100, Charles Ellson
<charles@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> enriched this group when s/he wrote:

On Sun, 23 Sep 2007 09:06:34 GMT, Ye Old One <usenet@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 19 Sep 2007 16:09:25 +0100, Simon Dean
<sjdean@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> enriched this group when s/he wrote:

First of all, thank you to those that gave me the link for
http://www.familyhistoryonline.net/ - what a great little website. I
especially like the NBI and its other records. That website has oepned
up some other avenues of research for me, so for that, I am grateful.

I've taken the opportunity to phone the church in Hanging Heaton to see
if I can get a transcription of the grave stone or find out where it is
located. This is the big piece of the puzzle that I am hoping will
confirm that the Luke Dean I have unearthed from Castleford, is THE Luke
Dean for my branch of Deans.

As an aside though, I recently had an email from a chap who requested
that I remove their data from my family tree on the internet, as they
have a job which, shall we say, demands a little secrecy.

I pointed out that it was his uncle or something that gave me the data
so should have known many years ago that it was already on the internet.
I was suspicious, but complied with the request.
If it was just genealogical information (Name, DOB, Marriage and the
like) then I feel you were wrong to censor your data.
But it struck me, even if that data isn't there, if you're serious - it
is easy to find information.

I was once in hospital, and just by keeping your eyes and ears open, you
hear people talking about their family, their star sign, their age. If
they're over 50, it's easy to obtain their birth certificates.

Under 50, it's a little more difficult.

But not impossible.

Social networking sites like FaceBook, and all other online sources,
profiles on IMDb, Flickr, Last.fm, various forums, all contain details.

I was watching a program the other day about anorexics. It gave their
full name and age. Search Google for one of those names, you find
publicly released letters thanking various hospitals with confirmation
of the parents names.

Dig a little deeper, and Im sure you'll find people saying "I was XX
years old today" as they post on their blog showing a date. Bingo bango.

Quite sinister. But we don't abuse the system.

But to the wrong people, they could quite easily. Which is why I don't
quite understand the concern over family history websites. It's just
information that's publicly available.

Anyone serious about harrassing you or committing other criminal
activities will do such, with or without family trees published on the net.

Cya
Simon
I have always, and will always, take the line that the basic data is
public domain anyway and it is wrong to censor data in any way.

The basic data are disparate. What the law tends to control is
assembled and/or accumulated data which is generally not in the public
domain.

Gathering data that is public domain does not in itself make the
collected data copyright - that requires some further work.

Creating a structure (family tree) from the data would probably be
sufficient.

The DPA and similar legislation is not concerned with copyright but
with the gathering of data on private individuals and its possible
misuse. That is how e.g. identical sets of the same data can be legal
in the hands of one person but not in the hands of another.

Information concerned with your own family history (which in most
cases probably includes information on strangers which is used for
elimination purposes) would be generally legal when held for the
exempt purposes of recreational/family affairs/etc. but starts to
enter a grey area as the family connection gets more tenuous; flogging
it to someone for use as a mailing list is IMU going to get both
parties to the transaction potentially in trouble. The data in all
three cases can be identical but what is permitted to be done with it
is subject to regulation if it concerns any living persons; in our
context that usually means doing nothing in particular except not
putting the data to a use which effectively requires a registration of
its existence.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Re: Find Out Anything! Sort of.
    ... That website has oepned ... Dean for my branch of Deans. ... Gathering data that is public domain does not in itself make the ... Creating a structure (family tree) from the data would probably be ...
    (soc.genealogy.britain)
  • Re: Find Out Anything! Sort of.
    ... That website has oepned ... Dean for my branch of Deans. ... Gathering data that is public domain does not in itself make the ... Creating a structure (family tree) from the data would probably be ...
    (soc.genealogy.britain)
  • Re: Re: Find Out Anything! Sort of.
    ... That website has oepned ... Dean for my branch of Deans. ... that I remove their data from my family tree on the internet, ... Gathering data that is public domain does not in itself make the ...
    (soc.genealogy.britain)
  • Re: Find Out Anything! Sort of.
    ... That website has oepned ... Dean for my branch of Deans. ... that I remove their data from my family tree on the internet, ... public domain anyway and it is wrong to censor data in any way. ...
    (soc.genealogy.britain)
  • Re: Find Out Anything! Sort of.
    ... That website has oepned ... Dean for my branch of Deans. ... that I remove their data from my family tree on the internet, ... hear people talking about their family, their star sign, their age. ...
    (soc.genealogy.britain)