Private vs Public?

Question

I have read the Public vs. Private discussions and I think that if we are to ignore all individuals who were born less than 100 years ago then there can be no legitimate reasons to maintain a global family tree since there will be no way for anyone to really find their roots.  as we all know the first steps in genealogy research is to identify our immediate roots which will no longer be available.  I have worked too hard to maintain a considerable amount of information on the descendants of my grand parents at the behest of my cousins so it can be shared with them all so that all this work would be a waste of my time and energy to post on WikiTree so it can be deleted upon my demise.

Sorry to have inconvenienced you with my predicament, but I do not have any more time and energy to waste trying to eradicate it from your records.

It is ridiculous to think that famous people such as Angelina Jolie and Justin Trudeau have very detailed Wikipedia pages and yet you cannot have this information available in a genealogy tool such as WikiTree.

Answer 1

We are not 'ignoring' people who were born less than 100 years ago.  They just have tighter Privacy levels than Open profiles.  You may wish to read this page on how the GDPR law affects privacy on WikiTree:
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:GDPR_FAQ

We also have profiles of people who are famous ie Angelina Jolie (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Voight-50) and Justin Trudeau (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Trudeau-195) - who are both Living Notables - two of many worldwide.  We cannot copy directly from Wikipedia (different licensing conditions), so these profiles are not always filled out, but they are present on WikiTree.

Answer 2

I'm having some difficulty understanding what specifically is causing heartburn. Perhaps we can help clear some things up with some clarification from you.

It sounds as if you're referring to the privacy levels for profiles. But you set those on the profiles you manage, so I'm not sure why you'd be dissatisfied with the privacy level you had set. There has to be something more.

Are you perhaps saying that you've created substantially detailed profiles for your living siblings and close cousins, and that you want to be able to mark those as public? If so, you can add their email address to their profiles to invite them to join WikiTree. From there they'd be able to set their profiles to public if it's their desire for their information to be publicly accessible. [Edit: This is what I've done for my parents, who have given me their consent to have their tree relationships and DNA confirmation statements visible to the public.]

Are you worried about the management of the Private profiles you've created when you pass away (and lets hope that's not for many years yet)? That would make sense with your statement "so it can be deleted upon my demise". When your account is closed, either because you decide to or because of your death, there's specific procedures for what happens to your managed profiles.

• Open profiles become orphaned for others to adopt
• Public profiles become set to Open and orphaned for others to adopt
• Private profiles belonging to living people (non-WikiTree account holders) are retained so long as there's at least one other person on the profile's Trusted List. Additionally, you can designate a caretaker in advance using an Advance Directive statement on your profile.
• Private profiles belonging to living contributors (WikiTree account holders) are unaffected.
• Private profiles belonging to living people with nobody left to care for them are removed.

Let me know if I've misunderstood the thrust of the issue and I'll give another try.

Comments

Maybe it will help if I can give you my background with respect to my genealogical research.  In 1978 I married my wife who happens to have the same family name as my mother.  This intrigued me because the Dubés of her family lived in the Ottawa region while the Dubés in my mother's family all lived in the Lower St-Lawrence River area from Quebec City to Rimouski.  My mother had always known that there was only one Dubé Ancestor for all the Dubé's in Canada and I wanted to find out where in our Ancestry our families shared the same ancestor.  Back in those days there was not any automated way to do our research but I was lucky because I found a source (book) which was like a mini Tanguay dictionary for the Diocese of Rimouski.  this document had my grand fathers on both sides so I could find all my grand parents ancestors all the way to the youngest of their ancestors listed inTanguay and from there with Tanguay I was able to trace my lineage all the way to my first ancestors.  Unfortunately I was not successful on my wife side to go beyond her great grandfathers. so I was at an impasse until I discovered much later Ancestry.ca. From there I was able to find all her ancestors.  

So, when I discovered WikiTree, I started updating my ancestry profiles which were already in there. And since we are talking about old ancestors I never had to worry about privacy.  

