Genealogy Chat

Another member has contacted me and (politely) requested that I remove her, her husband and her daughter from my tree, replacing them with 'living'. I have no problem doing this, but these same three people appear in her tree on this site with details of birth etc. Surely if it is OK for her to appear on her tree then it is OK for her to appear on mine.....or if she asked GR to remove her from mine, then they should remove her from hers! She seems to think that she has sole ownership of her family, but, had I not shown her on this site then she would not have aquired several hundred names from me. Is there something wrong here?? Bewildered

Personally I dont think theres anything wrong with her asking, it states quite clearly that we should always ask living people whether we can put them on the site, she probably hadnt done this before and has now done so. Suzanne

GR does say you should get the permission of living people. I'm still waiting for someone to contact me about having all my family on her tree. GR removed the living people, but I was more interested to see if she was related or if it was a mistake. I've contacted her several times, but maybe there is a reason. I suppose we are all a bit wary in these times.

Hi I guess she is in control of the living persons details in her own tree here on genesreunited. This may be the only place she is happy for those details to be One of the main problems is that people take there trees and post them all over the internet wherever they may please and suddenly you have all sorts of people having access to your details in websites that may be alot more accessible than this,or that show up in a google search Regards Tania

I had someone contact me & also my cousin. She is a close relative, but the family is large & neither of us knew her. She copied both of our trees without permission including living people( my husband & parents ) At the time I had a big mistake on my tree on here, so she copied that as well. I had been given permission to include my Uncle on the tree as he was interested in what I was doing. I am glad that I didn't as he is in the armed services & as has already been said, living people can be the subject of a malicious search. Identity theft is on the increase, any responsible researcher will not include living people without permission, although having said that everything about everyone is in the public domain, you just have to know where and how to look for it. I think as a community on here we must do all we can to respect each others wishes. Mags

'she seems to think she has sole ownership of her own family' well if youre talking about her own children and husband and siblings,then in a way she has as she would have been granted permission to include on the basis that they were close to her and were immediate family......... personally the inclusion of parents and yourself is only required to get the tree going.......I dont think the original intention of the site was to have shedloads of the younger generation on here.....

This is the relevant clause in the Terms and Conditions. 'Members must have, and continue to have, the express permission of any living person to include their details in a family tree. If a living person does not expressly consent to its details in a family tree, relevant details must be removed. Members are the controllers of the information they input relating to living persons, and therefore have obligations under the privacy and data protection laws (such as the Data Protection Act 1998). Genes Reunited may remove all or part of a family tree if so required by any affected third parties or by any governmental or regulatory authority.' The moot point it that when you have been given access to a tree which has details living persons, does that imply that you can assume that their permission also extends to you making use of the information. It can be agrued that yes it should, assuming it has been given in the first place. Hovever as no one can ever prove if permission has been given in the first place, GR take the line that if anyone should object, then the information in question should be removed, or at least depersonalised.

I wonder if she knows that their details are shown. I know I was horrified when I checked out my tree on here and found living people - I had privatise before I uploaded but obviously it hadnt worked.

If you have your immediate family on your own tree then fair enough. If someone contacts you and asks about your son/daughter or husband, YOU can decide how much you wish to tell them because they are your IMMEDIATE family. However, if someone asks a virtual stranger about your immediate family, they might not be so fussy in what they reveal. People SHOULD be wary. Personally, I am only interested in finding dead people. I am far more interested in finding Joshua Kemp born 1803 who was transported to Western Australia than finding Mary Jones born 1971 who is a teacher at the local comp! Just my own preference. However, I can totally understand that adoptees or those trying to trace living relatives will have different preferences. Cheers, Horatia

Bewildered, I really can't see what the problem is... she's asked you to remove them so remove them. I keep my 'livings' on my home tree but only upload gedcoms of dead people (apart from my husband & parents - linking me to the dead ones). Sarah :-) PS - With over 13,000 people on your tree it won't make any difference to you anyway!

Peter, you have been a member for 4 years, Date Tree Created : 08/12/2002 and should read the Terms and Conditions. the key for me is this? 'Members must have, AND CONTINUE TO HAVE, the express permission of any living person to include their details in a family tree You have been asked to remove living rellies so under the Terms and Conditions, you must remove these people from your tree. Roy

My own view is that unless living people are your own immediate family then you shouldn't show them. I tend to use a cut off point of a birth year of 1911, assuming that most people born before 1911 are dead and therefore it should be OK to show people from before that date. However, you are always going to get the occasional extra long liver! Of course that lady has sole rights over her own immediate family!!! Would you want someone waxing lyrical about YOUR immediate family as if THEY were the expert on them rather than YOU! Family History shouldn't be about NUMBERS of people, it should be about knowing about people's lives and times. I prefer quality to quantity! Cheers, Horatia

Hi This is a tricky one. I think that once you open your tree to others the information contained in it is now deemed to be in the public domain. As others have said, what happens to it? It's no longer under your control. What stops it being copied and circulated. So not entering the names of living family does make sense. On the other hand how do you build up a family tree when you don't even know your living relative. Take an orphan / adoptee, he / she finds out who mum is and possibly dad (or brothers / sister) and posts these details on GR in the hope of building his/ her tree. Is that wrong? I have found most of my living family via the public domain, FreeBMD, GRO, Local Register Office, Public Library etc and also the web via 192dotcom, b4usearchdotcom and many others. It appears today that if you have enough money you can buy details about anyone. Quite scary but true. Paul

Someone may correct me, but I am fairly certain that you can't delete yourself, as that would take out the whole tree.

Hi All Having read this thread it has prompted me to change mine and my partners siblings names to Living. I had not thought of the implications of giving first names (though I had permission) What concerns me now is that quite a few members have access to my tree and would already know these names. They may have entered them on their trees and others have access to theirs and so on and so on......... Linda

I think a lot of people don't realise that by letting people access your tree, they take it as read that they can copy your information and disseminate it as they wish. That is why it is best to have your family tree on a proper family tree software programme. When I get related contacts on here, I just ask for their email address and send them a report (produced from Family Tree Maker) of the relevant family members. Why should someone who is related to me on only ONE line see over a 1,000 of my relatives? Many contacts will add people to their tree whether they are related to them or not!!!! They belong to the: I only care about the SIZE of my gedcom club! ;-) Take care! This site can be a useful way of finding missing ancestors and relatives - but use it wisely. Cheers, Horatia

Ann Thanks for the advice. I have removed access from those folk that I am not in regular contact with, and will now search where the names may be. I have recently imported my tree into the Family search PAF file held on my hard drive. I am sure I can produce reports for individuals on that. I will use these in future if I have any query on matches. Linda

I would never include living people from other peoples tree on my tree.I have access to a few trees but most are distant rellies so I would probably just add the spouse of the rellie we share, I have no interest in generations and generations of people who are no actual relative to me. I have streamlined my tree on here to just give basic details should anyone want them, and have only 6 living rellies in my tree myself and 2 sisters, my parents and an Aunt. It clearly states that you need permission for living relatives to be added, you never know when you open your tree to someone just how many others have access to that persons tree. Linda (interested in quality rather than quantity)