General Chat

Someone suggested just entering parents, grandparents etc on Genes Connected. I find that I am as interested in all the "branches" off the tree. I like to track distant relatives and see where they ended up. This is also useful when someone with my surname turns up in 1901 Census or similar. I then want to know whether they are descended perhaps from a brother of my Grandfather, brother of my Great Grandfather or are completely unrelated. I keep hoping that someone new to family history might spot a name from my tree even if they are very distantly related. They might have some very useful gem of information on a common ancestor that coulod lead to much more. They might not know enough about their tree to recognise that common ancestor but they might recognise another name. MB

Don't get paranoid. If someone wants to impersonate you they will find ways, I don't think that contributing to this site will significantly add to the risk. But otherwise go ex-directory, don't register to vote, don't join clubs, don't write to the newspapers, don't post anything on the internet, don't use mail-order catalogues, don't get a professional qualification, don't get married, in other words, become a hermit and don't have a life.

Hi all I have just deleted my tree - got so confused with all the replies on this board,might start again without living members,but have'nt got anywhere anyway.Everything l do l mess up. Cheers Jude H.

Hi - I have been reading your comments on this issue and they are all thought provoking. In my instance, my daughter lives approx 3000 kilometers from me and she has access to my tree because of her research. How else is she to find out about her family. I must admit If I am contacted about a query of someone in my tree I try and establish some facts that I know about first before giving access. This issue is not going to go away because it does not just deal with this site it applies to other avenues in your life as well. I know of a lot of instances which arise when too much information is freely available and then misused. Here in Australia we have the same kind of law but under a different name. It just makes it harder for the genuine people to make genuine enquiries. Having said that I am glad that this law is in force to protect our privacy. Just wanted to air an ex-poms point of view on this subject. Leah New South Wales, Australia

Reply to william. Its better safe than sorry. If you dont know where a relative is and cant ask their permission, then please dont post their details. If you need the link for further names then change the living relative details to "Living" or "not telling" and keep the rest of the info to yourself. Its no problem for you to have your own personal file with living relatives details, the point is that its advisable not to post them on the net. Privacy is breached and fraud can be commited if you use first names, date and place of birth. Its wise just to use "non Living" people for the purpose of family trees. Anyone else doing family trees should know a dead relative or two of their own that you can compare with and match up. If you are searching for someone (i.e. long lost brother) then it wont hurt to put in some details on the message boards, but keep something to yourself so that you have got something to varify that they are who they are.. If you are stuck looking for "nonliving relatives there are some good places to look on the LINKS page.

Always strip off details of living people before putting any family tree information in a public place or even giving to someone else. MB

Not sure which program you guys use for your family trees - I use Family Tree Maker which has a 'privatise' facility. By opting for this the information about anyone less than 100 years of age other than those already deceased is removed from the records (temporarily) - you can then export to a gedcom file and upload it with a clear conscience. I also used a free program called Legacy which had the same facility as well. I guess there are other programs that cater for this. Graham

Does not the fact that the Registrar General posts the particulars of all living persons on public files make an utter nonsense of this data protection stuff? - - - but the entries must be true. A means of warning of doubt without re-aligning indexing would often be advantageous i.e. "?"to be excluded from main listing but highlighted in listed entry.

Hello, I too only have my dead ancestors on this site, however someone seems to have copied parts of my tree but changed the place of birth, I have no idea why and they refuse to answer my emails.It's a bit worrying

I have all your replies with interest and realise now just what a tinder box this could become (stolen identities?). Best keep it short and sweet and not let anyone have acess to your tree unless you can be 100% sure that they are a relative, not an imposter.

I would be interested to know if just giving year and county of birth along with name is sufficient to prevent identity theft?

I quite agree with James, the Data Protection Act is about the most pointless bit of legislation around. It does nothing to prevent the use of information by the ungodly but makes life darned difficult for everybody else. I would rather put information on this site where, unless you have granted permission for someone to view your tree, the only things visible are the name, year and place of birth, than in a telephone directory or electoral roll.

