Too public for my family

Question

This is too much for my family.  Its like my ancestors are being used as advertising for WikiTree.  I need to get their names out of the public domain through WikiTree.  Am I understanding correctly that I can't delete them or otherwise take them out of the public view?  Once you enter their names into Wiki tree, because they've died you can't remove them from public view and appearing in google search results as present on WikiTree?  There's nothing I can do at this point?

Answer 1

Carol, you're correct that you can't delete profiles that have already been entered;  and as the other answers say, it's also true that there's currently nothing associated with you in the public domain.  The site's privacy policies are shown here:

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

If your concern is just info about living people, there are options for handling that.  But if you wish to keep all of your ancestry info out of the public domain, then this is really not the place for you.  In fact, my advice would be don't put your data anywhere on the web at all.

Comments

Why the flag? Flags are for serious issues like abuse and people putting in sensitive information about living people. If you don't like what Dennis said though it's a valid point, the up or down vote on the left is for that. Please remove the flag.

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Thanks Gillian.  Looks like there was a lot of activity during what was overnight in my part of the world.  I never even saw the flag, and agree there wasn't any flag-able offense, so somebody obeyed you!

Answer 2

Carol, no one can see your living family members except you. I can't even see your profile, it is Unlisted. You need to change your privacy level to allow us to help you.

Answer 3

I cannot see anything about you, so I cannot see who your family are. The only way I would be able to find them in the public domain would be if I already knew who they were.

Answer 4

Carol, all  of us have privacy concerns about living relatives and wikitree's policy and style guide says that people born over 150 years ago should have "open" profiles.  Doubtless to say that impinges on no living relatives at all.  I have cousins in New Zealand, Australia, Scotland, England, Ireland, as well as the USA and Canada.  Some of them had entered my relatives' profiles before I joined wikitree.  As Dennis stated if you don't want any of your families' information on the Internet, stay off your computer.  It still might not keep all information off as public information is available on many sites, not just on wikitree.

Answer 5

I am not understanding what you mean by "my ancestors."  I understand your mother, your grandfather, but when you refer to someone as an ancestor, it is very likely that you are not their only descendant.  The whole point of WikiTree is to collaborate on our shared ancestry.  What winds up happening is that we build a sense of community with each other and help us each to become better researchers.  At least that is my experience.

Answer 6

You can set privacy on recent ancestors, if you're the PM.  Then you get to control exactly how much or how little you say about them.

Answer 7

Do bear in mind also that what you see on Google search results is tailored to you and your device. If you have permission to see these profiles on Wikitree, you will see them in Google search results. That does not mean others can see the same results. If they haven't the access, they won't see them. Google takes privacy very seriously, that's why you see the "Some results have been filtered...." message at the bottom of the results page.