Share and Share Alike

A blog post by Judy G. Russell on her blog The Legal Genealogist was published in July 2016. Judy's words are important and her post should be read by all genealogists.

The expectation of some genealogists that we must share all research that we do, is something we will all be faced with at some point.  I call that the GIFS (Genealogy is For Sharing) mentality.

In fact it is not incumbent on us to share anything we don't choose to share. My belief is that those who expect or demand full sharing haven't thought about the reasons why an individual may not choose to share their research or a document or a family photograph.

Sometimes I share, sometimes I do not. Why do I not share all the time?

1. Because sometimes I choose to write a book about  my findings. This allows me to spread the information further afield than just one person, and also gives me a small portion of money back against what I spent in time, obtaining documents, travel expenses and so on.

2. Because I have seen my careful, methodical research taken and mixed in with incorrect information, causing a horrific genealogy mess that gets published in an online tree or passed via email to others. In other words, I lose control of the quality of the work I did.

Other times I will gladly share all my research with an interested descendant. It depends on the interaction I have with that person, how willing they are to share in return and what they plan to do with the documents and photos.

I have other reasons for sharing/not sharing but let's hear from you on how you feel about this topic. Meantime please take a few minutes to read Judy's blog post No Right to Sharing

The SSDI is Disappearing From Sight

Genealogists who use the free online SSDI (Social Security Death Index) to find ancestors may have a tougher hunt ahead.

In the past, genealogists could access the SSDI through numerous websites - Ancestry.com, Rootsweb.com, GenealogyBank and others.

But concerns arose that the Social Security Numbers given with the SSDI were being used in Identity Theft scams and  U.S. Senators blitzed these websites to request that they stop displaying this information. In the face of mounting pressure, many of the genealogy websites caved.

This week, many of the sites withdrew access entirely (Rootsweb for example withdrew the SSDI completely) or blocked access so only paying members could view the details. Ancestry blocked access by putting the database behind its  subscrption membership wall and will no longer provide the Social Security numbers for anyone who died in the previous 10 years. Genealogy Bank still has free access to the SSDI but you must register with a name and email to view the data.

It seems quite a leap to me to make the assumption that thieves were using the SSDI to gather  Social Security Numbers. I'm quite sure they found much faster and easier ways to get these numbers. And so the genealogy community is forced to watch as the SSDI slowly disappears, either behind closed membership walls or removed completely. Is this yet another example of a few bad apples spoiling it for the rest of us (genealogists)?

For more articles on this topic see Website stops displaying Social Security numbers for recently dead and Stealing from the dead.

Caveat: the two articles above from ABC News are in favour of the SSDI being removed.  I expect to see other bloggers discussing this topic from a different point of view than ABC so keep your eyes open for other articles

Shame on Viewpoint!

I still haven't heard back from Nova Scotia Historical Vital Statistics website re incorrect images being linked to their searchable index, but it's only been 5 days since I reported the problems.

However I want to warn everyone about the Image Viewer you must download and use to view the images of the records. It's Viewpoint Media Player and you must install it to see the online images. I installed it on Tuesday when I first went to the site. It works great, that's not a problem. BUT two days later, I turned on my computer and a popup window informed me that Viewpoint had an "update" and asked if I wanted to install it. I thought the update would result in even clearer images so I clicked on OKAY.

Imagine my surprise a few minutes later to be informed that Viewpoint TASKBAR was now installed on my browser. I didn't want their Taskbar, I use the Google Taskbar. I had refused it once already. But here it was and I was also sitting on the Viewpoint home page (not my choice).

I tried opening a second browser window but it flashed on my monitor and closed. I tried going to another website and could not. The so-called "update" was nothing more than a sneaky way to get me to take the Viewpoint Taskbar.

I was annoyed but immediately went to my Windows Add/Remove Programs icon, found Viewpoint and removed it. Gone. Next surprise -- I opened a second browser window and the Viewpoint Taskbar was back! I went back to Add/remove -- the Viewpoint files were back. I removed them again. The same thing happened. This went on several times until I was finally able to remove the unwanted Viewpoint Taskbar permanently.

I wasted a lot of time getting rid of something I didn't want in the first place. And to the skeptics, no, the popup did not advise me that the Taskbar was going to be installed. At no time did I get an opt-in or opt-out choice.

Shame on Viewpoint! That's very underhanded!