If TheLaw is an ass, then the Data Protection Acts are its illegitimate great grandchildren. It is the most oddly interpreted Law I have ever come across. It seems to me that any information, e.g. phone directories are in the Public Domain, but private things are not. I received Spam emails from some people which when opened displayed a blank screen yet ntl have refused to give me their full email address so I can ask them not to email me. Even though I can clearly see some of the address on my "Check email" page. Apparently it would contravene the Data Protection Act for them to tell me the final few letters!?!?! Therefore I have resisted the temptation to put living relatives on GC, but when I find a confirmed relative I am quite happy to send (by snail mail) a copy of the relevant parts of my tree including living ones. Jim

I have used the rule of born 1925 or earlier. The only ones breaking this rule are in my own direct line. I already know where to find siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins etc. so don't feel the need to show them on here. I have to admit to cringing inside whenever I see a name with birth date of say 2003. I can understand that people are proud of their new additions but surely the child is not in any sort of position to give permission for its details to appear for all and sundry to view. Especially as quite a few people now seem to be giving a full postal address.

Can someone help me please ?how do you delete someone from tree, I have living relative on my G.C. tree and will follow advise and just have deceased relatives apart from myself and close family on site. Thanks meryl

From my understanding of UK Law, this seems complex but actually is very simple: - You may not post personal information (eg birth dates) of any living individual onto any location accessible by others (eg genesconnected) without their explicit permission to do so. Therefore I would not dare to upload my (.gedcom) family tree to genesconnected, much as I would like to. If and when I get time, I manually copy records from my (400 record) local file to my (100 record) gc file. Unfortunately I have not got the time to manually identify the approx. 250 deceased people from my records to upload them. Does anyone have a better solution please?

the dilemma... I have a tree with 6000+ family members on it and another branch with 3500+ members. yes lots of them are dead but yes some are living too. If you have a proven link with this tree then as far as i am concerned you would be entitled to have a copy of the tree you belong to. Just because i let you know who they are it doesnt mean that you have permission to post it openly on the internet for all to see, I expect you to ask permission first. If it was posted on the internet already then the information would openly be available to anyone who wished to download it. my immediate relatives details have been posted on 4 different sites, they have been added to ancestry.com on 12 different files and also added to this site. i have contacted the person who posted my family on numerous occassions, firstly introducing myself, then asking kindly if he would remove living individuals, then supplying names of people i would please like removed. I received a reply once saying "yes we are related - i will be in touch" he never bothered again, he did not answer any of my queries. I retried to contact him again, many emails, asking would he contact me, id like to discuss something. still he hasnt bothered. the dilemma is that a relative has his details posted, his name, place and date of birth are here, his parents details are here, his wifes details are here and his daughters are entered her, names, dates, places all are openly available and his objection is that its a breach of his privacy and a security risk. If someone told me something personal about themselves, i would not post it on the internet, not without asking first. Please , please , please when posting entries on the internet would you please removed living people or replace them with Auntie Jones, Uncle Smith etc.., even mum or dad as someone suggested.

Georgina I agree with you - I dont know whether some of my names are still alive or not. Last night I began the laborious task of removing people from my tree born 1930 onwards (I figured that would be a safe margin) unless I knew they were definately deceased. Where I needed to keep Living Rellys on my tree for structure (eg my parents and I couldnt put my grandparents on till I had entered my parents) I changed their forenames to Living. Mum + Dad had obviously already given me permission to use their details, but I decided that it was probably safer not to display them, after reading the above messages. Its a shame though. Still my own personal tree still has loadsa lovely names on it and I shall use Genes just for the dead people! Regards Sally, Coventry

Lisa After a few weeks of joining the site I noticed that my husband and both sons had been added without their permission. I immediately contacted GC who dealt with the matter quickly and efficiently. They kept me informed of the situation by telling me who had put the names on the site and said that if the person responsible did not remove them within a certain time period then they would do it. Your situation is, I know, different as you want to add your details also but I hope this helps those people who, like me, are annoyed at finding their family have been added without their permission being asked for and granted. When filling in details of relatives it clearly states that living relatives must give their permission to their details being added to the site. Yvonne

I usually type in the Forename as 'Living', but after reading all your comments above, I think I am probably safer to just delete off these names because some are very distant cousins and I couldnt contact them if I wished to! I thought that by just having their names as 'Living' I had covered my obligations, but thinking about it, I have decided to delete them off this tree completely. That leads me to another problem. When I next upload from GEDCOM, does anyone know how to stop PAF exporting all of the records? Otherwise I will have to delete them all over again each time I reload the tree? Sally, Coventry