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Last Week at OneGreatFamilySite Activity
Summary
796,164 new individual merges!
99,297 new individual hints!
241,960 new family merges!
42,284 new family hints!
251 average individual merges per group
39 average individual hints per group
74 average family merges per group
6 average family hints per group
If you didn't receive a
GenMail telling you about new merges in your family tree, your tree
wasn't affected by this activity. You may want to add new
individuals or information to your family tree to improve the
likelihood of matches and merges taking place.
Having Success?OneGreatFamily wants to hear
from you. Please send us your success stories and your
recommendations for new features.
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story
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Tips on Avoiding Online Fraud We at OneGreatFamily
are committed to providing you with the best genealogy experience.
In that vein, we feel it's important to remind you from time to time
of the safety considerations you should use when working on the
Internet.
Online fraud occurs when someone poses as a
legitimate company to obtain sensitive personal data and illegally
conducts transactions on your existing accounts. Often called
"phishing" or "spoofing," the most current method of online fraud
involves imitating the look of a legitimate company in emails, Web
sites or pop-up windows, or any combination of these, with the goal
of convincing you to provide confidential
information.
Fake emails
While some emails are easy
to identify as fraudulent, others may appear to be from a legitimate
address and a trusted online source. However, you should not rely on
the name or address in the "From" field, as this is easily altered.
Fake emails often contain an overly generic greeting and may claim
that your information has expired, been corrupted or been lost, and
that you must immediately resend it. Or, they may direct you to a
counterfeit Web site carefully designed to look real, but which
actually collects personal information for illegal use.
These
fake emails may also contain a virus. The viruses may live in an
attachment or be accessed via a link in the email. Never respond to
emails, open attachments, or click on links from suspicious or
unknown senders. If you're not sure if a OneGreatFamily email is
legitimate, report it to us without replying to the email.
Be
particularly suspicious of emails that try to create a sense of
urgency, often by threatening to "close/suspend your account," or
charge a fee. One other telltale sign is misspelled words in the
subject line, which are used to evade spam filters.
How is
my email address obtained?
Email addresses can be obtained
from publicly available sources or through randomly generated lists.
Therefore, if you receive a fake email that appears to be from
OneGreatFamily this does not mean that your email address, name, or
any other information has been taken from OneGreatFamily's
system.
Counterfeit Web sites
Online thieves direct
you to fraudulent Web sites via email and pop-up windows and try to
collect your personal information. In many cases there is no easy
way to determine that you are on a phony Web site because the URL
will contain the name of the institution it is spoofing. Further,
these thieves work hard to reproduce the look and feel of the real
web site to put you at ease. However, if you type, or cut and paste,
the URL into a new Web browser window and it does not take you to a
legitimate Web site, it was probably just a cover for a fake Web
site. Another way to detect a phony Web site is to consider how you
arrived there. Generally, you were directed by a link in a fake
email requesting your account information.
How can I help
protect myself?
With a few simple steps, you can help protect
your personal information from fake emails and Web sites:
- Delete suspicious emails without opening them. If you do open
a suspicious email, do not open any attachments or click on any
links it may contain.
- Never provide sensitive account or personal information in
response to an email.
- Install and regularly update virus protection software.
- Keep your computer operating system and Web browser current.
 Subscribe
to OneGreatFamily and find discover more of your ancestors
Visit OneGreatFamily and add more
information to your family tree |
How can I identify and avoid fraud while doing
genealogy online?You should be aware of at least two forms of
fraud while you research your family tree online. This article will
help you avoid falling prey to phony websites and fraudulent
genealogical information.
Phony Websites
Greed has
motivated some people to "capitalize" on the desire of genealogists
who possess the drive and passion to find their ancestors. Genealogy
and technology expert Dick Eastman helped expose Elias Abodeely of
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as one such scam artist. Through a number of
"genealogy websites," most notably GenSeekers, Abodeely allegedly
tricked genealogists by getting them to subscribe to a site that
simply linked to other websites.
