Help with Marriage

[minniehaha]

Hello Nick,

It has been my pleasure to participate in your genealogical journey and I wish you the very best for the next stage. If more help is required, you know where to find us.   

All good wishes,

Minniehaha. 

[Fresh Fields]

Each of us has a responsibility to treat information about other people with basic respect.

If the original request was consistent with the supposed purpose and ethos of Rootschat it would not need to be done by PM.

Anonymous requests for personal information about living people raise immediate red flags with me.

I think the time has come for me to call it a day with Rootschat.

Hello there.

Just returned home from a holiday.

I fully respect the conditions as set down by the founders of this site, and am very grateful for the opportunities the site offers to further my research, by the assistance of the talented team of volunteers who offer their expertise, on the NZ board. In return, I help forum posters, where I can.

But I feel there is a bigger picture to be considered, re the use of Private Messaging, as provided for by the Rootschat founders.

Along with others, on this forum there have been numerous occasions where I have used the PM system, when our research has extended into the realm of possible living. And I have no problem of doing so, when I consider the objectives are honourable and worthy.

I’m very proud of my small part in assisting to repatriate correspondence [letters & photos] between a father and son; and following the young New Zealand airman’s death, the father and his son’s UK billet hosts.

Faithfully kept safe by two generations in the UK, it was decided it was time for the material to return to NZ, and relatives of the deceased. All that was known, in the UK, was the Airman’s full name, and a NZ address that was no longer used by the subjects family.

Those that took up the challenge of looking for living relatives, had no kinship to the family, and the search for possible descendant recipients, though I recognised the surname as having a local presence, and I had done business with one family of that, not so common, surname.

After a lot of research, a home was found for the material, and the recipients were ever so grateful for gaining keepsakes, that they never knew existed, from that tragic time.

Though I have helped with several repatriations like this example, it is the one that I remember most, as I was given an oppertunity to see the material being repatriated. (When looking for clues)

Alan.

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=801223.9

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=652286.0

[Janette]

Alan I think you will find that SelDen  has called it a day her hasn't been on since his last message on the 11th Jan,

I think the time has come for me to call it a day with Rootschat.

Cheers Janette

[Beg Clonrode...]

Hello... not to criticise (then proceeds to criticise) ... when reading the original post my immediate reaction was identical to SelDen. Red flags and a ten foot pole. I was really quite surprised to see our big guns pile into him/her.

Having had my immediate family as "persons of interest" in some stranger's search I can tell you it's a really creepy feeling.

Sometimes researchers don't seem to consider the consequences of their actions. What one person considers "helping", another person may consider as unwelcome and unasked for attention.

I'm now of the opinion the 100, 80 and 50 year rules on the BDM NZ website need to be considered before offering to help.

Admittedly it's a case of pot calling the kettle black as previously I've helped trace the living but nowadays, as for example this thread, it's an obvious nope.

---

Speaking of the BDM website... if anyone's interested I still compile my lists. Just completed 1919B, 2019D and 1969D-updated. PM me if you'd like a copy.

Regards
Beg

[Fresh Fields]

Thanks.

The reason why I addressed the forum thread, and not the poster.

Alan.

[minniehaha]

Hello everybody,

Although a relative newcomer to Rootschat, compared to some who have contributed comment about this type of topic, I feel I can put in my pennyworth as I have worked behind the scenes on this and many other such requests.

Beg has mentioned 'red flags and a ten foot pole'. With respect, I believe only two of us, Kentishkiwi & myself know the details that lay behind this particular request which I considered genuine and could understand why it was made in the first place.

In general I don't have a problem with this type of request. The reason being, the information is already out there in the public domain in one form or another and it is just a matter for us to gather it in and 'join the dots'.

A recent example was a situation where I managed to find details of a New Zealander who I discovered, was the son of a man who had gone a.w.o.l. when his children were very young and died under an assumed name. Contact was made with the son by his previously unknown extended family members in the UK. Delight all round, photographs, stories exchanged etc. etc. and a meeting taking place.

At the end of the day, if an approach is made to an unsuspecting person and they don't want the contact, surely all they have to do is to ignore it?


Ok, now shoot me!   


Minniehaha.

[Janette]

I agree with Minniehaha.
With folk doing DNA tests nowadays this sort of request is going to be more common.
Moving with the times I think they call it.
No one is breaking any of the rules by using the PM to commnicate and at the end of the day a problem is solved for the OP.

Cheers Janette

[Fresh Fields]

QUOTE: Ok, now shoot me!   Minniehaha.

Rest easy, it wont be from me. I handed in my firearms license, and guns, many years ago.

And as replying to you another example sprung to mind. The time that I drew our NZ board to the lonely body, lying unclaimed, in a country morgue, for six months.

You and the team beavered away until you found living relatives on distant shores.

Long may you continue to assist.

Alan.

[minniehaha]

Thanks Alan.   

However there will still be times when I have to help from behind the scenes, i.e. by using the PM system, as I have done with the topic above, "Help with Marriage". Each situation is different, most come across as genuine and in some cases time is running out. Until I'm either shot or given my marching orders, I intend to continue as discretely as possible below the parapet. 

Minniehaha.