But you have to understand that my mother was the youngest of 19 kids and a large part of her brothers and sisters had very large families (between 7 and 16 kids each). Among those cousins of mine, there was one who decided he needed to keep track of every descendants of my grand father's which he stored on his computer using an unknown but unsophisticated software.  He gathered this info by recruiting at least one cousin from each family to keep the info current.  He shared this info with everyone of the cousins he recruited who in turn shared it with their cousins.  Back then this info was often used to organize my grand father's family reunions.  He stopped maintaining this info a while back and sent a Gedcom file of all the info he had gathered to all those he had recruited.  Those who received the Gedcom did not know how they could use it to maintain the info.  

I was using MacFamilyTree to maintain my genealogical research and they asked me to take over.  So I uploaded the info into my software and started publishing this info through a website produced by my software.  The family so documented had grown to thousands of descendants and all my direct cousins are francophone and those that are still alive do not have any interests in maintaining themselves all this info specially if it is through an english website.  I am getting older and I am worried that when I die this info will disappear so when I was looking for a solution to share this info in a way that it could be modified by anyone, WikiTree seemed to be the easiest way.  Needless to say that all my Aunts and Uncles have now passed away and a very large number of my cousins as well. So I never bothered to check the privacy policies of WikiTree because I knew that for the public at large they would not see the info of living relatives.  Recently I tried to understand what would happen to the info I had entered once I am no longer able to maintain it.  This is when I became confused by what I perceive as inconsistent message regarding what would happen according to WikiTree rules.  I still don't understand how WikiTree determine the Public vs Private vs Open and combination thereof or how I can change this myself.  But all indications are that a large number of the profiles I created will disappear.  I have created profiles for cousins that I cannot get in touch with and those that I can are older than me since I am part of the youngest family members of my generation.

So it seems to me that there is not much I can do to preserve this info in WikiTree and given the fact that in my country people don't get baptized, most don't get married they form a civil relationship instead and many don't get funerals.  So having access to the info that I have might be the only way they will be able to retrace their ancestry in the future.

So, if you have a better suggestion for me to be able to preserve this info I am all ears.

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Good morning Langis,

Wow, that's quite a project! How cool to be the keeper of so much info, though I can also see how it'd be a weighty responsibility.

 I still don't understand how WikiTree determine the Public vs Private vs Open and combination thereof or how I can change this myself.

The Profile Manager selects the level. You do this by going to the profile and clicking the "Privacy" button to the right of the "Edit" button you normally use. From there you can select from the available privacy levels. There may be some logic set that sets a default level when you first create the profile, but it's there to change at any time.

For the profiles of people who are deceased, the Profile Manager sets the privacy level at their discretion. The only exception is that you're not allowed to increase the privacy beyond Open (the white lock) on profiles of people born over 150 years ago or who died over 100 years ago.

For the profiles of people who are living and account holders (either Family Member or Wiki Genealogist level), they set the privacy level for themself. They can select any level of Private from the fully private one (red lock) down to showing both a biography and their relatives (yellow lock).

For the profiles of people who are living and not account holders, they're all set to unlisted (black lock).

With that out of the way, lets look at the list of profiles you manage. For the deceased people:

• 172 are already set to Open (white lock). These profiles are already good to go and can be contributed to by others today.
• 70 are set to Private with Public Biography and Family Tree (yellow lock). These include Stéphane Beaupré-1188. These could be set to Open (white lock) if so desired.
• 5 are set to Private with Public Family Tree (orange lock). Likewise, these could be set as Open if desired.

The search results I can see is only current as of last Sunday morning. Clicking though a handful, it appears you might have lessened the privacy level of some of those orange/yellow locked profiles already this week.

As for the living... I can't see the number of those to help advise. I took a peek at your contributions list, and it does appear there's a number of [Living] profiles edited. Or it could be the same [Living] profile over and over. I just can't see.

