RootsChat.Com
General => The Common Room => Topic started by: custard_pot on Sunday 10 September 06 12:21 BST (UK)
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I had a very spooky contact on Genes this week. He asked me to send him a personal email which I did. He sent me an attachment which was my family in a word document which he had done.
The information which he had was very in depth a lot which is not even in my tree. I asked where he had got it and he said he only lived a short distance from Warwick records office and he used IGI, Ancestry and 1837, but some of the information he could not get from there. Like my daughters adoptive name.
It really spooked me especially seeing he is not a direct relative, he is related to my GT Grandmother's first Husband.
I have since changed my tree so that living relatives are not shown and I would advise everyone else to do the same.
It still does not answer where he got his information from though.
Christine
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Hi custard_pot
Everyone alive is recorded somewhere or other and complete strangers know who you are and where you live. Some of them also know how much you earn and what you spend your money on.
You spend much of your time finding out who your ancestors were and where they lived and all their other secrets.
If you are still paranoid about how he discovered your secret then I suggest you contact him again and ask him in discrete way how he managed to find out about that particular fact. It's probably out there in the public domain somewhere.
downside
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I'm very cautious on GR when i reply to hot match's i don't automatically let people see my tree but ask them a question. when i get a good enough reply and think we may have a connection only then do i allow them to see my tree. it takes longer but it saves people finding out things about you that you dont want them to know. i sopose it is easier for people to find out alot about you if you and your family have lived in the same area for a large amount of years.
its a shame we have to be cautious but its the best way.
Bitz
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Bitz
I second that emotion!! ;)
That is exactly how I go on now, ask some questions and gain a conversation before I give up my tree so that I know there is a genuine reason for wanting to see it.
Kerry
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Good advice on hiding living relatives. I've just changed my tree to do this.
Thanks for the advice.
Thudders
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Good advice on hiding living relatives.
I'll second that, and not just on GR.
If anybody reading this has a website, the same thing applies, so just in case you didn't hear this the first time:
Don't put any information about living relatives on any website !
Bob
ps.
It's not only dangerous, but you also have to ask everybody on that tree to give you their permission to publish in a public place.
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Hi Bob
What do you mean by dangerous?
It's not like you are giving out your bank details and passwords and home address.
I think custard_pot was actually supplied with information by a contact rather than the other way around. If she had thanked the contact for the information and probed his sources a bit more then she might find out where he obtained the information. I suspect it was from the local G.R.O. index and adoption registers.
Maybe the G.R.O. index should be banned because it contains details about living people and telephone directories and electoral rolls.
Anonymous rootschat person.
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I agree that it is necessary to hide living relatives on your Genes Reunited tree. I also don't include children. Before I realized this one chap had copied all my living relatives onto his tree. I still get cross every time his name comes up at the top of my hot matches list. There are certain individuals who have hundreds of names on their trees and must get them this way. It is often very hard to find the family connection. When I have got hot matches I message person but make sure I don't let them see my tree until I am happy. In fact it is easy to add a name which is not genuine and then get contact with persons with that surname. This could be used to find people. I notice now Births deaths and marriages are available up to 2004 on 1837 on line and one could trace former boyfriend etc and find if they ever married or had children. Also B D and M certificates can be bought for £7 each. This could be used for identity theft. Worrying isn't it.
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Hi Rustidge
B D and M certificates can be bought for £7 each
especially by people researching their family trees.
This could be used for identity theft. Worrying isn't it.
How do think you get junk mail form companies that you have never heard of?
How do these junk mail compaines know where you live?
Local councils sell the information to junk mail companies.
There is no escape. Many strangers know who you are and where you live. They are probably watching you right now. :)
downside
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Yes - try 192.com - the only thing they got wrong on me was the aerial view of my house - chose the wrong one didn't they ::) ::)
Gadget
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Hello all.
Last year I was contacted by a gentleman through GR. During our conversations he told me that he had a lot of problems caused by a relative adding all his details onto their tree. As a result of this I now don't allow anyone access to view my tree. I make enquiries when contacted, and if their information corresponds with information I have, I then conduct information through emails. When I am asked for permission to view my tree, I just explain that I do not allow access. If their query isn't genuine, then there's no more contact. :) Lyn
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It's not like you are giving out your bank details and passwords and home address.
