Scam genealogical book
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The popularity of genealogy, encouraged by the increasing use of the Internet is encouraging a number of people to mass-market what authorities regard as scam "genealogical books" which are sometimes promoted by affiliated websites. They tend to contain a general introduction, a section about the origin of surnames in general, a section about heraldry, a couple of blank charts for the purchaser to copy and complete once he has done his own research, a few recipes and (sometimes) a list of names, addresses and telephone numbers culled from the publicly available telephone directories.[1] The books are not unique to a particular surname, are not published annually and contain no pictures of the buyer's family members. In a recent case, Jeffery Scism, a San Bernardino, California genealogist, said the fines for such practises are puny when compared with the hundreds of thousands of dollars he believes such vendors rake in [2].
Those who have sold such books so far include:
- Burke's Peerage World Book of (Smiths) - not to be confused with Burke's Peerage
- Halberts Family Heritage - World Book of (Smiths)
- William Pince Publishers - SGN Genealogical Foundation
- Maxwell MacMaster - MorphCorp LLC of Denver State settles suit
