Just a quick message to my friends in the Somerset and Dorset family history group to tell you that I will no longer be posting there because I have been summarily removed from the group! My principal crime? Challenging a ruling that one is not permitted to discuss, post about or research living people, even famous ones - a rule I cannot accept since I find it not only illogical, impractical and unworkable but a restraint on my right to research whoever I like, amounting to censorship. I found it hard to believe but there were some hypersensitive souls who even objected to my drawing attention to my blog Reach For The Stars & Their Family Trees, in which I mentioned a couple of well-known celebrities I have researched and whose ancestries I have published in the blog who have considerable Dorset ancestry. One lister was very pleased to find she was a fourth cousin to one of them and said so, however others chose to pick a fight, demanding to know whether or not Id asked permission of the people I research - in my view a somewhat fatuous suggestion, considering that everything I had discovered about them is entirely in the public domain. I repeatedly pointed out that all the information I acquire for the blog is taken from sources that are wholly in the public domain, specifically the GRO birth, marriage and death indexes, parish registers, wills, directories, etc, also newspaper cuttings and often interviews given by the subjects themselves. However, I got the impression there are some people who dont appear to understand the concept of public domain at all. In the relatively short time I was in the group I believe I posted much valuable data and information concerning Somerset and Dorset ancestry and records which appeared to be well received. However, I cannot accept being told I should not research people about whom there are thousands of words to be found out there on the internet! It really is a ludicrous and paranoid attitude to take. I am now considering launching my own FB page which will be dedicated to genealogy in roughly the same area, but on which discussion of research relating to living people will most definitely be allowed. :) If anyone wishes to contact me privately with queries or to discuss their own research problems, my e-mail address can be found on my Reach For The Stars blog under the About Me link. To those who supported me and appreciated my contributions, my special thanks. :)
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 16:35:55 +0000
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