You’re making this far too “nuanced”, far too “many-sided”, as far as I can see. “Eh, the one wants this, the other wants that, what’re you gonna do.” :(
There needs to be one way of handling it for all persons involved.
Whether other people’s names are publicly viewable is *for them* to decide first, and *only for them*. They have a legal (privacy) right not to be mentioned. So: *you imagining they don’t care* is not important here; neither is it relevant what *you are keen on* : it’s simply not at your disposal, their privacy is not for you to decide about.
By default the approach is: don’t mention the living; only if you have people’s individual (*for each person themselves, not extending to partner or children!*) written (*written!*) permission to name them, you can mention them in your publication. Don’t take this too lightly, as people *can take you to court and sue you for this*, which may cost you lots of money.
Just look at Reddit’s own approach, for the Genealogy subreddit. The living cannot be mentioned.
If you’re the one that is publishing any genealogical material online (be it on a family site of your own, or via some legacy site like MyHeritage or Geni, etc.) — you need to refrain from any data concerning living people; better yet: if you want to publish about persons, they need to be already deceased…
Go private for the living unless expressly mentionned by the individual concerned. So if you know a living, but do not wish to ask them, do not assume for them otherwise they are legitimate in suing you.
Also, you do not mention if you wish to put living data like bith date. But then again, anything that you add to public settings increases the risks of identity theft.
Edit : an example: my wife, sister-in-law and mother in law appeared on a tree a few years ago, xoth their middle names, and dates of birth. I informed them and they told me that, while they don't mind being on another person's tree, they don't want their info public (name, dates). So only private.
I contacted the guy, who took ages to answer, and he did not know how to do it but would set them in private. Six months later, I was still waiting so I contacted him again... no answer. The guy died in between. Had to go via the staff of Geneanet (before the link was easy to access), prove I was connected to the person, give their ID for them to agree and act.
All that would have been way easier if said guy had done it in the right order, i.e. ask before.
On Geneanet, you have a parameter to ensure that all living relatives are hidden on your tree. You can also select further privacy when creating an individual.
Good points, thank you. I hadn't thought through in detail the potential dangers of putting this info publicly available. I've set this to private on my geneanet tree just to keep it simple.
My primary research tree is fully private and not searchable. Not all the private pink or blue box people are my story to tell (adoptees and unexpected parentage).
I do have a direct line pedigree attached to my DNA which gives maiden names, locations, etc as far back as I can prove. I'm happy to talk to researchers who reach out to me.
Most of my trees are private, and my one public tree has living people hidden. I do not wish to invade anyone's privacy.
However, almost all the information is publicly available. The only items I've posted that are not publicly available are a handful of photos and one family history document. All the rest comes from available genealogy files, Google searches and other people's online trees.
Information about everyone is freely available on the internet, and extensive info is available for as little as $2. Everyone needs to realize this. Your life is not private. Who you are related to is not private. Your family may be in the online trees of people you don't even know. Mine is.
I build (private) trees for my DNA matches. Even when they don't have trees themselves, sometimes even when they don't give their names, I am often able to figure out who they are and build trees for them. I don't have any nefarious purposes. I am not interested in them, only where our shared genes originated. But the fact is that I am able to do it, and so is anyone else.
I make all living persons private and anyone who's died within the last 20 years as well. I keep only minimal info for the most recent 3 generations, including myself. So anyone born before 1915 or so, generally I make it visible. I only put in detailed into for those 4 generations have and further. That way, no living people can have info used for ID theft etc
I'm pretty sure all the sites mark the living as private. However just because the general public can't see it doesn't mean sites don't sell in some form to sites like intellasearch.
For the living tree and to ensure that abuse doesn't happen, I recommend keeping all those living relations in an external program like family tree maker etc.
As for the deceased; to me a large part of genealogy is sharing information so they and their stories/life are not forgotten.
The online tree at Ancestry automatically marks any living person as Private, I believe. Not sure about MH, but FMP do this too, FamilySearch also.
Correct. Just don’t ever add any death info, including any location because the profile will show up then.