It's as good as, downside ! the banks still cling to the "what's your mothers maiden name" - like it's something no one else will know ::)
Aside from the Data protection issues, if anyone is really interested in family history, they would make the links back through grandparents anyway so why is there a need to publish, your, or your parents names, which just makes it easier for anyone wanting to commit fraud.
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I think the banks are a little more street wise now. They usually ask for last transaction or direct debits, etc. these days.
But we're all on various lists everywhere and we can only opt out of some of them, so.....
JL
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Hi Wendi
My bank(s) ask for PIN numbers (on line) in addition to details like my mothers maiden name.
If someone wants to commit fraud there are easier places, like public libraries (electoral roll). A name appearing on a family tree could provide a name but as in the Day of the Jackal dead ones are even better than the living.
Cover up those gravestones now. ;)
If you are alive and I presume you are, is your name the first one you enter in a family tree? I can understand and respect someone's wishes if they do not want to be included in a on line family tree, but getting back to the initial thread I do not think that was the case. The person concerned merely had a Word document containing custard_pot's family details.
downside
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Yes you are right, custard_pot was just unnerved by the detail the person had obtained, which I guess just goes to show how much is available if you know where to look.
Dead is best, I'll remember that ;D from an occasionally alive Wendi :)
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If someone wants to commit fraud there are easier places, like public libraries (electoral roll).
It should not be possible to obtain the electoral roll from your local library these days - you should only be able to consult it at your local council office, where they will want to know what your interest is. The version sold to junk-mail advertisers is not complete.
Our local library has put a 30-year closure on them in line with data protection guidelines, but the official line is that only the current register is to be used and that all previous ones should be destroyed. If libraries followed this advice then almost 300 years worth of the history of our ancestors would be lost for ever.
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I wish I'd heeded some of this advice before I let a 'rellie' view my tree. I still don't know if anything untoward has been done but it leaves me with an uneasy feeling. 'Rellie' contacted me thru a hot match - she thinks her great grandfather was my grandfather's brother. Gives name of her g grandfather, her grandmother, her mother and finally herself. Well I don't know them from Adam - an elusive family line so feel that maybe she can provide me with further info, I thinks.
However she says her mother would dearly love to know more about her family. Apologises for tardy contact but has a toddler to look after, husband's business needs attention and to top it all she is studying for a degree and decorating. Naively I tell her all about my grandfather, give her access to my tree. I get access to hers, only to find she is the only one listed in her tree. She gives very little info about herself. I tried to find her on the BMD and she does not appear to exist on the birth year she gives. When I reply to her email I get no reply. I leave it several weeks, after all she says she is up to her eyeballs. I dropped her an email just to ask her to confirm she received the info I gave her. No reply so finally I withdraw her access to my tree.
This reply to this thread is one of genuine concern as to whether personal info has been gleaned for other purposes. I maybe paranoid here but it really does worry me. I hope I am wrong and 'rellie' has had an unfortunate series of events regarding her degree, husband's business, decorating and god forbid her little one. This experience has left me too wise after the events. I didn't check out her birth record until recently - this should have been searched for prior to my opening up my tree to her but in the throws of initial enthusiasm I genuinely thought that everyone was happy to share and was as eager as I was.
Sallysmum
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You should not give your pin number over the phone to anyone even the bank
You can opt out of having you name on an edited register of electors which I is the one sold to companies
My tree on GR is very basic. It starts from my Grandparents. I don't supply it straight away but usually do after a couple of e-mails if they are related
Sylviaann
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Just to let you all know.
On GenesReunited - if you go to 'your account details', under the personal details bit is a box which you can tick to hide living relatives. This means that no one will show on your tree (apart from you) born within the last 120 years unless you have given a death date
I think these people still show up on the lists but not on your actual tree. ;)
Helen
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Hi Sylviaann
Just to clear up a misunderstanding, I was referring to banking on line when I mentioned the PIN. Actually, you have to supply to randomly supply elements of the PIN rather the whole PIN plus random elements of a password aswell.
