Removal of ancestors

Question

Hello all
I havea big question.  A cousin of mine, her daughter seen that i had her mom on my wikitree, sent me a  bad message and asked me to take  her mom off, which  of course i did.  Now she also wants me to take off her  grandparents, which they have passed  and   the wife was my granddads sister.  She threatened me to go to wikitree, so i am asking  you  all, do i need to remove  ancestors that have passed years ago?

thank you

debbie mcdonald

Comments

I see no reason to remove the grandparents. They are your grandparents also and you have every right to research them. I would make it a strict policy in the future to ask permission before adding any living person... and if you do add a living person make them RED (Unlisted).

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I'm sorry that this is happening to you Deborah. There is nothing against WikiTree rules on it. I hope you can have a calm discussion with your cousin about it.

If these profiles were added by a non-relative person, would she also ask for the same thing to a stranger?

Best of luck.

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I think a stranger especially has no right to add living individuals without permission. I may be a stickler on this but I really believe that NO ONE has the right to add info on living people without their permission. It's just common courtesy.

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I totally agree with you Dawn. Deborah has already took off her cousin's profile (Living individual). Now she is being asked to remove the profiles representing the parents of her cousin which they have passed.

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Hi Dawn, Unfortunately, I often do not know if the person is living.  I add lots of profiles, mostly for Smiths, that are drawn from the 1940 census records.  I set the privacy to Private with Public Biography and Family Tree so that my Sources show, but the birthdates are in decades rather than exact birthdates.  No one has ever complained, but if they do, I would change the privacy setting to something more restrictive.  If a name is published on a census, phone book, or other publicly published source, I don't think it is telling any secrets to use the published data, but I am open to changing the privacy settings as needed.

Answer 1

Well, you can make the profiles private if you want, but I don't think you should actually "remove" them.  Liiving people you can make unlisted and your cousin shouldn't be able to see them (nor can anyone else).  But really I can't see any need for anyone to be more than red private as there's not much information available on them and none that's dangerous.

Comments

She has no reason why she should or must take them off.  It is a family matter that she needs work out with her cousin who in my mind is being unreasonable.  Perhaps decreasing the privacy is the solution, but frankly the entire reason to put her grandparents on wikitree is to share her ancestry.  A red privacy level defeats the entire purpose of why we do genealogy, and why we share it on wikitree.

If I was in Deborah's situation, I would simply tell my cousin no.

Answer 2

I think I would make a decision based on whether the information on the profile is basically open and easily found on the Internet or was published publicly like an obituary in a newspaper.

If it is then I don't think the cousin has any grounds to ask you to remove the information or make those profiles private.  If though some of the information is only known within the family, then that might be different.

Comments

My thoughts exactly!  The grandparents' generation was born over a hundred years ago, and their data exists (potentially) on four or five published US Censuses and numerous other public databases.  Compiling that information into a WT profile doesn't give anyone anything they couldn't find on their own.  Depending on how long ago the grandparents died, I might give them a yellow lock, but nothing tighter than that.

Answer 3

Hi Deborah, I looked at all four of your grandparents and was awed by the stories and sources you have provided. You have done a really nice job. Your family should be proud.

Has your cousin offered a reason for her feelings?  I had a distant cousin angry with me because she wanted to write a book about the family.  There may be better reasons for her attitude, but I would think it should be a very good and agreeable reason before you change the profiles.  What is she specifically perturbed about?  Is it something like a birthdate that can be protected with a Private with Public Biography and Family Tree privacy setting?  Since all your sources are in published documents, I don't think you need to remove grandpa's profile, but if you agree that your cousin has a good point, you could change the privacy setting from Open to something a little more restrictive.  

Comments

I, too, just looked at these profiles. Very sweet.

AND... my parents and grandparents grew up in Buffalo, too!