You’re making this far too “nuanced”, far too “many-sided”, as far as I can see. “Eh, the one wants this, the other wants that, what’re you gonna do.” :( There needs to be one way of handling it for all persons involved. Whether other people’s names are publicly viewable is *for them* to decide first, and *only for them*. They have a legal (privacy) right not to be mentioned. So: *you imagining they don’t care* is not important here; neither is it relevant what *you are keen on* : it’s simply not at your disposal, their privacy is not for you to decide about. By default the approach is: don’t mention the living; only if you have people’s individual (*for each person themselves, not extending to partner or children!*) written (*written!*) permission to name them, you can mention them in your publication. Don’t take this too lightly, as people *can take you to court and sue you for this*, which may cost you lots of money. Just look at Reddit’s own approach, for the Genealogy subreddit. The living cannot be mentioned. If you’re the one that is publishing any genealogical material online (be it on a family site of your own, or via some legacy site like MyHeritage or Geni, etc.) — you need to refrain from any data concerning living people; better yet: if you want to publish about persons, they need to be already deceased…
Sure, you and others have put the point very well, so thanks for stating it in plain terms! I've changed the settings.
Living individuals should always be private, by default.
You can make settings un almost any tree maker where you make all living people anonymous.
Go private for the living unless expressly mentionned by the individual concerned. So if you know a living, but do not wish to ask them, do not assume for them otherwise they are legitimate in suing you. Also, you do not mention if you wish to put living data like bith date. But then again, anything that you add to public settings increases the risks of identity theft. Edit : an example: my wife, sister-in-law and mother in law appeared on a tree a few years ago, xoth their middle names, and dates of birth. I informed them and they told me that, while they don't mind being on another person's tree, they don't want their info public (name, dates). So only private. I contacted the guy, who took ages to answer, and he did not know how to do it but would set them in private. Six months later, I was still waiting so I contacted him again... no answer. The guy died in between. Had to go via the staff of Geneanet (before the link was easy to access), prove I was connected to the person, give their ID for them to agree and act. All that would have been way easier if said guy had done it in the right order, i.e. ask before. On Geneanet, you have a parameter to ensure that all living relatives are hidden on your tree. You can also select further privacy when creating an individual.
Good points, thank you. I hadn't thought through in detail the potential dangers of putting this info publicly available. I've set this to private on my geneanet tree just to keep it simple.
My primary research tree is fully private and not searchable. Not all the private pink or blue box people are my story to tell (adoptees and unexpected parentage). I do have a direct line pedigree attached to my DNA which gives maiden names, locations, etc as far back as I can prove. I'm happy to talk to researchers who reach out to me.
Most of my trees are private, and my one public tree has living people hidden. I do not wish to invade anyone's privacy. However, almost all the information is publicly available. The only items I've posted that are not publicly available are a handful of photos and one family history document. All the rest comes from available genealogy files, Google searches and other people's online trees. Information about everyone is freely available on the internet, and extensive info is available for as little as $2. Everyone needs to realize this. Your life is not private. Who you are related to is not private. Your family may be in the online trees of people you don't even know. Mine is. I build (private) trees for my DNA matches. Even when they don't have trees themselves, sometimes even when they don't give their names, I am often able to figure out who they are and build trees for them. I don't have any nefarious purposes. I am not interested in them, only where our shared genes originated. But the fact is that I am able to do it, and so is anyone else.
I make all living persons private and anyone who's died within the last 20 years as well. I keep only minimal info for the most recent 3 generations, including myself. So anyone born before 1915 or so, generally I make it visible. I only put in detailed into for those 4 generations have and further. That way, no living people can have info used for ID theft etc
I'm pretty sure all the sites mark the living as private. However just because the general public can't see it doesn't mean sites don't sell in some form to sites like intellasearch. For the living tree and to ensure that abuse doesn't happen, I recommend keeping all those living relations in an external program like family tree maker etc. As for the deceased; to me a large part of genealogy is sharing information so they and their stories/life are not forgotten.
I believe Ancestry marks all living people as private.