Facts
Genealogy deals with actual facts. Everyone was born on a certain day, in a certain place, to certain parents, and was given a certain name. Unfortunately, a genealogist is never really certain about any of these facts. It's like a soap opera, where nobody is really sure who their children are. Many people kept poor records, because they were careless, or not very literate, or dishonest. Records relating to two people with the same name can be erroneously combined. Also, there is not always a standard translation of a surname from one language into another. Any genealogical database is built on facts of varying degrees of credibility. Family trees hang together only by a preponderance of evidence. Any one fact can be wrong.
A genealogist has to decide whether information they find is credible enough to include in their database. Based on the chatter I have seen on message boards, most people seem to accept data at face value. If you have specific names and dates, that don't contradict any of their other information, then they will accept your data, without asking its source. Other people are very careful abou noting the source of every little piece of information. That can be very tiresome, but it might save you some grief at a later date.
The Data
The genealogical data collected on the average individual would easily fit in a 1-kilobyte file. (Not including images.) It consists of full name(s), important dates, places, and relationships to other people. A database containing all that data for all 300 million living Americans would be less than 300 GB (Gigabytes). These days, a new PC comes with a hard drive with 300 to 600 GB. That's one PC. With 20 PCs you could include the entire world, and with 20 more, you could have a database with a kilobyte reserved for everyone who has ever lived!
This is a large amount of data, but not hopelessly unmanageable, by modern computing standards. The difficulty is not the size of the data set. The DoD probably has more data than this on a single weapon system. The difficulty with genealogical data is that it is incomplete, inaccurate, and scattered all around the world, in endless different formats. Thousands of people are working to get these data recorded in a form that we all can share. Almost all are working for free, and progress is proceeding at an incredible rate!
We may actually live to see the day when the entire human family tree becomes a serious object of study. It will all be based on data that is more or less reliable. We may be able to infer relationships among people long dead, from conjectures that make the tree fit better.
Privacy
It seems to me that there are two aspects of privacy in genealogy. One involves the wish to withhold details of one's personal life that might be embarrassing. That could also extend to family members. You might not want the World to know that your grandmother had venereal disease, for example. Legally, the deceased have no right to privacy, but it doesn't hurt to be sensitive.
The second aspect of privacy in genealogy concerns personal data that could be used by identity thieves. Genealogical information often includes a person's full name, date of birth, mother's maiden name, street address, and sometimes even the social security number. It's just the information a thief would need in order to apply for credit in someone else's name. I haven't heard of any large scale group of thieves targeting genealogy websites, but I don't want to wait until it happens before taking precautions.
For this reason, many genealogists won't give anyone data on living individuals. Others will post this information, but make it available to family members only. That's the approach I've taken. I have a few webpages with some data on living individuals. I only list names and dates, and include pictures if I have them. If anyone is uncomfortable with their information posted, even in this protected setting, just let me know and I will remove your information.
The Industry
The genealogy industry seems to be dominated by Genealogy.com. When you search for data on your ancestors, you can't avoid them. They show up under many names; presumably the names of the companies they have bought out in their rise to the top. They always offer searches of their databases for FREE! Of course you have to be a little leary of any webpage that has FREE! in capital letters more than 10 times. It turns out, not surprisingly, that you can search for free, and they will tell you how many results they have for you, but if you actually want to see the results, you have to PAY! It's not surprising, but just a little disgusting,that it turns out to be a money grab. And it's not even their data! The US Census records, in particular, should be free to eveyone. And I mean really free.
I bought the Family Tree Maker software for $30. It's made and sold by Genealogy.com. Based on the reviews on Amazon and other places, it is the best software for genealogy. You can compare prices with other software packages, but what they totally forget to mention is the cost of using the software. The software works very well as long as all you want to do is enter data from your family Bible. As soon as you want to seach their databases, you find that you have to pay $12.95 a month! They never mentioned that in promotion of the software. Now $155 a year is not that much compared to the expense of other hobbies. But why should the money go to Genealogy.com? It's not even their data! They invite their members to post their data on their webpage, and then they charge people to view it! I just think it's a pretty sleazy way to do business.
William Haloupek