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Archiver > VABEDFOR > 2004-03 > 1079462906


From: Drema Swader <>
Subject: [VABEDFOR] Am I being reckless, or is Roanoke Times overly cautious?
Date: Tue, 16 Mar 2004 10:48:26 -0800
In-Reply-To: <1104A5AAD25ED211BF370008C7B1987E0A2F316A@evgenexc001.ci.everett.wa.us>


As part of my genealogy habit, I always read the obituaries in the online
edition of the Roanoke Times. Since I don't live in the central Virginia
area, these obits often give me good information to add to my massive
database of family in the area.

About the first of the year, the Roanoke times changed their format so that
one has to click on a link on the name of each individual to see the
obituary. A couple of weeks ago, some of the links stopped working. I wrote
to the editor of the paper about the broken links, and he returned an
answer that said the families of these people have requested that these
obituaries not be displayed. Today, the link forwards the reader down the
page to a note (rather hard and see, which I wrote to them about) that says
"Families of the deceased chose to not include details on the Internet".

The Roanoke Times is choosing not to publish information in one location
that they publish in another. Because these obituaries are a valuable
resource for us engaged in genealogy, my feeling is that they are setting a
bad precedent. Because obituaries are considered news, and were first
published in newspapers because they were considered newsworthy, it seems
that restricting them from news sources that might someday be our major or
only source of news borders on censorship. If individuals can opt not to
have their names published in the news, what other "news" will individuals
be allowed to opt out of? (Will our political leaders be able to opt out
of having their names published in the news when they believe the
information is detrimental to their campaigns?)

As far as my own genealogy website, I do not publish pages for people if
they ask me not to. But it has surprised me over the years how afraid some
people are of having information published on the internet. I had a cousin,
for example, who would not allow me to publish his engagement picture with
his wife that had been published in the Lynchburg News & Advance. Luckily,
many of my family members consider it an honor to have their family
pictures published on my website, kind of equivalent to having their
picture published in the newspaper. These are usually the more computer
literate individuals who understand the limitations of seeing a name or
picture on the internet... that criminals or terrorists cannot reach out of
a computer and grab your children anymore than they can reach out of a
newspaper and grab them.

I know that we live in dangerous times, but does it border on paranoia? I
struggle with this myself, because I am the first to defend against such
government interventions as the Matix Database and the Patriot Act. In the
meantime, I continue to publish genealogy information on the internet...
unless I am asked not to.

Perhaps this newsgroup is not the forum for this discussion, but since we
are all interested in genealogy, I thought that it might be relevant for a
little discussion. These obituaries are the genealogical records that will
be passed down to our future generations. I'm hoping for a bit of a civil
discussion, please don't send me scathing angry notes about how insane I am
for believing it is ok to publish names, dates, and pictures on the internet!

Drema Swader
http://genealogy.drema.com



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