It seems to me that there are two major problems which we frequently discuss on lists. The first one is an issue for all researchers. It is the matter of what constitutes "proof."

Funk and Wagnall's Standard College Dictionary (1079) has thirteen definitions of "proof" a couple of which refer to us:

1. The act or process of proving; especially, the establishment of a fact by evidence or a truth by other truths. . . .

3. Evidence and argument sufficient to induce belief. . . .

So, what constitutes proof in genealogy?

We collect everything we can find from every source available and try to put together the pieces to form an "argument sufficient to induce belief." But while doing this we remain aware that English ships captains mangaled German and Gaelic on a regular basis and that clerks get tired or have eye trouble or don't check the spelling on information they are supposed to record.

We know that sometimes people lie.

(One of my favorite census records had a note from the census taker at the beginning which read: "I done the best I could. The people was hard to get along with." [It was in Shelby Co. TX. I don't remember the year.)

Sometimes the people who give information to officials don't know the facts. There are a surprising number of people who don't know where their parents were born, for instance.

Sometimes people try to hide facts for personal reasons. I know a couple who married when the wife was pregnant by another man. The husband married her on the condition that the child never know that he was not the natural father. They moved to another state and the husband was listed as the father on the birth certificate. To the best of my knowledge, the child -- now an adult -- has never known.

So when we gather information to prove our ancestry, we do so knowing that we cannot ever establish TRUTH, but we might be able to acquire enough "evidence and argument sufficient to induce belief." And the more we find, the more persuasive our argument becomes.

Thanks to George Fox, the Quakers have been some of the best record keepers in the world. Other genealogists are envious of the "silver platter" we have once we find even ONE Quaker among our ancestors. Because the one will open the door to many. And they all come with easily tracable records.

NOTE: (Except for fires and abandonded meetings and mice and such. Speaking of fires, when I studied history, I never expected past events to affect my life today. But I got upset about the Great Fire of London when I discovered that one of the lines I was researching dead-ended in a London church destroyed by the fire. And I got really angry about Sherman's march through the south when I found that he had systematically destroyed tombstones with information I could have used to make some much needed connections in South Carolina.)

The second issue is the matter of privacy. Once again, the dictionary defines "privacy" (1072)

1. The condition of being private; seclusion.

2. The state of being secret; secrecy.

(Private: Removed from public view, not for public or common use. Secret: 1. Kept separate or hidden from view or knowledge, or from all persons except the individuals concerned; concealed; hidden.) There are some people who argue that we should not include living people in our databases because it might put them in danger from people who lurk on the internet looking for victims.

I might be able to see some validity in this argument if so much other information were not already much more readily available. As we all know, we can get a phone directory for almost any town almost anywhere in the world. (Or we can purchase a CD with thousands of phone directories on it.) Finding the address for anyone, anywhere is extremely easy. Once you have the address, you can go to a website and locate that address on a digital map.

Your credit information is available at the push of a button for businesses from car dealers to banks. And I got very upset one year when I discovered that the state was selling the information on my driver's liscense to "increase revenue."

It is wonderful for us genealogists to be able to access multiple databases to acquire information about our ancestors. We are somewhat less enthusiastic about the fact that numerous databases with much more personal information is available about us.

I have a friend who is on a governmental committee to study security on the internet. He has told me never to give anyone my social security number and never to do banking or make purchases (unless COD) online. He says that security is an extremely fragile concept. Even the most complex systems can be entered by a determined hacker.

The point is that I am firmly convinced that with the amount of information available on us already, that we do a major disservice to the field of genealogy to limit ourselves to the dead. If I only share information about dead people, I am missing about three or so generations of cousins -- some of whom might share my interest in keeping my family together.

I come from a long line of long-lived people and grew up geographically close to many many cousins. My husband grew up in a family which had moved away geographically, but was still close emotionally to a large extended family on his mother's side. We have kept in touch with all these people over the years and now our children think it is normal to consider third and fourth cousins "family."

I have finally reached a compromise. I do not include in my databases living people who object to having their names online. For the purpose of the Gedcom file created for this page, I will use one of the strippers and reenter names of those who don't object when I figure out how to do it. But I want to establish clearly that I think it is like cutting off an arm or a leg to try to do genealogy that way. And also that it is truly pointless. Anybody who thinks that we have ANY "privacy" in this world of electronic information hasn't spent much time on the world wide web.