My credit card company adores the Internet. With a few clicks of my mouse, I can rack up very impressive charges denominated in a variety of international currencies in just a few minutes. Along with the option to purchase just about everything else imaginable, the Internet has been a boon to genealogical-related goods and services. Since I buy more than my fair share of family history products over the Internet, I thought I would share some tips about genealogy purchases online.
Be Safe
When purchasing goods and services over the Internet, only use a credit card; never use a debit card. By law, credit card companies limit fraud losses to fifty dollars. Use of debit cards has no such restrictions. Although the hassle of getting fraudulent charges reversed is daunting, it can be done on a credit card account. Use of a debit card opens up your bank account to a complete cleaning out with no hope of redress if your debit card number is used fraudulently. I use a Yahoo Visa card that will even reimburse me for the fifty dollars minimum amount of fraud liability if the fraud occurs over the Internet.
Interestingly, compared to the amount of credit card fraud on the Internet, you still stand more chance of having your credit card number stolen when you use it in person or over the phone, but it doesn’t hurt to take precautions.
When buying from a Web site, be sure that before you enter your credit card information, you have verified that your connection to the Web site is encrypted using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). SSL securely scrambles the information you provide and only allows the merchant with which you are doing business to unscramble it and process your credit card information. You can ensure the connection is encrypted simply by looking at your browser. Internet Explorer will show a small closed padlock at the bottom right of the screen, and Netscape Navigator will show a small closed padlock at the bottom left. Netscape has a tutorial on SSL if you want more details. There are other forms of encryption used for securing credit card purchases by vendors; however, SSL is the common industry standard built-in to work directly with your Web browser.
No Online Ordering?
Many vendors of genealogical goods and services do not yet have online ordering available. However, they often have their list of products on Web pages, along with ordering instructions and an e-mail address. For vendors who accept credit cards but do not have online ordering facilities, you can still use the Internet to expedite obtaining their products.
Contact the vendor by e-mail and ask if he or she accepts e-mail orders. If so, determine a non-e-mail method of transmitting your credit card payment particulars to the vendor. Vendors will usually accept this information by telephone or fax. Do not send your credit card information via e-mail. Send your order details in an e-mail and provide your credit card information another way. This will prevent the unlikely but possible interception of your credit card information carried in an unencrypted e-mail message.
Buying Goods
The most common family history items purchased over the Internet are probably books, CD-ROMs, and other printed or electronic materials. How-to books, software, printed pedigrees, searchable data discs, maps, county or village histories, charts, and forms are all essential to our research.
Most of us are familiar with purchasing books at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. But genealogy-specific book vendors such as The Shops@ Ancestry, Genealogy.com, Heritage Quest, and Appletons usually have a more in-depth selection of family history titles, and they carry a wide selection of CD-ROMs as well.
Used genealogy books can be found at a variety of online vendors. For links to online used bookstores that cater to family historians, go to Cyndi's List and click on Books–Used Books, Rare Books & Book Search Services. Also, online auctions such as eBay allow family historians to bid for used genealogy books, software, and old family Bibles, among other products.
Perhaps the best-kept secret in genealogy online shopping is the amazing range of publications and products available from local genealogy societies. Who knows the territory and the records better than the members of the local society? Over the years, these societies have published a variety of records, maps, and how-to books, and are increasingly publishing CD-ROMs of local records. Most societies still do not have facilities for online ordering, but this is slowly changing.
One commercial effort in the United Kingdom is actually hosting online ordering facilities for dozens of local genealogical societies. GENfair provides secure credit card ordering for U.K. society products by coordinating online order facilities with each society’s order fulfillment process. GENfair handles the payment end of the transaction, while taking a small fee for its service, and the local societies provide the genealogical materials to sell. Everyone benefits because the local societies reach a wider market for their goods while genealogists around the world have a simplified way of obtaining the societies’ products. It’s a pity that more arrangements such as GENfair are not available for genealogy societies around the world.
Buying Services
Purchasing genealogy services over the Internet basically fall into two categories. The first category is purchasing information directly from a Web site, such as from genealogy subscription services or from Web sites selling genealogical data like data extracts or census images on a pay-per-view basis. The second category is using the Internet to locate and hire research services that will be carried out in your behalf.
When purchasing a subscription service such as those available at Ancestry.com, you will be asked to provide additional personal information aside from your credit card particulars. In such cases, always read the associated acceptable-use policy or privacy statement. If the Web site doesn’t tell you what it will or will not do with your information, take care! If you are required to enter any personal data before receiving an explanation of how the site will be using your data, leave immediately. Your time is better spent elsewhere. As you subscribe to services or purchase information on a one-off basis at pay-for-view sites, remember to check that your Web browser is using Secure Sockets Layer before you enter any credit card information.
Finding and hiring research services over the Internet is a topic in and of itself. There are some excellent resources online regarding how best to go about hiring a genealogist to further your research. The Association of Professional Genealogists discusses the topic online. It provides good advice for hiring a researcher on or off the Internet. Most researchers-for-hire have e-mail addresses and many have Web sites. Most will accept work via e-mail and a few take credit card payment as well. You usually have to send them a check or money order to pay for their services.
Finding the right researcher for hire can be a challenge. Check Cyndi's List, the Association of Professional Genealogists' membership list, or locality-specific professional organizations' membership lists such as the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives in the U.K. for researchers-for-hire contact information. Local genealogy societies, libraries, and archives are able to recommend reputable researchers in the area as well.
When I commission a researcher for hire, I always have a very clear objective in mind. Usually, I have already narrowed the research down to which record types over what period of years located at which repositories I want the researcher to consult. I contact the researcher via e-mail and ask about his or her familiarity with the record types involved. By providing the researcher with a tightly defined set of research instructions, I can comfortably ask for an estimate of the time and cost involved before I agree to have him or her undertake the research. If the estimates don’t approximate my own estimation of how long it would take me with the same records, I take my business elsewhere. Make sure that you and the researcher are clear on whether incidental costs such as postage, photocopies, and travel mileage are included in the hourly rate, or if they are additional charges. Finally, it’s a good idea to set a limit on how much money you are willing to pay the researcher. Setting such a parameter manages the researcher’s expectations and keeps a lid on the expense of the research.
Limiting the Damage
If anything, the Internet makes it too easy to spend money on family history products and services. The speed and ease of buying online can make us lazy in our research. Before you make an online purchase, take the time to think through your purchase. Is the information or product available via some other method? Have you shopped around and compared prices? Is there a less expensive alternative for getting the same research result?
When you find a genealogical product or online service that you want to purchase, make a note of where you saw it and sleep on your decision to buy. A brief waiting period may cool your family history fever enough to let you re-evaluate your need for the item in question. Online shopping facilities often have shopping carts or baskets where you can store your unsent order for later. This is a convenient way to allow yourself to rethink the purchase. If there is not a shopping cart facility, copy the Web address and the name of the product into an electronic or paper note to yourself so you can go back later and ponder your purchase decision. The obsession with genealogy needn’t disrupt financial tranquillity so long as you take care while you are shopping online.
Mark Howells spends too much money on the Internet at markhow@oz.net.
Return to the Ancestry Magazine November/December 2001 Table of Contents.
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