General Chat

We’re about to implement a pretty exciting change and thought you should know in advance.

From 1 July, the deceased ancestors in everyone’s trees will become shareable. Which means other members may receive hints about the dead ancestors in your tree. They’ll only be shared between members who have common ancestry – likely, a distant relative. Making family-tree building a more conducive, collaborative experience.

Your privacy is of the utmost importance... Therefore, any information on you or your living relatives will remain private. Equally, no-one else will be able to edit your ancestors’ details or see your tree – just you. So you’ll remain completely in control.

This change is totally optional – if you don't want your ancestors to be shared, just follow the instructions in our FAQs before 1 July. We’ll send you a friendly reminder before that day, just in case.

In the meantime, feel free to have a look at our updated privacy policy.

Best regards,


The Findmypast Team


Now obviously with Caroline’s passing I do not want all and sundry accessing that information should I choose to add it.

Neither do I want everyone to see that I lost one brother in 2002, two more brothers and my sister in 2004.

I think recent deaths should be closed and not arbitrarily opened to anyone on FMP.

I’ll be changing my privacy settings but this post is a warning to people who may miss the notice.

Sue

This would be though only if you have your tree on FMP ?

I had the same email but only because I have FMP subs I think

:-)

It is from FMP ......... but don't forget that GR is under FMP, so I immediately wondered when I read that same email whether things will also change on here.

I don't have a tree on FMP, and I only have a small tree on GR and another small one on Ancestry, but it seems that FMP is doing things much like Ancestry does.

I think we should watch carefully here on GR to see if things will also change.

I have a lot of trees on both Ancestry and FMP because my family is split into different branches,I have the adopting family on my maternal side separate too.. I have trees for friends and many, many trees for people in our village which I research as part of the social history project in the Welsh Valleys.

None of those trees are public and I'll be spending a lot of time changing the settings.

How do you change the settings?

On your tree page, next to "my hints" is a 'cog' for tree settings, that gives you this option

"Share deceased ancestors Why should I share deceased ancestors?" you can tick or untick.

Thanks for posting Sue, I don't have a tree there aside from a couple of ancestors that I am looking into.

https://www.findmypast.co.uk/tree-change-faqs

have also posted this on genealogy chat for info.

Yes but the GRO Index for the UK BMD is open to anybody up to 2006 regardless of your choice of FH site. After 2006 it is slightly more complex to obtain the records but openness applies.
Thus taken with the many sources used by FH sites esp @ncestry any ideas of "privacy" are very limited in scope.

There are clear public policy reasons why BMD records should be open to the public esp inc recent death records. Since abt 2006 these have to be obtained directly from the N.A.

Of course a FH "tree" may contain all sorts of stuff as well as basic BMD records and the structure tells a history often not obvious from BMD bare bones. In this sense keeping a tree private makes sense. Just don't go around thinking you can close out access to the records themselves. UK GRO records are Crown property and those related to people in them have no special rights.

Well it depends if the deaths were registered in the UK doesn’t it. It’s not compulsory and is entirely at the family’s discretion where and when to add an entry.

Edited to add: With my extended family and their penchant for changes of surname spellings and emigration to various countries their deaths would only be traceable if these facts were known. Not picked up from my research (or others).

Free BMD only lists deaths up until 1993 I think

Found it, RR. Thanks.

It is compulsory to register bmd records in the UK.
Ancestry carries a much more complete GRO index than free mid.
It also uses a wide variety of data resources ancient and modern together with some nifty algorithms for hanging all together Inc spelling changes.
FMP is just playing catchup.
Time delay on family records varies a great deal from one country to another. My comment relates to the UK and C. I. IOM.
If you really want to keep Yr tree totally private use something such as Rootsmagic. Fh sites will never do that.

Rollo ..............

"It is compulsory to register bmd records in the UK."


NOT if the person is born, married or died in another country!!!!

I have a whole slew of cousins born in the UK, some married in the UK but some not, most who died have done so in other countries.

Therefore, their records are not available by perusing any of the GRO records, obituaries or what-have-you.

Thus, if I have got those dates, and put them on my tree, then there would be no way I might want to share them with others.

Therefore I would not only make my tree private, but i would erase those overseas records.

I am sure that many of us have similar scenarios!

Correct Sylvia you do NOT have to register overseas events in the UK our daughter's death will not be.

Registering with the local British authorities overseas or after return to the UK is not mandatory.

x

Sue ..........

We should ALL know that, even Rollo, seeing the large number of "lost" relatives people keep asking for help to find.

I don't mind that .................. but I have a lot of cousins and their descendants overseas who are very much alive or have died fairly recently. I know dates, but they've not been entered on any tree except on my computer. Nor is any date to do with my own daughter on there, she's registered elsewhere.

We do have the right to keep some things out of the public eye, no matter what Rollo says :-D

I said that my comments related to UK only. I have a lot of close rellies born / married / died / survived outside of the UK and am quite aware of the issues that raises.
in both Canada and Australia regulation is by the state not the central govt.

As to UK. UK regs are that overseas births should be first registered in The country of birth. All very well except that some countries are not at all cooperative for non residents. Once done there is the option of registering with the GRO. Advisable given the way that the Home Office misbehaves.

UK deaths abroad must be registered where the death occurred. Even if the remains are brought back to the UK there is no obligation to register the death with GRO.

I am on FMP and haven't received an email and yes I have checked junk mail.

I don't have a tree on Ancestry or FMP and only a very small one on here starting with grandparents and their ancestors.

My husband died in 2017 in England and I was shocked to see that the event was recorded on Ancestry with actual date of death.
This was the general listing, not trees.

Gwyn awful seeing it in black and white if you aren’t really anticipating it.

X

It must have been in this listing
England and Wales, Death Index, 2007-2017

The original data was sourced from
GreyPower Deceased Data. compiled by Wilmington Millennium, West Yorkshire.

https://www.wilmingtonmillennium.co.uk/
Wilmington Millennium offer deceased data cleansing, fraud prevention and insurance lead generation products created in conjunction with leading industry partners.
These include:
Mortascreen and Halo, the UK's leading deceased data files used for compliance, mortality fraud and identity theft prevention

Big Brother & his siblings *are* watching you, even after you've died.