Help:Living People
Categories: WikiTree Help | Profile Creation Help | Privacy Help
Here are WikiTree's policies regarding profiles of living people.
Contents |
Creating Profiles for Living People
WikiTree's mission is to create a single family tree that includes everyone. However, not everyone wants to be included, and we take privacy very seriously.
To know if a family member wants to be included, invite them. If your family member accepts the invitation, they will control what is on their profile and who it is shared with. If they decline or do not respond, the profile will be converted to an anonymous placeholder to inform other family members not to add information about them in the future.
- Please do not create a profile for a living person without inviting them.
- To invite a friend or fellow genealogist, you don't need to create a profile for them. Simply recommend that they join us at <https://www.WikiTree.com>.
- Do not invite strangers. If you don't know someone personally, the invitation will be interpreted as spam.
- If a person is your legal dependent, or has given you explicit permission to manage their profile, you do not need to send an invitation.
- There are some additional restrictions regarding children under 16 and limited exceptions for notables (famous people).
All living people have a right to have their profile deleted.
Removing Profiles of Living People
Our policies on profiles on living people, as described above, were significantly revised in 2018 and again in 2024. Some profiles created in the past are not in accordance with these policies, and some new profiles are created by members who are unaware of the current policies. Therefore, some profiles should be anonymized or deleted.
You can delete the profile of a living person if you are the Profile Manager. See Help:Deletion FAQ or Help:Closing_an_Account if it's your profile.
Profiles with Unresponsive Profile Managers
If you are unable to reach the manager of a profile for a living person, please follow the Unresponsive Profile Managers procedure.
Unlike Public and Open profiles of non-living people, profiles of living people cannot be orphaned. If the Profile Manager cannot be reached through our procedure, the WikiTree Team will delete the profile.
If you want to make sure that profiles of your family members are never deleted, be sure that there is more than one person on the Trusted List and consider an Advance Directive.
See also: Help:Death_of_a_Member.
Identification of Living and Non-Living People
WikiTree's software needs to distinguish between profiles of living and non-living people. Here is how to make it clear.
If a person is living:
- mark the Death Date or Death Location as "still living" and/or
- include an email address.
If a person is non-living:
- include a Death Date or Death Location, or
- mark the Death Date as "uncertain but non-living".
If a person is not identified as living or non-living in one of the ways above, WikiTree will assume a person is living if their Birth Date is less than 100 years ago.
This page was last modified 20:31, 9 April 2024. This page has been accessed 7,253 times.