NJHUNTER-L Archives

From:
Subject: [NJHUNTER] Re: A warning
Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 09:03:10 EDT

Dear Listers,
I am a member of another rootsweb list in the state of RI. A few days
ago, a message came on to the list saying something like "hey, I just found a
great genealogy site for Kent County". Their was an URL given .
Of course, I clicked on. The page looked legitimate. It was a free
geneology page it said and they planned to have over a million names in their
database. This should have been my tipoff because Kent Ct., RI is a very
small place unlikely to generate a genealogy database with a million names.
It also stated that since the site was under construction some of the
links might not work properly. They offered profuse apologies and promised
that the problems were going to be corrected soon.
There were three buttons given---one said members only, one said
register here, and I forget now what the other was.
I clicked on the register now list and was asked to give my name and
email address. The other two links did not work at all. (I checked them
after the fact.)
A day or so later the list manager put a letter on the site saying
that this was not a legitimate genealogy website--that this had been showing
up on rootsweb lists throughout the country. Possibly an attempt to collect
names and addresses for advertising purposes or worse.
So if you should see something come up on this list that resembles
what I have just described---please check it out very carefully before you
give out your information. Press all the buttons. If they don't connect you
to something, be wary.
If what they promise sounds to good to be true---it probably is.
Sorry for the long message, but in my enthusiasm, I (and several other
poor fools) had given them my name and email address. I have spent several
days now wondering what on earth is being done with that info. Sometimes our
enthusiasm for genealogy gets in the way of our good common sense.

Kay Larsen

This thread:

• [NJHUNTER] Re: A warning by