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Archiver > DUTTON > 1997-10 > 0877705743


From: "Michael L. Dunton" <>
Subject: Rip Off Alert!!!
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 08:09:03 -0700


Here is a bit of general information that I thought should be
distributed. From personal experience, I purchased a copy of this
"book" about 15 years ago when I first became interested in our family's
genealogy. What I received was a pile of photocopies of a national
address listing! Interesting but certainly not a family history.
Luckily I had put the purchase on a credit card and received a refund.

This article is about the British version of what is called "The New
World Book of (Surname Inserted Here!)". The company is Halbert's out
of Bath, Ohio.

================================================================
The following article is from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter and
is copyright 1997 by Richard W. Eastman and Ancestry, Inc. It is
re-published here with the permission of the author.

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- Halbert's and Burke's in the News (Again)

I have written about Halberts and their "family books" several
times in this newsletter. I also recently wrote about their legal
problems in England, where they do business under the name of
Burke's Peerage. Burke's was a highly-regarded reference manual of
impeccable reputation until they fell on hard times financially
and sold the business to Numa Corporation, the parent company of
Halberts. Now Roy Stockdill in Hertfordshire, England posted a
message on CompuServe's Genealogy Forums about Halbert's and
Burke's latest problems.

Roy reports that the October 7th issue of The Mirror, one of
Britain's biggest selling national daily newspapers, carried an
article in their "Sorted" column. This column regularly
investigates various scandals and scams.

"Books give family trees a bad name" [headline]

"The once-respected Burke's Peerage has gone downhill since an
American firm was granted licence to use the name. If your
name is Smith, you've probably had junk mail offering the
Burke's Peerage World Book of Smiths. For #29.95 you get a
poorly produced book with little family history and lists of
Smiths around the world. Some of the information is out-of-
date - the World Book of Eastmans listed a buyer's uncle who'd
died three years earlier. Payment for the books is to an
address in Aldbourne, Wilts, but ends up with Halbert's Family
Heritage, a division of the Numa Corporation of Akron, Ohio."

The column then ends with a brief recommendation:

"One to avoid."

Hmmm, I wonder where they obtained the quote about "the World Book
of Eastmans"??? Of course, I did write those very words in an
article in this newsletter last year. I'm flattered that The
Mirror picked it up.

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