Genealogical prostitution

Ξ December 11th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Musings |

Dick Eastman, in a recent blog entry, defended the right of companies to charge for genealogical information.

I disagree with him on many levels.

Some companies, like Ancestry.com, have gone to private websites and gathered information, and then had the nerve to put the collected information into a database and charge for access to that database. A public outcry stopped the action, but once information has been gathered, you can bet Ancestry.com kept that information, and probably diffused the database’s information into other existing databases, and are profiting from the information they claimed they distanced themselves from. Know this: At the core of these big genealogy companies are salesmen and public relations people. The only thing they are interested in is making money — from our families.

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Is it real?

Ξ October 25th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Musings |

Parking Meter Tombstone

 

Closeup shot

These photos have been circulating around the Internet. It’s a neat idea, but does this tombstone exist only because it was run through Photoshop first?

You decide.

 

When research turns to license

Ξ October 18th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Musings |

American genecticist James Watson, a Nobel Prize holder, has drawn fire from the British media for his views that black people are not as intelligent as Europeans (see story in the Gene News sidebar). His interview in the London Sunday Times forced the cancellation of a planned lecture by Watson.

In 2000, at the University of California at Berkley, he advanced a claim that skin color and sex drive were related.

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Genealogy: It’s why we’re all here

Ξ October 14th, 2007 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Musings |

I guess I’m old-fashioned, but when I was a lad growing up, family meant everything. We all knew who our aunts, nieces and nephews were, as well as distant relatives, and our grandparents’ kin. My mom would always fill in the knowledge gap if we didn’t know how a particular relative was connected to the family.

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