Someone I don't know has tracked me down through ancestry

Question

Someone has tracked me down and contacted me through Linked In.  It's likely, as he writes, we are distant relatives, but I don't want to be tracked down, as often your identity is confirmed through one's mother's maiden name.  How do I get myself deleted?

Comments

There are quite a number of organizations that will track people through publicly available resources, sometimes for free but usually for a small cost. Ancestry had public records indexes where you can get some information on living people.

There are some widely available resources, like the California  Birth Index, that have this identifying info (but only up 1995).

Answer 1

Everyone has a different view and approach on this topic. It's tough.

Regarding to cyber security of websites, there is a saying in the industry: It's not a matter of "if", but a matter of "when" a website will be hacked. And it's likely that the website has already been hacked.

I've resigned myself to the fact that I'm easily found on the internet. I work in high-tech. I have done public speaking. I've had videos taken of me giving a presentation. It's just a fact of life.

Regarding genealogy and family information, if someone is persistent enough, it is not out of the realm of possibility that they will be able to find out some info about you. There are also enough publicly available records, in enough places, that it is near impossible to scrub the internet.

As to identity theft, all credit card companies have made it easy to deal with this situation and get your situation restored. Again, it's not a matter of 'if', but 'when'. Yes, it's inconvenient. But with some simple precautions (like keeping a regular eye on your accounts) it's not the end of the world.

Given all of this, I'm a bit sanguine about it. Would it be great if the situation were different? Yes, absolutely. But the United States and corporations there absolutely hate for people to have privacy. Europe has GDPR, which is a start. California now has some privacy laws in place. None of these laws are perfect. And companies do not always follow the laws. I know, because I've been on the other side of the fence in a company that had to deal with GDPR when it came out. These laws are incredibly difficult to follow and enforce.

So, I've kind of given up being paranoid about the situation and I try to look at the situation from a risk evaluation / management situation. What are the risks? Prioritize the risks. Have a mitigation plan where I can.

This also includes people who reach out in different ways. So they tried to contact you via LinkedIn. Are you interested in having a conversation with them? If not, then you can block said person on LinkedIn and they can no longer contact you. The same can be done on almost all social media sites. Likely they will go away. If they don't then there are standard escalation paths that anyone can follow.

By the same token, how much would it hurt to at least find out what they have to say? If it's a reasonable conversation, then it might be interesting. If it gets weird, then there are alternative routes discussed above.

These are just some possibilities and ways of looking at the situation. As I said, everyone has their own viewpoints.

Answer 2

J, it's probably not possible to truly have all your information removed from any site once it has been entered there, but you can try writing to ancestry and linked in and see if you get any kind of positive response.

This problem is the reason why I flatly refuse to participate in any social media of any kind.  In addition to the obvious facebook and twitter, it also includes linked in, as well as google groups.  

Note that participating in a google group is required to participate in some WikiTree projects and this has kept me from joining any of these.  To me, the risk of privacy loss (especially if any of these sites get hacked and results in identity theft or other fraudulent activity impacting the people whose information they store) is simply more than I am willing to accept in exchange for participating in those projects here.

Comments

Facebook passwords compromised: Meta warns 1M users may have login information stolen.

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It's not just social media, Optus a telecommunications company in Australia has recently had a cyber attack and data breach for many past and present customers. It's not just phone numbers but anything customers may have provided to satisfy ID checks - drivers licence numbers, passport numbers, Medicare numbers.

I just think there is no where safe these days.

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John, you couldn't be more right - there is no web server that is completely secure and we see a never ending parade of news about this company or that one having a data breach, including government servers that have all sorts of highly personal information.

One of my pet peeves is the way people I have dealings with (i.e., financial institutions, major retailers, medical facilities, etc.) provide my email address to third party companies they use to conduct surveys without my permission.  The employees of these supposedly legitimate entities that like to think they are pillars of the community are clueless about my privacy rights when they do this.  Whenever it happens, I go up one side of them and down the other about their having violated me - occasionally, they understand but more often they think that these companies have secure sites.  They never understand that I have a right to decide what risks I am willing to take when I permit someone to store any information about me - including as little as my name and email address.

I write this as someone who, before retirement, was responsible for ensuring computer security for some of the most sensitive networks that exist - military and intelligence agencies.  Most people consider me paranoid on this topic, but I consider them oblivious to very real risks they take without even realizing it.

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Once upon a time major corporations and government departments kept their data on large mainframe computers that were either not online, or behind substantial firewalls. Then everyone decided to move to "the cloud" where everything is on a server somewhere out on the internet. The result saved some of them money, but the cost of securing the data has become a real problem and data theft is certainly now on the rise. Many an "old timer" would say "I told you so"...

Answer 3

If your tree is set to public on Ancestry change it to private (totally). If you mention any surnames in your profile remove them.  You can also change what your name shows as a match on there and if need be, you can turn off the matches option all together or for awhile. (You can turn them back on and off ).  It's very easy to track people with or without social media, unfortunately, and not always for the best of reasons.  Limit what else you can and on Linked In, etc. too.

Answer 4

That's scary! I've never had anyone contact me on LinkedIn for genealogy. If you have an Ancestry tree, consider setting your tree to private or private unsearchable. And remove research interests. Also your display name can be changed from real name to username, this can disguise identity. I agree with other on here it's so easy to find people. Especially if the maiden name is distinctive.

Answer 5

I'm with Eric Weddington on this one. And I'll go further: I'm thrilled to be found and contacted.

In the past two months alone, I've been found and contacted by strangers who ended up having something that turned out to be valuable to me for genealogy and family history.

One was a stranger who found a box of 19th century and early 20th century photos on the side of a road; she researched the names on the back of the photos and found Wikitree profiles managed by me.  I now have this collection of photos, which are priceless to me. They are of four generations of family members descended from my pre-emigration ancestor -- a branch of my tree I'd long ago researched.

Another was yet another stranger whose husband had, decades ago, purchased at an estate sale/antique store a scrap book that had been created in 1936 which was in exquisite condition.  Every so many years, the wife, a genealogist, would research the names she found in the scrap book and look for family who might be related.  Last month, she found me because of what I've posted online, including RootsWeb (owned by Ancestry.com) and Wikitree.  This scrapbook belonged to the brother of my husband's grandfather. We now have it. It documents a tour of Europe in 1936 with wonderful photos of European cities shortly before Europe was overcome by World War II.

I have, over the decades, had many other contacts because of research I've placed online. I now am connected with many cousins and I have helped and been helped in genealogy because of it.