Genealogy Chat

A cautionary tale from one who has been mightily stung here:

Trying to be helpful to fellow researchers I have not, until now, used the 'hide living relatives' function (option thru 'My Account'). This blocks access to view a tree's details of any person within the past 120 years, although their name will still show up on a 'name search' check.

Not using this function gave a one viewer access to dozens of my 'living relatives' details to copy without permission. This is very stressful, invasive and totally not allowed, nor by UK Date Protection laws either ..

Please think carefully before allowing unfettered access to your living relatives, actually very, personal details. Not every other researcher is scrupulous and, should they obtain them, we have no control over what they may decide to do with our living relatives details.

If you have been similarly affected, I would be interested to hear from you

I'm afraid this type of thread comes up around once a week.

The only safe way to guarantee your relations privacy is to NOT put then on an internet tree

If you have details of living people on your tree by permission..then its your duty to safe guard their details from public access, ,,,,,,,better hide them from view,,,

Yes, I admit it was very naive of me .... oh, dear.... but, been on GR for years now, and never encountered behaviour like this - or not so far, maybe I've only been lucky to date.

Ask the person to remove the living peoples details from their tree,,if you have no success GR will do it for you,,but it wont help if they have them copied to memory stick CD or witten down,~

Yes - Cautionary indeed. Being stung myself last year - it is sad to say there are unscrupulous people out there.

My [lets call her 'Problem'] - took all my living relations [myself included] and has transferred every little bit of info 'including' whole and middle names of all my first cousins and has brazenly posted them on a 'for all to see' 'do it yourself tree online' - just google and there it is. The funny thing is I took my tree access away from her after she failed to remove them from said 'do it yourself tree' - then a few weeks later she had the gall to 'send' an access message to have my tree back....um 'NO WAY'.

Gosh - I have whined on about this on various 'posts' several times. I have to say apart from this and one other 'equally' distressing incident I get an enormous amount of joy researching my family tree. But sometimes it bites back from unexpected quarters...always take care when adding info that is personal.

Cheers ~ Steve.

I can only repeat what I've said before:
Don't put living people on your tree. Don't trust Genes to keep the names hidden.
It's of no use to anyone else to have your children's names posted.
My name is the only living person on my tree, I wouldn't dream of putting my children's and grandchildren's names on, yet I'm amazed when I check new names here how many people put their newborn's names on their tree.

I have no living on my public tree, never have and never will, but I am curious to know from those who do, when you ask you relatives for permission to put them on your tree (which you should do) do you explain the possible consequences, do they know that if you open your tree to someone else that that someone else will be able to see their details? and spread them far and wide. I, like most people on here have elderly relatives who have no concept regarding the internet ( a few not so elderly as well) and would happily let me add their information not realizing how easy it would be for someone else to copy that information. If you wouldn't give those details to a stranger in the pub then why put them on the web?

What shocks me is when people offer to open their tree to me on here. I hate GR trees but I will click and the first thing I see will be the details of the tree owner - their date of birth, their occupation, their OH's names, where they live. Horror!!!