General Chat

Amanda wishes to recover the tree not delete it.

When my brother in law died, I found he had a tree on here, but I also knew he hadn't had an account for years.
I just contacted Genes support and informed them of his death (date etc) so they could check - and they removed his tree.
I didn't have probate - obviously my sister - his wife - had that, but she didn't have an account with Genes.

Edit: It cost me nothing.

I also asked them to remove my mum's tree, after she died.
I gave them her name, and date she died - but she died in Portugal.
Not sure if they checked her death though, but her tree's gone.

A deceased person's records whether paper or online are legally as much a part of the estate as physical goods, money and property. They are dealt with in the same way via probate or letters of administration if there is no will.

It is assumed that the deceased intended online records to be treated as part of the estate UNLESS the will specifically said no.

Most online data centres have not got their head around this at all. You will get nowhere with GenesUnited support. You need to contact the legal dept of the parent company, BrightSolid. Using a lawyer with genealogy experience is ideal but it can be expensive.

So far as you have the documentation and proof of your own id ( eg driving licence, passport ) then you must be granted access. It is very easy for GR to change the login name, email address and password.

They can require reasonable payment to be made.

If you are not the person with probate or LOA then you will need to work with that person.

Don't forget you can also see if they've opened your message or not, look at sent messages and the envelope is open if they've read it. It doesn't help some read but don't reply a simple sorry not my relative would help many but good manners aren't held by all.

Unless someone removes their tree it stays on here

Even if the sub has lapsed the tree will still be on here so matches can still occur

The query often comes uo as to why messages don't get answered and the answer is the owner isn't a member anymore and the email they used to join with may be invalid

Also in the events you have had the tree owner has sadly passed away

If someone is no longer a member though they can still respond to an email .what they can't do is initiate contact

If an account has been deleted then that shows as not be able to send a message

If the account has just lapsed then a message can still be sent

There's no way of seeing when someone last logged in

I never log out so that wouldn't work anyway

I have recently joined Genes reunited.

I wanted to know what happens to peoples accounts and their trees when it is no longer in use.

It has been quite upsetting in recent days. Yesterday my tree matched with my cousin. She sadly passed away some years ago. Today, it matched again with another cousin, again she too had passed away.

which then brings me to; in order to send and receive messages one has to pay an ongoing subscription. Otherwise
potentially means that the other people that I have emailed in recent days, may no longer have an account. Perhaps it would be helpful if there was an indicator when an owner was last on. I would imagine in respect of my cousins that their family are not aware of the account. Which is quite sad as they may have spent a considerable amount of time investigating the family tree, and now all that is lost.

I will be passing this information on to support. Apologies if I have missed something, as said I am a recent member.

Best wishes


Amanda