I'm afraid I don't know that I have any stellar ideas for how to preserve your research of the living folks in your tree.

[Edit: To incorporate the info from Eva below.]

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Jeff, profiles for people who are living and not account holders can not have the "fully private"=red lock status. I think it used to be that way, but it is no longer allowed. People who are living and not account holders must have the "unlisted" status with the black lock. The exception is "living notables", who must be project managed. They have the yellow lock so that their bio is readable.

As far as I understand, the problem for Langis is that he manages many profiles of living non-members. Which is a real problem, when you think about the future.

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Eva, Good catch. Thanks, I updated my comment. Never seems like there's enough coffee in the system, does it? :)

I agree that the core of the matter seems to be what the future holds for his profiles of living folks.

Answer 3

It seems there might be some confusion about how WikiTree operates. A great first step is to engage with other members and seek advice or ask questions right here in G2G before forming conclusions on your own.

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I have read the Public vs. Private discussions and I think that if we are to ignore all individuals who were born less than 100 years ago then there can be no legitimate reasons to maintain a global family tree since there will be no way for anyone to really find their roots. 

The policy of limiting detailed entries about individuals born less than 100 years ago (unless deceased) is to ensure privacy and comply with laws like the GDPR. This doesn't mean these individuals are ignored or cannot be documented, but it requires careful management of certain details to protect privacy.

WikiTree uses different Privacy Levels, detailed in the Help:Privacy section, which allow us to share a significant amount of information about recent ancestors with family members while controlling access. Tools like the Trusted List enable collaboration with relatives and other genealogists, respecting privacy while building a comprehensive family tree.

as we all know the first steps in genealogy research is to identify our immediate roots which will no longer be available.

It is still available... Every new member of WikiTree is encouraged to begin by adding information about their immediate family. However, if these family members are living, the site helps safeguard their information at the Unlisted level. This protection remains unless you either invite them to join as members or they pass away, at which point the heavier restrictions on their profiles can be lifted.

I have worked too hard to maintain a considerable amount of information on the descendants of my grand parents at the behest of my cousins so it can be shared with them all so that all this work would be a waste of my time and energy to post on WikiTree so it can be deleted upon my demise.

First, we go back to the privacy features referenced above. You can still create profiles of Living People, but we just need to make sure that information is protected. There are special restrictions for children under 16. It is very easy for a parent to join WikiTree by answering a few questions, add profiles of their children, and then add you to the Trusted List so you can manage and document them.

Second, you may want to read up on the Advanced Directive.

It is ridiculous to think that famous people such as Angelina Jolie and Justin Trudeau have very detailed Wikipedia pages and yet you cannot have this information available in a genealogy tool such as WikiTree.

But they do have profiles and information available on WikiTree... See: Voight-50 and Trudeau-195. The profiles may need some work, but that would be easy to accomplish. Reach out to the associated projects...

Answer 4

Profiles for people who were born over 150 years ago or who died over 100 years ago must be open

The Public vs Private profile policy has several purposes. 

1. is to protect the privacy of living non-members. 

For example I could create profiles for my living cousins, their adult children and for my adult siblings, and their children, or grandchildren but these family members are alive. 

Their privacy is paramount, I do not have a right to publish their names, birth dates, or of their family members. 

Plus as they are such close relatives a person who is researching the family would almost always be a close family member and would know the family relationships.

2. People who were born and died more recently can have open profiles, there is no requirement for the profiles to be closed. Both my parents were born less than 100 years ago and died in 2015 and 2016.  

I have chosen to make their profiles green privacy. Anyone can see all their information, but only the trusted list which is just me can edit it. 

If you or your cousins want to preserve the information about your shared grandparents it's easy to save that information in a word doc or many other methods. 

Angelina Jolie, Justin Trudeau and many other people have chosen to be people who are well known but that doesn't mean that every relative of theirs also wants their personal family history and relationships to be public.