General Chat

Can anyone help me on the the legality of publishing on genesconnected info on deceased persons? My tree includes names that are only related to me by several marriages and so have no direct connection but can be linked to me by marriage. A member is objecting to me publishing her ancestor's names for this reason. Can she make me remove the names of deceased relatives? Caroline

I would have thought that if you obtained this information from published data which you have researched then such information is open to use by any one. Mind that is my opinion but it seems logical that if it has been done entirely by your research then I do'nt see howanyone can prevent it being included . It would be interesting to see what more legal minds than mine think. Rupert Bear.

Do you mean put the names on here? If so then as long as they are all deseased then that is ok. If they are alive then you have to have their permission. And if they are related by marriage yes I think they should go in your tree.

My genesreunited tree spreads quite wide as I have amalgamated the research of of a lot of my contacts in order to help us all with this fascinating hobby. I do not stick to the names of spouses but add their siblings and spouses etc. so sometime the link to me can be quite distant. This is not unusual and my genesreunited tree is only a fraction of the information I have . All the info I have on this contact's ancestors came from other genereunited members and public records, the contact herself has not let me see her tree or given me any information. Nobody has ever objected to me linking the names of the deceased before and this message has rattled me a bit.

If the information is something that you have not checked yourself, then it may be misleading or incorrect. My research was originally entered into a software program solely for my own purposes. I have passed it on (E&OE). It comes as something of a shock when it is handed back to me as clearly superior to anything I have to offer, with some idiosyncratic errors still in place. I don't own the information and passing it on lets the genii out of the bottle, but mistakes are often reinforced where we accept someone else's research without actually checking it for ourselves. B Gosh, don't I sound grumpy! Sorry, but my washing machine has died and Saturday is not going quite as I'd planned.

I have decided to change the trees I have published on genesreunited an similar sites to include only a small sample of my close relatives with all sources and links acknowledged. I will only let trusted contacts have any details of my extended tree. Good luck to those who have trees with thousands of names, but there are too many problems and people that can be hurt by extending your trees too far. Thanks for all the help and support. I agree that using freely available data on deceased people is fine, but if the living relatives are aggrieved by this it makes me feel bad and so I am going to tackle the problem.

Hi Caroline, On GC I only have a few generations of direct ancestors. I have nearly 7,000 in my files - blood or married to blood. I pass on to anyone who contacts me anything directly related to their branch. My personal view is that I don't 'publish' or pass on information less than 100 years old apart from to those directly related to me and I ask them not to publish it on the web. Someone, who is not related to me at all, has published details of my grandparents on gencircles. They have no relationship to him but are remotely related to a family he is researching. I know he must have got the data from someone to whom I have passed on the information as it has exact dates and I'm the only one in the family doing family history. My feelings are that my grandparents are 'too close' to appear on an unrelated person's tree on the web. I wouldn't be upset if it was my gt grandparents. I'm not saying it's logical -just how I feel. When I started genealogy I was told to keep private any info less than 100 years old as that was the accepted convention, so that is what I do. Gwynne

have sent a message through to you caroline, hope you dont mind , sorry its not reference to this thread as im not that good at the info on terms of trees, i added neices to my tree but didnt know you had to get permission, it back fired anyway as they arent all that kind or my inlaws, however my maiden name is pitt, but my dad has done that side of the family tree so i dont need to , its all fascinating , hope you dont have to delete any and find plenty more