PACHESTE-L Archives

From: Judy Ardine <>
Subject: [PACHESTE] Genealogy Scams 1 of 2
Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 09:46:22 -0500

"John Feltham" <> was kind enough to post this to the
moonrakers mailing list for Wiltshire, England but many on our list should
benefit from it as well.

G'day folks,
Below I reproduce from this weeks Eastman's Weekly Gene Newsletter.
It might jog the memories of a few aggreived users of this List into doing
something about their predicament.
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- Genealogy Scams
A few years ago I wrote a number of articles about the infamous
Halberts of Bath, Ohio. This company would send an advertisement
for a book that claimed to be a "history of your family name."
After paying about $40, the hapless purchaser received a cheaply-
made paperback containing a bit of generic "how to get start
tracing your family tree information" accompanied by listings from
telephone books. Sadly, similar information was available online
at no cost.

In August 1998 I even visited the address in Bath, Ohio that
Halberts used, and I wrote about my trip in that week's edition of
this newsletter. I found no company named Halberts at that
address. In fact, the address was simply a mail drop. All orders
sent to that address in Bath, Ohio were actually forwarded to the
parent company in nearby Akron. About a year after my on-site
visit, Halberts folded up. They gave layoff notices to all of
their employees, sold the office furniture, and ceased operations.
The company blamed "competition from the Internet" for their
business failure. In my opinion, the competition was twofold: (1.)
the same information was available online at no charge, and (2.)
the Internet provides a great place for tracking such scams. Those
who received the advertisements could easily go online to check
Halberts' reputation. All you had to do was to go to any search
engine and enter the word "Halberts" to learn of the experiences
of others. In fact, you can still do that today.

Of course, Halberts was not the only company with questionable
business practices in this arena. Some of us still remember
Beatrice Bailey. This lady sold products that were somewhat
similar to those of Halberts. In her advertisement sent by mail to
me, she would sign her name as "Beatrice Eastman Bailey." In a
letter sent to someone named Smith, she would sign her name as
"Beatrice Smith Bailey" and in an advertisement sent to someone
named Williams she would sign as "Beatrice Williams Bailey."
Beatrice Bailey apparently was a one-person operation. She was
under investigation by postal authorities when she died.
Other companies have continued to sell "products" that claim to
contain genealogy value but, in fact, have little genealogy
information in them. The brave new world of the Internet has been
a haven for honest entrepreneurs and dishonest scam artists alike.
New scams have arisen and established scam artists have expanded
into online operations. As always, spending money is a case of
Caveat Emptor - "Let the buyer beware!"

There are several Web sites that track companies that sell
questionable genealogy products and services. If you have any
questions about an advertisement you received, either in regular
mail or in e-mail, I would suggest that you check the following:
Genealogy scams in general:

Genealogical Web Site Watchdog (only for online scams) at:
http://www.ancestordetective.com/watchdog.htm

The National Genealogical Society's Consumer Protection
Committee is quite active at keeping an eye on the various
scams, including both online and offline fraudsters. If you
have a question about a particular company's services, you can
contact the NGS Consumer Protection Committee via traditional
mail at: National Genealogical Society's Consumer Protection
Committee, at 4527 17th Street North, Arlington, VA 22207-
2399. The committee also maintains Web pages at:
http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/comconsumer.htm and at:
http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/comconsumerpsst.htm. However,
those pages do not mention specific companies.

Cyndi's List has a section for genealogy myths, hoaxes and
scams at: http://www.cyndislist.com/myths.htm
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• [PACHESTE] Genealogy Scams 1 of 2 by Judy Ardine <>