I agree that when you phone a bank the security is not as secure and the details they ask for can be gleaned from a genealogical website.
downside
PS has anyone had anything like fraud happen as a result of making contact via GR or posting details on a website?
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I have all my living relatives (unless they have given me permission) blanked out on GR as well as my website.
On the website I have not included anyone below my generation (again unless I have their permission) You will find from me back but nothing else so at leats my children are safe
It is worrying to think that anyone can get this info about us from all kinds of places
Carol
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I wouldn't publish details of living relatives because they may not want even other relatives to know that they are 10 years older than they claim and got married the week before the birth of their first child.
However, maybe I am naive, but I can't think of any information we usually put into a family tree that could be used for fraud. If anyone wants to steal an identity they have their pick of every entry in the GRO, and getting a birth certificate will give the mother's maiden name. My bank has never asked me for my grandmother's eldest brother's name or my great-grandfather's occupation.
I know that it sometimes seems that we can't trust anyone any more, but given that I am fascinated by the enormous web of connections that went into producing me, and eager to hear from anyone else who is part of my particular web, I am really grateful that we have so much information available, through the government and many private sources, and I really hope that people won't be put off from communicating as freely as is decently possible.
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Just to let you all know.
On GenesReunited - if you go to 'your account details', under the personal details bit is a box which you can tick to hide living relatives. This means that no one will show on your tree (apart from you) born within the last 120 years unless you have given a death date
I think these people still show up on the lists but not on your actual tree. ;)
I've just done this closed GR and re-opened and my living relatives are still on there should I re-boot PC?
subee x
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Subee,
I think because it's your own tree, you can still see all relatives - both living and those that have 'forged ahead'!
Thudders
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Hi Thudnut,
Yep you're right I've just gone back into it and it says "if the member is viewing their own tree it won't change at all"
phew!! It's probably ok but I guess we all just need to be careful.... ::) :D
subee x
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Yes - try 192.com - the only thing they got wrong on me was the aerial view of my house - chose the wrong one didn't they ::) ::)
Gadget
my niece has a tom tom and we were going out for the day so she tried out her tomtom as you do and she put in my post code and it gave her directions to go to the square a residential area just behind my house.
Bitz
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"If you are alive and I presume you are"
Wow, that would be a first if you weren't! Scary eh?
(Sorry, I can't remember how to insert a quote). Perhaps some kind spirit would communicate with me.
Judy
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I had a very spooky contact on Genes this week. He asked me to send him a personal email which I did. He sent me an attachment which was my family in a word document which he had done.
The information which he had was very in depth a lot which is not even in my tree. I asked where he had got it and he said he only lived a short distance from Warwick records office and he used IGI, Ancestry and 1837, but some of the information he could not get from there. Like my daughters adoptive name.
It really spooked me especially seeing he is not a direct relative, he is related to my GT Grandmother's first Husband.
I have since changed my tree so that living relatives are not shown and I would advise everyone else to do the same.
It still does not answer where he got his information from though.
Christine
I definitely would NOT be spooked. When researching my husbands family tree I became fascinated by the family of his grandmother's sister's husband. A very remote connection. I researched the family in the same way as I would my own & eventually ended up contacting some living distant relatives of this family in Canada. They didn't act as if they thought I was weird - but who knows.
On roots chat folks research people who are no relation at all - tis what we do - and love!
Trish
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Trish - I agree with you, I often research sideways in my tree, especially when I've hit a brick wall with my direct tree. I've found some sad histories, whole families parents and children dying within a year of each other, and another one where my g.grandfather's brother was listed as widower on a census, when he wasn't because his wife had gone off with someone else and lived in a totally different town under her new name. When she died, a few years later, her death certificate was in her assumed name and her "husband" stated he was the widow. However, a couple of months after the death, her daughter and "husband" went to the Registrar and the details were changed to give her correct surname and show her real husband as the widower.
Lizzie