Genealogy Chat

I have just received my latest batch of Hot Matches to find that someone I sent a message to a few weeks ago has added a number of details from my tree to theirs. I don't have a problem with this per se, but they did not bother to reply to my original message, haven't bothered to check they've spelt names right before they've added the details and haven't asked permission to add living relatives. Maybe I'm being a bit stuffy and old-fashioned about this, and I no doubt would have given permission anyway, but it would have been nice to be asked..... Diana

I don't send reports (or open tree in your case) until I've had some mutual correspondence with a contact. If they can't be bothered to indulge in a bit of correspondence with me, then I can't be bothered to send a report or open my tree. I dislike being treated like a robot! ;-) There's nothing wrong in feeling that people should treat you with respect. Cheers, Horatia

Without wishing to widen the discussion Diana;I also find discourteous someone relying to a query I have sent with;this is not my relative'.However I have my own way of replying to this with;'Many thanks for your somewhat curt reply' Regards William Russell Jones Cefn Mawr Wrexham.

Diana This might have happened for a number of reasons. Your contact may genuinely have discovered the names themselves through their own research. I am not sure what the GR default is at the moment - it changes frequently - but did you un-tick the box which allows your contact to see your tree automatically? The wisest course is not to show your GR tree but do as Horatia says and send a report from your GEDCOM file, sending only that part of the tree which is relevant to them. William - the odious automatic replies/requests is one of the things I mentioned in my e-mail to GR when they asked for comments recently. I do hope they have listened! Susan

It wouldn't have made any difference whether the stranger had asked your permission to include your living relatives, because the permission was not yours to give or withhold. GR's T&C require the express permission of each and every living relative, not a third party, before details can be reproduced here. Unless the complete stranger, known only to you through a Hot Match, had contacted each of your relatives directly to ask whether they minded having their personal details shared indiscriminately, then the T&C have been broken. But then the complete stranger got the information from YOU - did your relatives know that was what you were going to do, when each and every one of them gave you permission to include them in your tree?

Clive, if only it were that simple. The GR T's and C's permission clause is there to protect them from possible claims the DPA, and for no other reason. Unfortunately there is no definition to that express permission actually is, and in fact it is only the living person themselves who could claim any infringement. In most case they would never even know their details were on here. Even then it would be hard for a person to claim in a court of law their data was being unfairly used just because their name appears on a geneaology site. However, none of this detracts from the question of common courtesy - it is polite to ask first, and rude not to.

Actually, Peter, while I agree that the T&C are there for GR's benefit, and not yours or mine, the issue is, at heart, very simple. Living individuals shouldn't appear here unless they have given actual permission. The courtesy that is owed is primarily to our own families: we should none of us be compromising their privacy by reproducing the sort of information that can daily be seen in shared trees: full names, dates of birth, addresses(!) and sometimes more. It wouldn't be so bad if we kept the information to ourselves, but we don't. A complete stranger contacts us about an apparent connection, and we hand complete access to the whole lot with hardly a thought. Later, when we realise that we have acted unwisely, we complain about stolen trees and the invasion of privacy, when it is us that have made what should be private available to all comers.

Thanks people for your comments. As you will appreciate, it's not a mistake I shall make again! I thought that if I gave someone access to my tree it might facilitate a genuine exchange of correspondence rather than the 'not one of mine' or complete silence that is so often the response. Clearly not. As for the living relatives issue, Clive and Peter, my living relatives that are on my tree do know, in fact are on GenesReunited themselves. I haven't put on the ones that I don't have contact with, but I do take your point Peter about the risk of identities being hijacked, and have reduced the information on each to the bare minimum, although there wasn't much more than that anyway.. Diana

I agree with Peter and Clive and would extend their comments to remark that the whole area of legislation is extremely woolly. I therefore operate a simple principle: Would I be happy to see all my OWN details, such as my date of birth, my two marriages, details of my children and even my address and phone number, ANYWHERE on the internet? No - I wouldn't, so I extend this principle to cover all the living people on my tree and don't have any information about them in my tree, other than that needed for continuity. As I NEVER open my tree, it isnt much of a problem anyway. I think it extremely unlikely that an idle trawl through someone else's tree, would throw up any useful connection. OC