Tracing living relatives - discussion thread

[joanna dot]

This topic has been split off from the guidelines on Tracing Living Relatives, in order to keep the original thread a bit clearer and easier to follow.

By all means add any new ideas here and the Mods will incorporate them to the Guidance thread for you - thanks!



Thank you Pam for your quick reply ,I should have known it would be too soon to give any details regarding my cousins .I will try some oher way .I will get in touch with my brother and see if he knows .All the very best for xmas and a happy new year to all the team .You all do a great job looking things up for us for which we are truelly grateful   Thank You   Joan 

[unclequentin]

Hello, can you help me? I have tried a couple of posts trying to find anyone who might know anything about my family (Gomersall) which originated in Barnsley. I have had no responses and wondered if I was doing something wrong.

[Headtheball]

Hey - well the important thing is to give as much information as you can (like where they lived and when, occupation, names , BMD dates etc) but be careful about sensitive information, especially as there may be other living relatives looking them up.
I checked on freebmd.rootsweb.com for Gomersall in Barnsley and there are only 170 results for ALL births, marriages and deaths (Gomersall) in Barnsley between 1850 and 1932. This is a tiny amount so is a good starting point (unfortunately they don't have earlier than 1850 transcribed).
If you know their forenames and when they were there, you may well find them on this list. If you do, the list will give you a GRO number so that you can order their birth/marriage/death certificates. (Marriage certs are good ones to look up as you can be more certain that you have the right person as TWO names are involved).

Hope this helps?

[unclequentin]

Thanks.

[dollylee]

I must be thick as a brick because I find this all so confusing.

If a private individual has allowed his/her name to be published in a newpaper along with personal information, in a telephone directory, a business directory or on the internet does it not become public information??  And as such why are we not allowed to supply the information to someone requesting it?

There is a fine line here that I just can't see.....the fault is probably my own, but I always thought that once you allowed your information to become public....it is just that...public information.

Please explain this in a way which I can finally understand.

Thanks

dollylee

[AJ Brophy_Santos]

It depends upon the information that you are going to disclosed. You just have to be very careful about it. Some information are beneficial to others, some can be used in a wrong way. As long as you won't give your personal information  such as your phone number, credit card number, home address which can be use with bad faith. Names, dates, places of birth can easily be a public information because these are informations which you use let say to contact persons.

[dollylee]

I should state my latest example of not being sure if I could post information to the grandson of an individual I had found.....exacly where the grandson expected him to be found.

The individual was listed, for the world to see in a Henderson Directory which is a public directory.  The information was all there including siblings and possible parents who also submitted their information to the Directory.   These people may still be alive and Rootschat discourages posts including living people. I understand their reasoning if individual have not already agreed to make their information public.

I just don't understand that if the person themselves was willing to put the information in a public reference why we are not allowed to post this non-confidential (as it is public) information.

dollylee

[Hippy Dippy]

Boongie Pam.

Cheers for that!  I should have read that before I sent my post and had it sent to quarantine!!!

Hippy Dippy

[karen1960]

Hi everyone
                  I'm new to all this  have tried to get on some of the links but nothing
is there any other limks i can go on.

thank you