Halberts

By the early 1990s I had self-published two books on my family's ancestry and was interested in collecting anything I could from other authors. By then, lots of people were beginning to advertise family research services. Home computers were common and genealogy software was popular.

I answered an ad and received a "research report" of Vincents available for a small fee. I ordered it from Halberts of Bath, Ohio and received this nice Thank You note with my order.

Later, I received a revised report free of charge along with another note. The catalog they had mentioned in the previous note came. It was accompanied by many advertisements in genealogy magazines that promised book-length research on any family name.

The book was expensive (about $80 in today's dollars) but the ad promised it included an image of my family's coat of arms, a history of it, and research on people who bear the Vincent surname throughout the world.

It sounded too good to be true so I ordered one. I was right. It was too good to be true.

The book title was World Book of Vincents. It came with a fancy little ribbon bookmark.

There was indeed a page about my family coat of arms but the front page with the coat of arms was exactly the same information in "research report" I had previously ordered. The back page of the coat of arms was nothing but an illustration of a knight in armor with an explanation of what each piece of armor was called and what it was used for. This was interesting but useless to the genealogist.

The book is divided into 6 sections with a cover sheet and table of contents as follows:

Section #	No. of Pages	Content
1	30	Introduction, 4 pages on European migration, 13 pages on the coloniztion of the United States, and 10 pages on the colonization of other English-speaking countries.
2	10	History of the origin of surnames around the world. This section promises to include "What the Vincent surname means" but never delivers. The Vincent surname is mentioned on 3 of these pages with text that's worded in such a fashion to appear as though Halberts has done a great deal of research on the Vincent name. However, closer analysis reveals that anyone who knows how to use a text editor could easily substitute any surname in it's place. It's clear they used basically the same text in every book they sold so they could easily replace the surname to apply to the person purchasing the book.
3	12	A history of heraldry and coats of arms. This is the section in which the "Vincent Coat of Arms" was included. Printed on card stcck to make it stand out and appear expensive, it is nothing more than an artists rendition of a coat of arms "Officially documented in "Rietstap Armorial General" (See Wikipedia). This same information is now widely available on the internet (CLICK HERE for an example) but, in the early 1990s, one had to go to the library and look it up.
4	32	26 pages of general instructions and helpful information on how to do your own family research and 6 pages of various blank forms such as pedigrees, group sheets, etc.
5	14	A bibliography of genealogy research books on North American Immigration.
6	119	Obviously the longest section, the title of this section is "The Vincent International Registry." The first two pages are an introduction which claims to explain their extensive research but which actually reveals the source. It's nothing more than information that, at the time, was publicly available in old telephone directories.

As mentioned in the various websites (see References below), Halberts products were basically a scam that were so carefully advertised and worded that they were able to escape prosecution for years before finally getting caught. Meantime, they made millions of dollars off their bogus products.

I've included examples. You can click the links herein to view them. Their first product was the "research report" mentioned at the top of this page. CLICK HERE to see the "research report" they sent me (includes the coat of arms) which is in a printable PDF document along with an Order Form for their coat of arms plaque.

In one of their mailings, they sent me a photo of the Vincent Coat of Arms Plaque. Some were made out of wood but later versions were plastic.

The plaques were basically all the same so they could purchase them in quantity. There were spaces on each plaque where they could insert paper cards containg the graphics for each surname, etc. CLICK HERE to view one for the Sturges surname. If you compare it to the Vincent Coat of Arms Plaque, you'll see they are nearly identical except for the color of the plaque and the name, etc. (parts easily replaceable).

Gary Halbert, the guy who founded Halberts, was in business from 1970 until the 1990s. He was convicted of mail fraud in the late 1970s and mid-1980s and eventually served time in prison for it. He learned his lesson. From then on, his advertisements were so carefully worded that he was able to escape prosectution.

However, he could not escape the courts and was ordered to "cease and desist" on several occasions. Some examples are listed below. The sad thing is he grew to be very, very rich by taking advantage of people willing to pay for family research who were not familiar with the process.

All the information he sold was already publicly available for free for anyone who knew where to look. Today, Gary Halbert is applauded by marketing experts everywhere for his ability to make a fortune through shrewd advertising.

