Do you let others view your family tree?

Question

I am only asking because I am still doing mine and I have put a lot of hard work into it. A women whos husband as the same line as me asked to share trees so I clicked allow. On her tree its set to hide if anyone is living. so if she doesnt put dates down for deaths it wont show me so nearly all of her tree is hidden I can see 5 names which I already had and she has a full view with everything of mine

what do you so when that happens to you

Answer 1

If you have posted YOUR family with info on living persons.. you SHOULD REMOVE THAT.

Think about it.. how does YOUR birthdate (or siblings, etc) help someone else find their ANCESTRY?  No.. my full research is not posted anywhere online.

Do not be confused... I am more than happy to share my research (and have) relating to particular individuals/ immediate families.  These would always be prior to 1900.. since that is where comparison is needed, to get further back.

I personally do not consider "coming down" to all descendents of a person to be tracing ancestry. You have no need of info about a live person's dates, in order to work BACK.

If much of her info is hidden, that is standard, and with good reason.

Answer 2

Thanks for your question. I would never have thought about it being a problem for someone else to see your information. Sometimes it is dangerous to be too trusting.

Answer 3

I start out by letting the person know that I don't share anything on relatives still alive.  I also ask people if they're going to share usable information with me.   If someone sends you information that you can't use, perhaps you need to let them know what you plan to do with the info. They could have been concerned that you would put this on the internet.

Answer 4

Ive had a few people contact me via Genes saying "We Have a Hot Match" etc and they have shared their Trees..So I used to open mine to them..Only to go view their tree and all they have is their own name and nothing else !!!

I find this really annoying and now check the other persons tree before opening my own.

Dont get me wrong I dont mind sharing info but sometimes I get bit miffed when people obviously are not prepared to do the hard work for themselves.The way I see it is if I can find  the info so can they.

Also every few months I go through my contact list who my Tree is open to and vice versa.A few contacts may have stopped your viewing of their Trees so I then turn mine off.

Ive also had some very rude messages from people as well via Genes ,someone recently sent me a message saying you have my Husbands Grandparents in your tree "SHOW ME"

Needless to say I didnt answer her message or share my Tree..

Answer 5

IF you are absolutely positive that you can trust that person: otherwise, no.

In my case, people will say they will trade info. After I spend hours and a ton of paper and send them my info, I get nothing back.

It could be worse: after all, the Social Security Administration, the Veteran's Administration, banks, credit card companies and all the rest ask for your mother's maiden name AS PROOF THAT IT IS REALLY YOU.  In otherwords, once people have your family tree, it is so much easier for them to steal your I.D.  I.D. theft is the #1 crime world wide.

So, no matter the reason, it is not a good idea to "share".  If you feel you must share, do it only with ancestors 10 generations or so ago.

Answer 6

Firstly is is very good practice to hide personal information about living individuals. Sometimes this information can be used for identity theft and that's why it should be hidden.

If you can show that you are a relation (however distant) with another person then you can always ask for them to share more information directly with you via email.

Answer 7

Short answer:

Yes, within limits, and I grin and bear it when people abuse the privilige.

Long Answer:

I put my data on Genes Reunited, Roots Web World Connect and GenCircles. I have a program that removes all the details from people based on their birthdate. I set it to do so for anyone born after 1899, even if they are dead. It is no one's business who is a widow and who isn't. It also changes their given names to "Living".

I run the program, then upload the GEDCOM.

I allow people to download from RWWC. Some do and give me credit; some so and do not give me credit. When they in turn upload their data, now the fatter by 4,000 or 5,000 or 6,000 of my individuals, a keen observer can tell where they got their "Pack" data but the casual observer cannot.

I take it in stride. It is annoying, but the advantages of putting the data out there for the world to see outweigh the annoyance. I get a message from someone, correcting or amplifying my data, once or twice a week.

Answer 8

I have a Public Member Tree with Ancestry.Com and everybody can view my tree, the documents and photos except on living people.  

I have invited a few to be able to access my tree, sister, 2 nieces, and a few cousins.

They can see everything.

It is not good to have info on living people shown for the entire public. It can be an invasion of privacy and can lead to identity theft.

Answer 9

Unless you have permission from every living member of your family your best hiding your living relatives, too. Not nice to have searchable results about you on the net.

Also she, like me, may just enjoy retaining some anonymity on the net.

Aside: Recently discovered I'm related to an interesting titled family, what online services are you talking about?

edit: ta.

Answer 10

I would be disappointed, of course. But, I would feel good that I helped a family member. If she's not in your family, she won't use your research. I have a member of my family that has spent a lot of time and has given me everything he's found. I think it's nice to share. What else would you do with the information if not share. You're turn to reap will come.

Answer 11

With genesreunited, you can close your tree access after you have opened it.

Go to contacts and find the person concerned.

Beside it, just click where it says STOP

This will prevent the other person accessing your tree.

Answer 12

I let people view my tree only if we're found to share a connection. My tree hides all living relations though, and I'm hot on data protection, so my online tree is very low on detail, compared to my offline and private tree.

Most of the people I share with have their living relations open for others to see, or they shange the names for ??s, so hide identities. I think if someone does this, and you want to know more, you should drop them a message and ask them for additional information. They don't do it on purpose, and most of the time they don't realise it's hiding people from the 1800s!

Answer 13

I have put all my information on public trees on Ancestry for my own pleasure.

But I never bother entering stuff about living people, aside from issues of identity theft I personally only enjoy dead ancestors  :-)

If some wants to copy all the information I have they are welcome to it - it just means they won't have all the fun of solving the problems themselves and they will also not know if it is accurate or not  (not that everybody is worried about accuracy, some just seek a humongous list of names).

Answer 14

Only dear friends and relatives is allowedto know such things about me. People in general do not need to know this.