Kidnapping is a federal offense in the United States—the kidnapping of people, that is. As it happens, the Latin word for kidnapper is "plagiarius." Today, we use a derivative of that Latin word to refer to someone who "kidnaps" the words and ideas of other people, and who then pretends that those words and ideas sprang fully formed from his or her own brain. We call such a person a "plagiarist," and we refer to that person's behavior as "plagiarism."

While plagiarism may not be a federal offense, or even a crime at any lesser level, it remains a violation of the ethics of all professional disciplines involved with the communication of ideas, including genealogy. But it is my observation that plagiarism is not well understood by the general public. Among the students I teach at a large state-supported university are a number of first-year students, fresh out of high school, and I can vouch that many of them have no clear concept of what plagiarism is. Even if they understood what plagiarism was, many of them would be hard-pressed to figure out how they could best avoid committing it. Genealogists are no different.

The same World Wide Web and e-mail system that has dramatically transformed the way we communicate our thoughts in the genealogical community has had an equally dramatic effect on the frequency with which plagiarism can and has been committed by genealogists. The ability to copy and paste text, combined with the ease of creating e-mail and Web pages, has resulted in a situation where we all need to be especially vigilant to the ethics of what we are doing.

The concept of plagiarism is too large to cover adequately in a single column, but I believe I can bring to light a few significant points. First, plagiarism of ideas does not apply to that which is considered "common knowledge." An example of common knowledge would be the idea that George Washington's wife was named Martha. Beyond such examples, we have an expectation that genealogists will honestly document the sources for their assertions.

Second, plagiarism is a distinct issue from copyright violation. You can easily commit plagiarism without violating copyright (say, by copying work published by someone else 100 years ago and presenting it as if it were your own), and you can violate copyright without committing plagiarism (say, by copying and publishing someone else's copyrighted work without their permission, even though you give them full credit for it). For example, suppose someone publishes a story about her ancestor (not common knowledge) that she has written, and someone else rewrites the same story in his own words and publishes the new version as if he had thought of the story himself. The second person has not violated copyright (because he has used his own words), but he has still committed plagiarism.

I cannot emphasize enough the distinction between plagiarism and violation of copyright, because confusion in this area will not only make it more difficult for you to engage in the best ethical and legal practices yourself, but you will also find it more difficult to seek remedies if your own work has been violated. If you believe that someone else has copied your copyrighted material and placed the results on a Web site (and that person will not voluntarily remove it), you will frequently find that the Internet Service Provider will cooperate with you in removing any offending material. (If not, you'll need to seek legal remedies.)

However, if you believe that someone has committed plagiarism against you, your options may be more limited than they are for copyright. Familiarize yourself with the various ethical codes that have been established by organizations for professional genealogy. These include the Code of Ethics and Conduct of the Board for Certification of Genealogists and the Code of Ethics of the Association of Professional Genealogists. You may find it helpful to communicate these to the plagiarist. If no solution is immediately forthcoming, you may want to communicate with these organizations to see if they have it in their power to take further steps.

Also, by reading and understanding these codes of ethics, you yourself can avoid unintentional acts of plagiarism.

Drew Smith is an instructor with the School of Library and Information Science at the University of South Florida in Tampa. He is also a regular contributor to the quarterly journal Genealogical Computing, where he writes the "Cybrarian" column. He can be reached at drewsmith@aol.com.