Ancestry tree privacy

[DgJay]

I have come across a public tree on Ancestry that has my family included in it, complete with many details. Now as is obvious I am still alive together with quite a few of the family, and the Ancestry member has not marked them as private.
Can I contact ancestry to get them to mark the people as private to remove the details ?

If yes who within the Ancestry organisation ?

[Guest]

I dont think you can but they do keep people who may still be alive private, have you tried contacting the person.

[DgJay]

Unfortunately I have no wish whatsoever to contact the 'person' responsible, due mainly to all the crimes he is associated with in Australia and Afghanistan

[Olde Crone Holden]

You could leave a comment on his tree saying that he does not have permission to have these people on a public tree. With a bit of luck he will then at least make his tree private.

OC

[Guest]

I am surprised that Ancestry has not blocked people that could be alive?

[Anne in Carlisle]

I too was under the impression that Ancestry suppresses the details of people with no death date and born recently enough to possibly be alive. In fact I have never seen anyone's details who could be alive on a public tree.
Anne

[Olde Crone Holden]

I thought exactly the opposite! Ancestry is USA-based and their laws on privacy (or at least their sensitivity) are not the same as ours.

OC

[Guest]

this is what they say about living people

http://www.ancestry.co.uk/cs/legal/privacyforyourfamilytree

[Guest]

and in case you cannot access that

Family Trees
We determine whether someone in your tree is living in a couple ways:

1. We give you control—you can change a person’s status to indicate whether or not the individual is living or deceased or simply include a death date.

2. We use data you have provided—If you don’t indicate whether an individual is living or deceased, we will determine his or her status based on information you provide. We assume an individual is living unless there is death information or his or her birth date is more than 100 years ago. If there is no birth or death information, we estimate dates by looking at relatives in the tree.

Once we’ve determined an individual is still alive, he or she is identified in your tree with a “Living” label. Members who don’t have permission to view living people in your tree will see a “Private” label.

Record Databases
In our extensive databases you may find information about living individuals; quite often this is information that has been made public by government institutions or other groups. Before we publish information on our site, we consider many different rules, regulations, and legislation, so we can be thoughtful and responsible in our approach.

If you find a record about yourself or your living family that you are uncomfortable with please contact Member Services.

[PhotoFamily]

I too was under the impression that Ancestry suppresses the details of people with no death date and born recently enough to possibly be alive. In fact I have never seen anyone's details who could be alive on a public tree.
Anne

I have a distant cousin who displays living persons in her tree, because she puts "UNKNOWN" in DODs - after all, those dates are not known to her, right? But Ancestry seems to interpret "UNKNOWN" to mean that the person is deceased, but the tree owner just doesn't know the DOD.

I haven't contacted Ancestry about this tree, because I don't want the tree owner focusing on this corner of her tree (of 24000+ persons).

I did contact Ancestry's member services quite a while back about another member who was displaying my immediate family. I copied the cousin/tree owner on the message that I sent to Ancestry. I don't know if Ancestry applied pressure, but the offending display disappeared.

Good luck.

[Guy]

I have come across a public tree on Ancestry that has my family included in it, complete with many details. Now as is obvious I am still alive together with quite a few of the family, and the Ancestry member has not marked them as private.
Can I contact ancestry to get them to mark the people as private to remove the details ?

If yes who within the Ancestry organisation ?

That very much depends on where the person who added the tree lives.
If he/she lives in the UK he/she is legally entitled to add details of living people to his/her tree.
If he/she lives elsewhere in the world other rules may apply.

Cheers
Guy

[DgJay]

Many thanks for all replies and help. I will contact Ancestry Member Services and see if they will do anything about it.

[Elaine ..Spain]

That very much depends on where the person who added the tree lives.
If he/she lives in the UK he/she is legally entitled to add details of living people to his/her tree.
If he/she lives elsewhere in the world other rules may apply.

Guy, does it matter where the tree is hosted, for example you live in UK but your online tree is hosted in US - which country's rules would apply?

[PhotoFamily]

Many thanks for all replies and help. I will contact Ancestry Member Services and see if they will do anything about it.

And please, let us know their response ;)

Sometimes social media is the most successful prod.

[margaretmarch]

That very much depends on where the person who added the tree lives.
If he/she lives in the UK he/she is legally entitled to add details of living people to his/her tree.
If he/she lives elsewhere in the world other rules may apply.

Cheers
Guy

I think it is quite right that you can have living people in your tree but Ancestry's privacy policy is that they will not display those name publicly. The point here is that the living people in a tree put on by one member has been copied by another and for same reason they are showing publicly so Ancestry is breaching its own policy!

Margaret

[Guy]

Guy, does it matter where the tree is hosted, for example you live in UK but your online tree is hosted in US - which country's rules would apply?

Yes the rules of the country in which the server is based should be followed.

If the member is a UK member in most cases their tree will be hosted on one of the UK servers. Some internet companies specifically use servers in certain countries to get round tax laws, copyright laws and a host of other "legal" ploys.

Cheers
Guy

[Elaine ..Spain]

Thanks Guy.