Barriers To Genealogy In The Future

[Rena]

After reading some of the suggestions on this thread my imagination is now running riot.   Several years ago my uni son was stranded on the continent after somebody stole his passport.   Is this person now living a parallel life using our family name and in a few generations time will one of his descendants trace his lineage back to me and then attach his family to my ancestry?

[Ruskie]

So are you saying Guy, that the reason the Australian censuses were destroyed was because the government/people could not accept their convict past?

[3sillydogs]

I have to agree with Andycand, if I fill in a form that says it is private and confidential I expect that information to stay that way and not be passed on to a third party.  I am also wary of where I post personal information on the internet and for that reason I use a psuedonym on forums etc.  I use the same one everwhere so I am easily identifiable by those who frequent the same forums etc that I do.  There many cases of identity theft and so it does not hurt to be cautious.

South Africa also routinely destroys the census documents once the data has been extracted so they are not available to genealogists.  I think it is a shame, because if the 99 year were applied as in other coutries it would be a valuable resource.

Identity theft is a problem world wide and the scenario put forward by Rena is entirely possible.......

[DavidG02]

Guy

You always bring a reasoned response and I enjoy your input.

You are correct as to the recent re-evaluation of our convict heritage. So much so an apocryphal story goes that a husband contacted a Family Historian complaining that she told the wife she had 2 convicts in her family. When the FH said that she wouldn't hide the facts the husband responded
 '' no I'm not worried about that I want you to find me more than her''

The irony is their indigenous population have an oral heritage that goes back centuries and even that is being destroyed by the immigrants’ privacy ideals.

I will question the accuracy and the need to highlight the oral tradition of the aboriginals while trying to link it to privacy laws. Certainly the oral tradition is dying but that is more to do with trying to westernize the population rather than any issues to do with privacy

[groom]

Even on forums we have people who hide behind pseudonyms rather that use their real name, few have a good reason for not using their real name, but that is their choice.

I really can't see what harm there is in that. It is far too easy to find out every detail about people on line, so I dont see why I should make it even easier by using my real name. Once anyone does that, it doesn't take those of us who are used to searching records to find details of their immediate family through using the clues they give, either through general chat or through their posts asking for look ups.

[Ruskie]

The Irish 61 and 71 censuses were destroyed too. 

...... Countries like Australia are so paranoid about their ex-convict population that they destroy all information gathered as soon as they have gleaned numerical statistics from the information. The irony is their indigenous population have an oral heritage that goes back centuries and even that is being destroyed by the immigrants’ privacy ideals.///

Please explain?

I thought that censuses were to obtain statistical information about the population rather than being a tool for genealogists ... and once the information was gathered it was deemed unnecessary to retain the census forms.

[DavidG02]

If the Australian people and government had been so at ease with it in the past none of the census would have been destroyed.

Cheers
Guy

There were a lot of reasons ( according to wiki) why the Australian Gov destroyed census records. Not sure ''feelings'' would be a very high priority.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_in_Australia

Destruction of census forms

From 1971 to 1996 the ABS had a policy of destruction of the original census forms and their electronic representations, as well as field records. Prior to that it appears there was no explicit policy of destruction, but most material had been destroyed because of lack of storage facilities. However the 2001 census offered, for the first time, an option to have personal data archived by the National Archives of Australia and released to the public 99 years later, and in 2001 54% of Australians agreed to do so.

The reason for the destruction from 1971 to 1996 is also discussed in the same article

In the 1970s there was public debate about privacy and the census. In 1979 the Law Reform Commission reported on Privacy and the Census.[11] One of the key elements under question was the inclusion of names. It was found that excluding names reduced the accuracy of the data; individuals were more likely to leave questions blank and post-enumeration surveys would not be possible.

[smudwhisk]

Even on forums we have people who hide behind pseudonyms rather that use their real name, few have a good reason for not using their real name, but that is their choice.

I really can't see what harm there is in that. It is far too easy to find out every detail about people on line, so I dont see why I should make it even easier by using my real name. Once anyone does that, it doesn't take those of us who are used to searching records to find details of their immediate family through using the clues they give, either through general chat or through their posts asking for look ups.

I agree with Groom, I really don't see what the harm is.  For the record there are only three births in the whole of England & Wales with my first name and surname (different middle names) and we were all born within 6 years of each other.  Sorry Guy but I'm not going to use my true name when it isn't going take even the newest of researchers very long to work out who I am.

If people choose to use their real name online that's up to them, but for one I'm not going to be stupid enough to make it even easier for the spammers and con artists to identify me by using mine.  Everyone using their real names isn't going to reduce the problem, just make it considerably worse.

[KGarrad]

Can't say it bother me, almost using my full name!
There are 4 births with my exact forename (in fact I keep getting Gmail for one of the others!), and 14 male births with my initial, plenty of female births, and I suspect a few more married women.

But each to their own.