These days there are so many opportunities for people to play at genealogy and share information (proven or not) that the answer to the question of what information is stolen is rather fuzzy. But in this post I consider genealogies that were actually physically stolen!
It just so happens that over the last couple months I've run into two couples who are upset because the genealogy of their family was stolen along with other items from their garages! OK, a typical garage is NOT the place to keep a family genealogy. I believe that it should remain in a house that isn't damp or filled with insects or rodents or the gas fumes and if you inherit some old paperwork, it deserves to be copied. Consider taking it to a place that does big blueprint copies for architects and designers. Then put it into a mailing tube and seal that up. Consider putting copies into the archive of a library or to be held in another family member's dehumidified attic. Do something to preserve it! (And remember to go over it and proof everything yourself, just in case someone in your family was too eager to tie you into royalty or casino rights!)
In the cases I recently heard of though, INHERITANCES were being tied up because someone died without a will or or had a will but did not have the names and addresses of those family who were to inherit. One of these cases takes place in the United States and the other in England.
To begin with the English case, the American family contracted with some company over there YEARS ago to track down those due to inherit. I'm sorry to say I believe that this company did nothing or is claiming to be doing something but hasn't or this couple have been uniformed because they were cut out. I suggested they get with the company and find out what is going on. If you are in the United States and in this situation, and there is a nice sum of money you need possibly waiting for you to claim, be aware that you do not need to hire some person or company in England to do the work. Granted it's possible that a judge in a court there might find a local company rather than a distant one more believable but not necessarily. First of all records for England are usually quite good, it's a small country, and a professional there should know the resources and how to get to them quickly. After all, the person who died only died five years ago. So I think, just to show that you are not passively waiting or entirely ignorant, you should hire a genealogist who can contact those resources long distance. (There is always e-mail.)
As for the American family, the person died just a couple years ago with a hand-written will, referring to certain members of the family who he had no contact with for many years, and the effort is a little closer to hiring a private investigator than a genealogist. Let's just say that I've done PI type work but using genealogy methods as well as genealogy ethics and standards - no schemes, no tricks, no lies (not that all PI's operate this way but some surely do!) The genealogist verifies the relationship to the person who has died, such as sibling, half sibling, step sibling, third cousin, Great Aunt, and can often locate these deserving people though typical public databases.
I believe that good old snail mail is the best method for introducing yourself and requesting additional information to be submitted to courts, such as official ID's. Because there is so much identity theft, some people usually do need assurances that the genealogist is working for the benefit of a court or legal representative.
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