Marketing experts call him brilliant for his knowledge of how to sell.

Consumers call him a thief for his ability to sell products that have no value to them while barely escaping being labeled as "false advertising."

References:

(1) from: http://www.john-carlton.com/2007/04/for-gary/

Gary Halbert. Born June 12, 1938. Passed away April 8, 2007, just shy of his 69th birthday. His sons Bond and Kevin, who I watched grow from teenagers into a strong, confident men, delivered the news.

(2) from: http://www.leagle.com/decision/198192841hqtcm887_1704/NUMA%20CO.,%20LTD.%20v.%20COMMISSIONER

Gary C. Halbert and Dennis B. Haslinger formed H & H Sales in the fall of 1968 to develop a direct mail sales catalog. In 1969, Halbert developed ideas for the catalog. He and Haslinger decided to sell genealogical and heraldic products by mail. Halbert's, Inc. was organized in Ohio on January 2, 1970. The original shareholders of Halbert's were Halbert and Haslinger.

The primary product developed by the corporation was the surname research report which was a one or two page account of the origin and history of a particular surname, accompanied by a reproduction of the earliest or the most prominent coat of arms (if any) associated with that name.

They obtained a list of 70 million American motorists arranged in alphabetical order and sold their research report for $1, increasing the price later to $2. From the 140 million pieces of mail they sent out, eventually 6 million people purchased the report. To these, they marketed a $20 plaque with their coat of arms. By 1971, sales had exceeded $3 million dollars.

(3) from: http://www.thegaryhalbertletter.com/dark-side/

According to Gary Halbert, he sold the initial business in 1973 for the 2002 equivalent of $2 million but his endeavors continued. In 1978 he was convicted of mail fraud. He appealed and in 1981 the charges were dropped. There was another trial, he lost, and on May 21, 1984 was incarcerated at Boron Federal Prison Camp in the Mojave Desert.

(4) from: http://www.leagle.com/decision/19831100712F2d388_11014/UNITED%20STATES%20v.%20HALBERT

The business grew into a book marketed by Halberts of Bath, Ohio. The book sold as "The World Book of _______" (your surname) and was often offered to the purchaser by someone who pretended to have the same surname. In 1983, the Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals, case of United States v. Halbert, stated that "Gary Halbert was convicted by a jury of twenty-one counts of mail fraud."

(5) from: http://goldstraw.org.uk/scam.html

In 1988, Halberts was prohibited by a cease and desist order from representing a book
- That was principally about a particular family name and the history of this name.
- That contained information about someone's forebears and their emigration from Europe.
- That contained information about the heraldry and family crest of a particular family.
- That explained how a particular family got its surname.
explaining why someone's forebears immigrated to the New World.
- That is the result of research trhough numerous resources by themselves [Halbert's], or someone acting in their behalf, to compile information on persons with the [purchaser's] surname who immigrated to the New World.

The U.S. Postal Service had issued cease and desist orders against Halbert's in 1985 and 1988. Although these remained in effect they were requested to investigate Halberts again in 1995. On 23 March 1995, the National Genealogical Society (NGS), with the support of the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS), submitted to the United States Postal Service's Chief Counsel, Consumer Protection, a 120-page report on Halbert's marketing practices with the request that these practices be investigated.

On 21 November 1995, the Postal Service issued a supplemental cease and desist order prohibiting Halbert's from further use of certain misleading marketing practices, which included a consent agreement signed by Halbert's.

Dick Eastman in his 'Online Genealogy Newsletter the week of November 10th, 1997' said that Halbert's was an international operation. He said, "All of the advertisements will claim to be 'a one-of a kind book.'" In 1996, the book cost $34.50 plus $4.88 postage and handling. It included general information about how to get started researching genealogy plus many pages of extracts from old telephone directories listing people with the same last name.

Halbert's mailing address in Bath, Ohio is simply a mail drop; there are no offices at that address... Halbert's is one of the trade names owned by Numa Corporation in nearby Akron, Ohio...
[As of 3 February 1999, they were still selling from their Bath, Ohio address]:
Halbert's 3687 Ira Road P O Box 5000 Bath, OH 44210.

The Truth About Halberts of Bath, Ohio