Here’s  a quick way and inexpensive way  that you  might find out about your felonious ancestors and relatives: 1.  Go to Google Books, and type in “State  v. [name]” and see what comes up.  Try these variations: For some states, type in “People versus [name]“ For Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Virginia, “Commonwealth v. [name]“ For British, [...]

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Craig on November 20th, 2008

This Sunday at Shades of the Departed, a new weekend column called Appealing Subjects debuts.  And it’s written by me! I’m honored to be one of the four Weekend with Shades columnists.  The others are Terry Thornton, George Geder, and Jasia. In Appealing Subjects, we’ll explore the strange and wonderful relationship between photography and law. [...]

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Craig on June 20th, 2008

This story has been reported elsewhere in the geneablogosphere, notably by Lee Drew (where I first saw it) and by Dick Eastman. But it is of continuing interest. Apparently, the California Department of Public health has decided to call a halt to the marketing of genetic tests directly to consumers. Companies such as Navigenics, Family [...]

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Craig on December 6th, 2007

For this lesson, you have to visit my friend the footnoteMaven. Enjoy!

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Craig on October 26th, 2007

The fall semester will be over soon at Pacific McGeorge School of Law, so I thought I’d practice for the grading season with the quiz that appeared here a couple of days ago. BTW, every one who tried it got a passing grade. Here’s the “model answer”: Copyright Infringement The first claim against Delia is [...]

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Craig on October 24th, 2007

One afternoon, Delia, a family historian, decided to rummage around her uncle Al’s attic. She came across a locked trunk that she recognized as having belonged to her grandmother. Delia asked Al if she could see what was in the trunk. Al, knowing of his favorite niece’s obsession with genealogy, said, “Sure. Help yourself to [...]

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Craig on October 23rd, 2007

We’ve talked about defamation, but a far more serious issue for genealogists is “invasion of privacy.” The law generally recognizes four distinct “wrongs” that may constitute “invasion of privacy:” (1) intrusion into private matters; (2) public disclosure of private facts; (3) publicity placing a person in a false light; (4) misappropriation of a person’s name [...]

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Craig on October 19th, 2007

Defamation in genealogical publishing is not a tremendous problem for several reasons. First, the law does not recognize defamation of dead people. This fact is combined with the practice of most genealogists not publish information about living people without permission of those people. The third fact is that things thought defamatory in the past are, [...]

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Craig on October 19th, 2007

I had intended Thursday’s post to focus on avoiding defamation in genealogy. But then I saw this comment from Chris Dunham: What are your thoughts on that John Dillinger story I blogged about a few months ago? Which uses of Dillinger’s name can be controlled by his relatives, and which fall under the “dead people [...]

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Craig on October 17th, 2007

A few years ago, I thought about writing on the topic of defamation and invasion of privacy as they relate to genealogy, but I ultimately decided that there just wasn’t enough material there to make it worth the time. Then, somewhat more recently, I wrote something that drew a comment that seemed a bit hostile. [...]

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