Too Much Personal Information

[El Toro]

I have some relatives who do ancestry stuff. Many of their tree branches are wrong. I know from personal contact with relatives in "the old country."

We live in the age of misinformation. And we seem to be evolving into an age of unprecedented "bogosity" (credit given to Click 'n Clack, the Tappet Bros.)

 

[08FJR4ME]

I surprised one of my coworkers when I sent him an email with a certain lady's name. He was down in my office in seconds. HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET MY OLD GIRL FREINDS NAME!. I just laughed. I wasn't sure what the relationship was but he was scared **** if his wife might find out. LOL

Dave

 

[HotRodZilla]

^^^^^You're a messed up dude! Hahaha...

 

[dcarver]

Zilla.. Thanks dooode. Great info. Pretty scary stuff for a private company to have.. makes one wonder what the real dogs have on all us..

 

[Uncle Hud]

I'm a Navy vet. The top dogs have my fingerprints and know absolutely everything up until my discharge. I'm not in jail at the moment, so they obviously don't know everything past then.

 

[scubatech]

Thanks for the info. Mine only went back to 1982 so not too bad. I removed my wife & I from it. This is likely one of the reasons I get phone calls almost daily from A- Holes all over the Country! I block every one of them but it's annoying as Hell.

 

[Madmudder]

Thanks Zilla, request to be removed requested.

 

[Fred W]

Here's the thing...

Opting out of this web site will not remove the original source of data they were displaying. When I looked myself up there I found one of the alternate names listed with a misspelling of my first name (spelled Frederic) which I have only ever seen on my Xfinity Cable bills due to some computer entry SNAFU on their part, so there is at least one proven source of data.

If Xfinity sold their customer list to this Geneology web site, you can be darned sure they have sold them to many other buyers. It is, unfortunately, unavoidable in this day and age that some amount of your personal information will get "out there". Having your name, phone number and address won't get the bad guys very far.

 

[RossKean]

Having your name, phone number and address won't get the bad guys very far.

If name, address and phone number was any particular use then you could give up right now. Unless you are "cash only", don't pay municipal or other taxes, don't drive, never do anything on-line etc., that information is out there MANY times over.

Hey Fred - just one more post to hit 18,000!

 

[Bill Lumberg]

I couldn't find myself. And it took some work to get it that way. But it bears rechecking periodically.

 

[Pterodactyl]

I found they had misspelled my daughter's name. The way it was misspelled is very odd and is identical to how it is misspelled in my Defense Finance and Accounting Service records; the organization that pays my Army retirement. Sad to think that some of the online data comes from supposedly private Federal records.

 

[Fred W]

Must be the Russians.

 

[Knifemaker]

They used to have these things called "Phone Books" that listed everybody's name, address, and phone number......

 

[russperry]

One of the things I've noticed is that having a common name (like mine) is I think an advantage. When I put in my full name into Google I don't usually see a single reference to anything related to me for at least 10 pages. So I'd guess that the other way of using unique "handles" (like Hot Rod Zilla perhaps) or if you have a unusual name (surprisingly searching Bugnatr's real name doesn't come up with any dirt on the 1st page!) probably helps the smart apps figure out the relationships and identify an individual.

My wife's name is somewhat unique, and when I enter it in Google the first page is full of things like her employment history, people she worked with in 1987 and so on....

 

[s.ga.rider]

Wow. That showed a lot of my info. Even my bitc* ex as a relative. I looked her up and it shows all hers as well.