Beware of Mail Order Genealogies

If you're mailbox is like mine, you probably receive one or two offers each year for a so-called Brusca Genealogical Book. These offers usually come form a company called Halbert's located in Bath, Ohio. The Halbert's book carries a title like The Amzaing Story of the Brusca Family in America. Anonther anonymous company with a Washington, D.C. offers a similar book titled The Bruscas Since the Civil War.

Beware!

Be warned that these genealogies are nothing more than a printout of Brusca or Brusco names that appear in telephone directories in the United States and elsewhere. This telephone directory information is "wrapped" so to speak in a book that provides cursory advice for the absolute novice genealogist. The price tage for the book used to be about $40-$50.

These offers carry with them some rather misleading information. For example, Halberts tries to induce you into buying the book because it is a "limited first edition." This is entirely untrue. Consider this: other members of my family and I receive these letters at least once a year. If the limited first edition claim were true, why would we be asked to buy one ever year? The offer also says the book will be serially numbered with a certificate of authenticity. These claims are true, but since every copy I've ever seen produced from these offers is numbered #0001 (meaning only one copy was sold) what good is the number and certificate?

Another claim Halbert's makes is to tell you that the book will not be available after a certain date. Not so! I've spoken with a number of others who say that they sent in their orders after the expiration date and were able to buy one.

The Civil War book offer claims to list about 200 households in the U.S. with the Brusca name as well as about 75 listing pulled from U.S. government records. The fact that there are over 700 households in the U.S. with our name, as well as the fact that I've personally pulled hundreds names from U.S. records tells me that the data behind this offer is very sloppy.

Halbert's also claims to have name and address information for 90% of the houselholds with a given name. Not true! In my own personal research on Brusca and Brusco households, I've found almost 2,800 listings compared to Halbert's 1,620 listings. That puts them at a 58% success rate -- fair but not great. And certainly not as good as my research. Halbert's falls particularly short in their listings for South America and the United States. By the way Halbert's -- if you'd like to respond to this, write something up, send it to me and I'll be happy to post your reply here.

In the 1980's I bought a copy of the Brusca genealogy from Halbert's and while I found great value in the list of names and addresses, I found the geneaology part of the book to be a significant waste of paper. Remember that this was pre-Internet. If I had the choice today, I'd get the data online.

In Bill Tonelli's great book, The Amazing Story of the Tonelli Family in America (Addison-Wesley, 1994), Tonelli, an Esquire magazine editor, reports on a visit he made to Halbert's. The company was started by Gary Halbert who was a mailing list merchant. Quite by accident, the company figured out there was a good market for people who wanted to buy things with family crests and coats of arms. Before long, they found themselves in what Tonelli calls the "spurious" genealogy industry.

Halbert's usually sends out its offers with a letter signed by a ficticious person named Sharon Taylor. Halbert's then targets mailings to people with fairly unusual last names -- like Brusca. According to Tonelli, Halbert's targets last names numbering between 30 and 10,000. The books aren't printed or bound until orders are received. In 1994, the company sold about a million of the books at $30 each.

So, the question you must really ask your before buying one of these books is Am I willing to pay $50 for nothing more than a list of names and addresses?

If you're smart, the answer is no. Here's why:

Almost all of the information in these books can now be found on the Internet for free! If you run searches on the name Brusca using 411/Yahoo, Switchboard or any of the other online telephone directories, you'll have exactly the same information that's in the mail order genealogy books. Actually, you'll find more information! You can also get the same information from CD-ROM telephone directories. Or, you can download the list of names from this web site -- I have taken my database of Brusca and Brusco names and made it available for download. Unlike the mail order offers, my list is free and it contains close to 2,400 households worldwide. My list also contains e-mail addresses and web site information.

My advice -- stay away from the mail order offers. Use the information on this web site instead.

Despite the warnings about the mail order genealogies, there are some resources you should be aware of.

The Instituto Araldico Coccia (address: Casella Postale 458, Borgo Santa Croce, 6, Firenze, 50100 Italia; telephone: +55 24.29.14) offers a Coat of Arm service. The fee for receiving a plaque is several hundred dollars. I have not sent away for their coat of arms however their credentials appear to be more credible than others. The Instituto Araldico Coccia maintains extensive records on Italian genealogy, however they only provide their information for fees of several thousands of dollars.

Another Italian genealogical resource is the Instituto Genealogico Italiano (via S. Spirito, 27, 50125 Firenze, Italia; tel. 055-213090). They claim to offer custom genealogies for several thousands of dollars.