[or-roots] Re:Lawsuit Against Morphcorp for Fake Family Hist...

[Gary Murray]

LINDA:  i remember that woman's name very well.  when i first started gene. many, many years ago i was told by someone supposedly in the know that it was dumb of me to do this.  all i had to do was contact the lds family history library and they would send it all to me.  found out in quick order that just wasn't true.  remember this was 35 - 40 years ago.  i also just assumed that there were so few people in oregon that i would instantly find anyone i was looking for.  i do remember believing that one.  made sense to me.  i have been caught in two family gene. that had all the sources and proofs listed at the end.  one was for peter browne of the mayflower and it seems to me the other was reynolds, but just don't remember.  the browne one was very impressive.  supposedly done by a woman i copied it word for word.  then on my first trip to england i found out none of the sources existed.  i fought the idea of destroying all that data for quite a number of years.  the sources looked so good.  that was my first trip into royalty.  it was very interesting but very confusing also.  i have since found a royal entry in another line and i spent about 5-7 years following that.  i also found there was a rootsweb board about royalty and became involved with that.  if any of you think there is a lot of dissention on the board you should go to the royal board.  they seem to call each other just about every name in the book.  the most foul=mouthed bunch i have ever run across.  hopefully the list owner eventually stepped in and put a stop to it.  the royal lines are very, very confuaing since the women were hopfully all chaste but the men had 10-15 concubines.  i come down from one english line where the head of it was a prince and very royal but he m. adivorced lady and had to give up his hope for the throne.  i am not now or ever was interested in the bunch of throwbacks they have over there now, that pass as royals.  i read anything and everything i could find on the royal families from victoria back and i mean back.  i had a ton of books on those people but donated all of them to the forum when i moved here.  no one on that royal board could agree on anything.  i bought many, many written pedigrees over the years.  i bought one that is 4' x 6' and was put out by the mormom church in 1939.  [good year since its the year of my birth]  the lds were only interested in showing how the leaders of their church were descended from royal lines but the chart goes back to adam and eve and was fun.  somewhere around here i have the chart for all that and although i don't believe a word of it, it was great fun.  i still have the chart on the wall showing how my bonney clan goes back to the mayflower.  while i have been invited to join the mayflower soc. and the soc. for the crown of charlemagne, i never have.  the only thing i joined ever was SDOP and after a year my belonging to this soc. gave out, i would still like to rejoin but can't figure out how.  ANYBODY??????
MY BEST ROYAL DESC. IS from edward the III, king of england and i desscend from one of his daughters.  i bought a dvd on edw. II who had all kinds of problems and it is a piece of garbage.  i think someone wrote a play about him that made no sense.  it was bloody and horrible and was like nothing i had ever read, except for the way he was murdered.  so if you are a direct on any bonneys, the line goes back to the immigrant, thomas bonney and then thru his wife to just about every royal house in europe.  HAPPY TRAILS.
gary in az.
i had an uncle that liked to tell everyone outside and inside the family that we traced our lines back to the horse thieves and bank robbers and then stopped.  
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: LinLouVan at aol.com 
  To: or-roots at sosinet.sos.state.or.us 
  Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 3:09 PM
  Subject: [or-roots] Re:Lawsuit Against Morphcorp for Fake Family Hist...


  Again ! ! !
  Anybody remember Beatrice Bayley, then, Halberts, then "Your Name" Researchers?
  This scam has been around as long as we have been doing genealogy. Each time they
  are found out, they move and change names and/or someone else takes over. Isn't it sad
  that there are opportunists  out there and enough gullible people to support them - for a 
  while?

  Linda VanOrden
  Junction City, OR
  LinLouVan at aol.com 





  In a message dated 11/28/05 10:29:52 A.M. Pacific Standard Time, whizinc at comcast.net writes:
    My Dad received this.  I don't remember which genealogical society LCGS is.  I considered buying one of these books.
    Ronda Howard


    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Alice Sanders 
    To: sanders922 at msn.com 
    Sent: Monday, November 28, 2005 8:10 AM
    Subject: LCGS FYI Lawsuit Against Morphcorp for Fake Family Histories



    Bill Mahoney sends the following to share.  An FYI warning was sent out earlier about these fake histories.  It is nice to know 
    something may be done about the people running this company.  Let's wish Arapahoe County much success in this.

    THE FOLLOWING IS FROM THE DENVER POST

    25 Nov 2005

    State Sues Genealogy Company

    The suit claims 150,000 people nationwide were swindled out of $49.95 each when they bought a book with fake family histories from Morphcorp of Denver.

    By Manny Gonzales 

    Denver Post Staff Writer  

    For $49.95, people who bought genealogical "yearbooks" from a Denver-based company got the same family coat of arms, the same family recipes and even the same family jokes, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday. 

    And it was a lucrative scam that swindled 150,000 people nationwide who bought into fake family histories, according to the civil suit filed by Colorado Attorney General John Suthers. 

    The suit, filed in Arapahoe County District Court against Maxwell MacMaster and his company, Morph corp LLC, seeks to cease the operation and penalize him up to $2,000 per book sold, which could amount to $300 million. 

    "This is a guy who has been exploiting a natural human emotion, a curiosity about our family history . and he made a lot of money doing it," Suthers said. "People got a standard book that really reflects no individual genealogical research. The books come with a family (crest), but if your surname is Jones it would be the same (crest) used if your last name was Smith." 

    MacMaster, who has residences listed in Denver and Kailua, Hawaii, was contacted about the suit but said he had not read the specific allegations and declined to comment. His lawyer could not be reached for comment. 

    Aurora resident Lynette Dahl is one of 21 alleged victims in Colorado. Dahl said her family purchased a yearbook a couple of years ago in hopes of learning more about where she came from, but what she got was "generic." 

    "They make it sound like you're going to get all this great information, but you get it and it's generic, fill-in-the-blanks stuff," Dahl, 42, said. "The book had a coat of arms for my family, supposedly. But when I opened it, immediately I could tell this was some kind of cruel joke." 

    Dahl said that after numerous attempts to reach the company and after filing complaints of unfair business practices, she finally was refunded her money from Morphcorp. 

    According to the suit, MacMaster advertised in magazines and sent out mailings offering a yearbook detailing "2,000 years" of family history. 

    The suit claims MacMaster and his then-wife made various false and misleading statements in direct-mail advertising claiming that they shared the same last name of the consumer targeted by the flier. The suit also alleges that Morphcorp engaged in improper pricing practices. 

    The company mailed out 250,000 fliers a month, the suit claims, and targeted mostly people over the age of 60. 

    The books sold contained much of the same information, including "family jokes and recipes," and family pictures appear in each yearbook regardless of the surname of the consumer, the suit claims. There were some variations, Suthers said. For a German surname, the books contained the same German family recipes and jokes. 

    Because jokes were the same in many of the yearbooks, some Jewish customers were offended when their families were referenced as being Catholic, the suit claims. 

    It's the second time MacMaster has gotten into hot water for an alleged genealogy scam. In 1996 he signed an assurance as president of a company called Mountain Pacific News Service to cease operations. Suthers hopes to prove MacMaster violated the agreement, which would be another violation of the Colorado Consumer Protection Act. 

    The attorney general has been investigating the company for about a year, since complaints were submitted to the Better Business Bureau. 

    "As these complaints roll in, it's almost comical how this guy would try to fool people," Suthers said. "Anyone with any sophistication almost immediately would identify the yearbook as boilerplate." 

    Staff writer Manny Gonzales can be reached at 303-820-1537 or mgonzales at denverpost.com. 

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