CORNWALL FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY
5 Victoria Square, Truro, Cornwall, TR1 2RS  UK      
Telephone  01872 264044   overseas +44 1872 264044

LIVING PEOPLE IN YOUR FAMILY TREE
excerpt form the Chairman's piece published in the December 2003 CornwallFHS Journal

On a more serious theme, I must relate a story that will affect all of us producing our family trees and allowing others to use them.
I had spent a number of years collating my family tree and adding information gained from various sources. To make the task easier I use a popular Family Tree computer program. This program enabled me to upload my tree to the web and this I duly did. It has resided there with little change for about 6 years. It was therefore a surprise to me when I received an email from a non family historian asking me to remove the tree as it referred to them. As they were living they, quite rightly, felt it a breach of their rights and privacy.
I quickly removed the pages from my site and informed them that I had done it, thinking that this would be the end of the matter.
I soon learnt that this was not to be; the search engines used on the Internet were still coming up with links to the pages, following the links did not find the page because it had gone. The search engines however still kept the names, dates of birth, etc. of these people and every other word on my pages in their store. A search for a specific name would find the offending details within the search engine results even though the pages no longer existed.
Removing these link details is still not complete as the engine owners have not been able or are not willing to do so. As a result a very severe upset is still being caused to some innocent parties.
The bottom line is that I could be subject to some legal action. I must say in my defence that I removed the pages as soon as the error was reported but I have not been able to pursue every last search engine to remove their information.
So how did this happen and what should we do to prevent ourselves falling into this trap?
Firstly, my program did not automatically filter out living people from my published tree. Secondly not being aware of this I did not personally check to see that all was well. Next, I had added to my tree all the data sent to me, usually in a GEDCOM file, from relations, even very distant ones. This data was passed to me in good faith and I did not necessarily make proper use of it. The sender may also have upset the injured parties for passing the data on to me. This is now getting quite complex as you can see.
The problem could get worse if I have passed on the whole tree to another third party who might also misuse it. In fact some family tree programs even deposit your tree on a database that they own or have connections with. This data might well appear in trees available on CD with future versions of the program. This is likely to happen without you easily being aware of the implications or even that data has been used in this way.
What can we do?
· Ensure that your family tree program has the means to eliminate living people or just leave an entry that says Person Living with no name or other details.
· Don t enlarge your tree with extremely distant branches, of which you have little knowledge, as they may come back to haunt you.
· Consider just putting only ancestors on your published web tree as these will nearly all be dead.
· Think carefully about what data you are giving to other family historians and make sure you point out those who are living.
· Remember that not only electronic but printed trees are liable to have living people on them and may cause upset.
· OBTAIN PERMISSION OF LIVING PEOPLE TO USE THEIR DATA AND POINT OUT TO THEM THE IMPLICATIONS OF SUCH USE.
· DO NOT USE YOUR MOTHER'S MAIDEN NAME WHEN GIVING YOUR BANK THE INFORMATION THAT IS USED TO CHECK YOUR AUTHENTICITY. USE ANOTHER NAME OR WORD THAT CANNOT BE LINKED.
Finally don't be too alarmed and clam up entirely on sharing your tree. Just be cautious and prudent with what information you provide about living individuals.

David Holman