I entered an email address against a person and now I am no longer Profile Manager.

Question

I entered an email address against a person in my tree whose details I had entered, to encourage him to participate in Wikitree. Now I am no longer Profile Manager for that profile. Is that meant to happen? How can I get the profile back as it appears he has no intention of adding to the profile?

Answer 1

Is this his profile? If this is his profile, you will not be able to recover it unless he agrees to add you as manager of the profile. Whether he adds to or improves the profile is up to him. I created a profile for my aunt and added her email address. Once she accepted the invitation she became the manager. You should still be on the trusted list and able to improve the profile. If he removed you that is his choice.

Comments

Thanks very much for this reply. I don't think I'll be adding any email addresses in future. I thought I was doing the right thing trying to bring him into the Wikitree community but didn't imagine this would happen. The system should warn you. In the past I've put people on the Trusted List, so I'll do this in future.

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If you create profiles for living people, they are entitled to manage those profiles if they desire, whether you add them or not. If someone you create a profile for decides to join WikiTree, they can request and will be granted management of their profile. They can also ask that their profile be removed which would also be done. This is something to keep in mind for living relatives that you add to WikiTree. The only profile you  "own" on WikiTree is the one you create for yourself.

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Anne, you might also want to consider consulting with living relatives to see if they say it is acceptable before you add them to Wikitree. That way you can also agree in advance whether they would like you to manage their profile or take responsibility for it themselves.

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Thanks, Lynda,

Very sage advice. :)

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Of the approximately 2700 people in my family tree about 50% are deceased and 50% are alive but of those that are alive I would say that I know and have the contact details of not many more than 20 people and up until recently they were all in my immediate family. Part of my interest in family history is to try and make connections to my family diaspora wherever in the world they may be. The strength of Wikitree, from my personal point of view, and the reason I have been posting my tree on this site, is that because the names are directly searchable on Google, I have been much more successful in making the connections than with other sites such as Ancestry. So far I have discovered 'cousins' in Australia, New Zealand, USA, South Africa, Canada and England through Wikitree and they have been through direct contact by email rather than using a proprietary messaging system which is an advantage. When I make a connection I do share any information I have on their family, encouraging them to correct, add to and generally enhance it. I find they are mostly interested in the extensive ancestral information I have researched. I offer to put them on the Trusted List for their family members but despite encouragement I have yet to persuade them to add information of their own. Some have sent me additional information by email which I have then added myself. One added a photograph of herself. And if they wanted their profile removed I would totally understand and ensure that this happened or if they wanted to manage their own profile I wouldn't stand in their way - it was just that I wasn't told that this would happen when I added their email address that took me by surprise.

Sorry for this ramble but it was just to explain that your (understandable) suggestion just wouldn't work for me in most of my family tree. You could almost say that I'm coming at things from the opposite direction - rather than consult with my living relatives before posting the information, I'm using the information that I have as a 'hook' to make connections (while working within Wikitree's privacy framework). As an example two of my recent Wikitree-facilitated connections have resulted in an emotional reconnection with their family one generation on when emigration had resulted in a family disconnect for those that emigrated.

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No I have not been removed. in fact someof the people I invited have not made any additions

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It has seemed to me that I remain as co-manager usually, but sometimes I get booted. It seems random. Are you saying that the newly added relative has made a conscious decision to remove me? Seems unlikely to me. I remain as manager on about 75% of the profiles I have started, once I enter the email address for them.