What do we do for living cousins and (living or dead) aunts and uncles with living children?

Question

I have created profiles for my ancestors who lived in Australia, and some of their siblings.

Is there a protocol about whether and how to create profiles for living cousins, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces etc or even for deceased (great-*) uncles/aunts, cousins who likely have living descendants? What kinds of things should or should not be included in these profiles?

I'm trying to decide how I might wish to address some of the issues identified by the [[Space:Missing_Links|Missing_Links]] app.

Comments

I don't know about others, but I added my living second cousins, and first cousins once removed, with their permission, and cooperation.  Some of the family info on that branch came from them. Their profiles (except the one deceased cousin, and the one 2nd cuz who became a Family Member) are black-lock privacy.  I also, again with parental permission, added my grandchildren.

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I think it depends, at least partly, on what you want to accomplish.  You probably know that site policy, since the advent of GDPR, is that profiles of living people will be unlisted -- so nobody will be able to find them or see them.  And you cannot enter a profile for a person under 13 unless you're a parent.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:GDPR_FAQ

Some of us do not create profiles for living people at all. For collateral relatives with living descendants, I am careful not to show the names of any of their living descendants in their profiles.

Answer 1

I do not create profiles for living people unless I specifically have their permission. Even though those profiles would be "private" you never know when a data breach might happen. I do not feel it is my place to potentially exposes another person's personal information, no matter how secure I think it might be.

That being said, I see no problem with posting profiles for deceased individuals with living descendants. (In fact, all of my ancestors have at least one living descendant!) Even if we were to exclude just individuals with still-living children, we would potentially be blocking people as far back as a century ago or more. That doesn't seem realistic.

Just make sure you don't inadvertently provide sensitive information about a living person in a deceased person's biography.

Answer 2

As someone who 9 years ago imported a huge tree with loads of living cousins and is now narrowed down to managing about 1500 unlisted profiles, I strongly recommend not to add any living people. 

If people in your family is interested in participating, let them add their own profiles and potentially make you co-manager.

If I did it all over, I would have a family tree of living people on my computer not online, or draw a tree up and hang it on my wall. 

Don't give yourself more work than you have to is what I am trying to say... 

Answer 3

I personally, never add living relatives,  I regard that as their personal prerogative. i never hesitate to add relatives who are deceased.  I regard the addition of living relatives, without their express permission, as an entirely inappropriate violation of privacy.