If you wish your details privatized, please write to me ( eMail) and requested courteously and "POLITELY"  and I will remove all details apart from your name , so long as the change is factually correct (i.e. no date of birth or place of birth, occupation, personal information, etc.)
 Note: Emails in 36 point bold red Text with legal threats do not encourage co-operation. 
(Please make sure that you type a subject into the subject line - emails without a subject line are automatically deleted as suspected spam.)

I will ALWAYS co-operate and try to meet the requirements of correspondents who requested courteously and politely without threat. 

I will ONLY publish information which is already in the "public domain" and which is relevant to a Genealogy listing.

Privacy: What about Terrorists & Racists & Criminals:

If my name is on your site will that make me a target for these nasty people.

NO it will not.

How did you find you name here in the first place, yes, you typed it (with exact format and spelling )  into a search engine like Google just to see if you are there,  listed any where on the Internet.- right ?

If you had to do that, so would one of those nasty people. They either have to type your exact name into Google, in which case they must know you already. OR they have to come to the Web Site and browse through 16,000 names in the database to find someone that meets their target profile. 

Without belittling any ones fears, the likelihood of a terrorist, racist, or criminal finding you through this web site is almost as remote as meeting men from Mars.
There are much easier ways to find you rather that coming to my Web Sites. Like the local telephone book, or the many direct marketing databases that can be purchased that contain much more comprehensive information, or the local newspaper where you may have announced some family event, or your High School Web site, or reunion, professional association, etc

To reassure those who are nervous, in the more than 2 years that this Web Site has been on the Internet I have had NO weird or threatening or racist or anti Semitic communications.

Privacy – Commentary on Genealogical Information Published here

 How did Information get here ?
Most information got on to this Web site  because either I knew it (my direct family), I researched it (LDS databases, Internet Databases, etc) or it was published some where else, or some one shared their genealogy database, or someone supplied the information (via eMail or document), or it was published somewhere.

 What is Published ?
I do NOT publish any thing that is NOT in the Public Domain currently and accessible

I certainly DO NOT publish information about persons that can lead to them being contacted by strangers or visited in some unwelcome manner or identified

There are NO addresses work/occupation details or physical or email addresses or phone numbers or personal details (except my own).

 Is Privacy Possible today with the Internet ?
Unfortunately, with regards to individual maintaining control and therefore the privacy of information about them "the horse has bolted" so to speak. 
Because of the very nature of the Internet and search engines one can find much information about a person and many listings of persons VERY easily. 

- If one has ones name in a newspaper, has announced their engagement to be married in a newspaper, or a death notice for a parent, or has their name in a Telephone book, listed on your company / organization web site, at a Reunion, list as a participant in an event, list at on an Institution (eg University),  is listed in public records (eg Births Deaths & Marriages and Electoral role), or in  Jewish Gens database such as Family Tree of the Jewish People, then from any where in the world one can find those listings with ONLY a connection to the Internet and the knowledge of how to use a browser and a search engine like "Google”. !
I know this sounds horrendous and shocking to many people, but it is the "price we have paid as individuals living in the modern "information age". At least if you discover your name you have the opportunity of contacting the web master and asking for an update. The more insidious problem with privacy in today's "Information Age" is information secretly held about individuals in commercial databases which can be purchased easily, ostensibly for use by marketeers. 
How does this affect me as a genealogist - Well,  persons imagine that if their name can be found in this database in a Google search then this is how a criminal, or other undesirable will find them and execute some dastardly act against them, when in fact there are many many easier and more likely sources of information that they will use. 

Thanks for the Support
In the 2 and a half years that my web site has be public, I have received over 500 emails and many 1,000's of visitors to my web site ! Almost all eMails  (99%) are positive or supportive.

Now I am getting 8 to 10 emails a week, all positive.

Almost all of emails I have received involved some response or communication

They included

• Just writing to say how great it was to see their family there
  

• How, through this database, the were able to  link themselves with their ancestors
  

• Asking if I knew how they might fit into the database, as they had the same family name as . .xxxx xxxx.
  

• They found their family on my Web site could their children used my database for a School Family project
  

• updating me with information on their ancestors and other relatives to add in to the tree
  

• Asking me to correct facts, like name misspellings, dates, children etc (hi my name is Judy xxxx I am now married with 2 children can you please update you details )
  

• Some people have been encouraged after discovering their information here to start researching their own family history (Good luck Laurie . . )
  

• Others have sent pages of data to incorporate
  

• Another 19 or so persons sent me their databases to incorporate - so that it would be published and publicly available
   

• In mid May 2004 a woman contacted me, whose father had be given to a non Jewish Couple to raise and only later in life found out that he was Jewish and that his parents had been murdered by the Nazi in a Concentration camp, she had discovered her grandfathers name on my site and then was able to trace her family. This helped her father resolve his many questions of "where he fitted in the world"  !

Balancing the value of publishing (limited) information about living persons, with the flip side I would have to say that with less than a 1% objection rate, this is a very high approval rating. This is especially the case given the overwhelming value that so many people have received and the pleasure so many persons have gained from what I have published here.   

 Objections I have had
In the 2 and a half years (and < 500+ ) that my web site has be public, ONLY 4 have demanded to be removed on the basis of a perceived breach of their privacy.
Examples:
One of whom had all their current biographical details published by their University as well as  their publisher including work contact addresses, home city, and photos.  They complained that their "identity could be stolen" and their children could be molested. I would have to question (but I didn't) the motives given all the other information published about them, with consent. The information published in my database name birth date and family names were all in the public domain  ? 

To find them self in my database the person told me that they only typed their name into Google - I guess to see how many times they were listed on the Internet - which was quite a few because of their academic position, research papers and books that the person had written. 

Another situation early on was a gentleman who told me he could NOT give me any genealogical information because of fear of Islamic Terrorists (he was not Jewish but had a Jewish Grandparent) But on his own web site, easily found with a Google search he had full information about his career and published research, and pictures of himself his wife and children at his home, and at his summer house, and pages on his genealogy including an illustrious Jewish Genealogy. 

I suspect both the above were more to do with embarrassment about Jewish ancestors or other personal issues than with fear of any breach of privacy that might have occurred by sharing their information with me.

 Other emails objecting, one to the fact that I published his birth name not his current name, and another objecting to the fact that his grandfather was Jewish (a fact that is not clear to me from the name - but seemed to be for him). There are MANY NON Jewish people in this database

The Public Domain: 
NO ONE can be sued for publishing information in the public domain (even if the subject doesn't like it)
For example one can't sue a newspaper for publishing your picture and naming you (so long as it is not liable or slander)

 If some one has their name and details in the public domain, which can include:

•  Government or State/Govt Birth Deaths & Marriage Registers, or Electoral rolls
  

• in the Newspaper
  

• as a public official
  

• as a person running for public office
  

• published as an employee of a company
  

• in the Telephone book
  

• on web sites (extolling their virtues and achievements)
  

Persons cannot sue me or take any restraining order against me for including that public domain data in my database.
Why ?
Because the information is deemed to be "on the public record"

BUT there are personal details that should NOT be disseminated or published
Of course there are many details which ARE subject to Privacy Laws and which cannot be published but these details are normally NOT the concern of a Genealogist.

Similarly there are many details which are not of concern to a genealogist and a sensible, common sense and sensitive approach deems it appropriate NOT to publish that information:

Clearly, such information does not offer any added value (such as residential address and phone numbers) and this information should not be published
Similarly other private details concerning health, or finance, etc are also personal and private and should NOT be published.

  Marc Heymann