Mason County Genealogical Society P.O. Box 103 Shelton, WA 98584-0103 The Mason Log Volume 12 Issue 7 March 2015 March meeting • Thursday, March 5th • 7:00 p.m. Start time • Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints at 12th & Connection • Membership dues - single: $15.00 Couple: $20.00 • Find us on the web at http://rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wamcgs/ The inside scoop • Genealogy Roadshow • Members Corner – Pat T • RootsWeb Genealogy Roadshow On Tuesday evening, January 27, 2015 Susie and I watched Genealogy Roadshow on PBS. One of the segments concerned family letters written in 1894 about claiming a portion of a family trust held in the Bank of England. The recipient had to prove kinship to receive their share of the $96 million being held for the family heirs. The lady who found the letters wanted to know what the story of the letters was really about. Bottom line; there was no fortune and the letters were part of a scam. One of the interesting parts of the segment was they caught the guy that hatched the scheme. The researcher compared this to the present day Nigerian Prince schemes that show in up our inboxes with regularity. Some of you may recall that in the April and May 2013 Newsletter we looked at a couple of family letters from Pat T. These letters were a 1932 version of the 1894 scheme that was covered on the Genealogy Roadshow. In both cases it involved contacting relatives to obtain proof of kinship and establishing bona fides enabling the recipient to lay claim to their share of the fortune. How long has this type of scam been around? It’s a fair question and the researcher in the above segment shared with the family in question a book published in 1899. To me this was the most interesting thing about the segment. The book in question is called A Handbook of Practical Suggestions for the Use of Students in Genealogy, and was written by Henry Reed Stiles. I copied the title and author down and went to Google books, typed in the information and up popped the book. It was a free download, so I added it to my online library. It is 68 pages from cover to cover and was written for the beginner; link below. https://books.google.com/books?id=U-06MwEACAAJ&dq=Henry R Stiles&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3- vsVOKtLdCyogTvrYK4DQ&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAg The free ebook is third on the line of related books. Enjoy. The following is an excerpt from the book that pertains to the scam we’ve been discussing. , OCR Text: Mason County Genealogical Society P.O. Box 103 Shelton, WA 98584-0103 The Mason Log Volume 12 Issue 7 March 2015 March meeting • Thursday, March 5th • 7:00 p.m. Start time • Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints at 12th & Connection • Membership dues - single: $15.00 Couple: $20.00 • Find us on the web at http://rootsweb.ancestry.com/~wamcgs/ The inside scoop • Genealogy Roadshow • Members Corner – Pat T • RootsWeb Genealogy Roadshow On Tuesday evening, January 27, 2015 Susie and I watched Genealogy Roadshow on PBS. One of the segments concerned family letters written in 1894 about claiming a portion of a family trust held in the Bank of England. The recipient had to prove kinship to receive their share of the $96 million being held for the family heirs. The lady who found the letters wanted to know what the story of the letters was really about. Bottom line; there was no fortune and the letters were part of a scam. One of the interesting parts of the segment was they caught the guy that hatched the scheme. The researcher compared this to the present day Nigerian Prince schemes that show in up our inboxes with regularity. Some of you may recall that in the April and May 2013 Newsletter we looked at a couple of family letters from Pat T. These letters were a 1932 version of the 1894 scheme that was covered on the Genealogy Roadshow. In both cases it involved contacting relatives to obtain proof of kinship and establishing bona fides enabling the recipient to lay claim to their share of the fortune. How long has this type of scam been around? It’s a fair question and the researcher in the above segment shared with the family in question a book published in 1899. To me this was the most interesting thing about the segment. The book in question is called A Handbook of Practical Suggestions for the Use of Students in Genealogy, and was written by Henry Reed Stiles. I copied the title and author down and went to Google books, typed in the information and up popped the book. It was a free download, so I added it to my online library. It is 68 pages from cover to cover and was written for the beginner; link below. https://books.google.com/books?id=U-06MwEACAAJ&dq=Henry R Stiles&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3- vsVOKtLdCyogTvrYK4DQ&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAg The free ebook is third on the line of related books. Enjoy. The following is an excerpt from the book that pertains to the scam we’ve been discussing. , Mason County Genealogical Society,Mason Logs,Mason Logs,2015,V12 I7 MCGS Mar 2015 Newsletter.pdf,V12 I7 MCGS Mar 2015 Newsletter.pdf Page 1, V12 I7 MCGS Mar 2015 Newsletter.pdf Page 1