Beware of websites
that charge fees to access links or pieces of information that are
freely available elsewhere on the Internet. These sites often make
people pay twice to access the record they are looking for. A fooled
consumer may pay the fraudulent website and then pay separate
subscription fees to the legitimate websites that provide the real
value. The rise of fraudulent websites is one reason OneGreatFamily
allows new guests to take advantage of a 7-day free trial.
Registered guests who have taken time to become familiar with
OneGreatFamily understand what they are paying for when they decide
to subscribe to the service.
The best way to avoid such
frauds is to make sure you know what you are paying for and can try
the website before you are billed for the service. Another way to
protect yourself is to ask fellow researchers if they have used the
site and what their experience has been. You may also want to look
for a means of contacting the site's owner or administrator.
Fraudulent websites seldom provide any means of
contact.
Fraudulent Genealogy Information
The
perpetuation of fraudulent genealogy information is typically more
benign. The root of this fraud, however, typically stems from the
same greed.
Much of the false genealogical information that
has been published is also the result of greed. Several incidents of
this sort of fraud have been documented as being done by hired
researchers who wanted to embellish the research they were
providing. Other false information has been perpetuated by
researchers who have tried to "prove" relationships with little
supporting evidence. In many cases, when a well-meaning researcher
is given a choice between two possible alternatives, the more
convenient or glamorous alternative is chosen without first looking
for more evidence.
Several of these genealogies were
"created" by Gustave Anjou, who repeatedly ensured his clients had
genealogies that included several high-profile
ancestors.
Unfortunately, much of this "research" has found
its way into the databases of sincere researchers who were happy to
quickly claim these high-profile (albeit false) ancestors as their
own.
This information has also made its way online. In most
cases, this information has been shared and promulgated unknowingly.
The only way to identify and correct the result of this fraud is by
carefully examining and documenting each piece of
evidence.
Even in cases where sources are given, you may need
to consult with the original source to verify that information is
correct.
OneGreatFamily can help. OneGreatFamily lets you see
alternatives for information in your family tree and collaborate
with people who can help identify false information that may have
crept into your tree. You can also share your discoveries and
documentation with others to correct false information they may have
unwittingly accepted from another source.
Subscribe to OneGreatFamily, a
trusted genealogy service
Visit OneGreatFamily and verify
information in your family tree |
Thanks OneGreatFamily! The following success story
shows what can happen when OneGreatFamily finds information in your
family tree that can be matched and merged with others:
I
have to tell you that I was skeptical about your claims that I could
add generations to my family line when I signed up for the free
trial. I have been working on my genealogy for years and was certain
I was making fair progress on my own. However, a few hours after
uploading my own GED file, I had added a new family line with
generations of information. Since then, I have been adding data
regularly and am finding new members of my ancestry file right and
left. I have a few lines that I have been stuck on for some time,
but I am now hopeful that I will finally be able to crack some of
these mysteries. Thank you for your efforts to bring us all
together.
Thanks!
Darlene White
Submit your success story
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create your own success story
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CensusTools.comCensustools.com features
40 free spreadsheets which are designed for researchers to
electronically organize and archive extracted census and
cemetery data. The census spreadsheets faithfully reproduce
the format of original records for the U.S. Federal
(1790-1930), Canada, England, Ireland, Scotland, and eight
states. There are also spreadsheets available for specialty
census records such as slave and mortality schedules,
surviving spouses, pensioners and indian rolls. Complimenting
each census spreadsheet is what CensusTools calls the Tracker,
a special spreadsheet which allows a researcher to display
census data from multiple years for a particular person in a
single worksheet for ease of analysis. The beautifully
designed spreadsheets can also be printed blank to use as
extraction sheets or filled in for inclusion in book projects.
All of the spreadsheets are available as free downloads from
censustools.com.
Visit CensusTools.com
today!
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Want some FREE time?Current subscribers can
earn additional free time by referring others to OneGreatFamily.com.
OneGreatFamily needs your help in growing the largest single family
tree in the world. You can get free subscription time on
OneGreatFamily by referring others to this unique service. When
anyone you refer to OneGreatFamily subscribes to our service and
enters your username, you get an additional free month.
Learn more about this FREE
opportunity
Refer a new subscriber to
OneGreatFamily today.
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