Genealogy Scam Hits the Fan

From The Denver (Colo.) Post of Nov. 24, 2005:

State sues genealogy company

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.

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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.

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