Permissions

Gordon Collett

This came up in the first round of beta testing, but there was never really a clear answer. What exactly does this mean:

Does this mean that if I create a family group, if I would like to have a profile for my sister in the group that I first need to contact her and obtain her permission before I copy her profile from my private space into the group?

PJDnwy

That's how I would understand that. I think an exception to consider is when it is only close family members in the group. For instance: everyone in my Dad's family already knows his name, birth, marriage, residence, etc. Therefore, me posting that info on his tree person in a family group with only those people is not sharing it with anybody that doesn't already know that information. It's not making it public. It's keeping the info within the circle of people who already know it anyway, therefore permission is somewhat moot. So I wouldn't see any need to ask your sister for permission if the only people in the group already know her information.

When it comes to photos/memories however, I know many people don't like photos of themselves being posted without their permission, so I'd probably ask permission to share a photo of someone with the family before attaching it to them in the group tree.

BruceRogers

I've done a fair amount of research on extended cousins, and found that obituaries are helpful in learning about additional family members I previously didn't know about. I would think that private persons, where the info about their relationships comes from public obituaries, at that point, be considered not only private information, but also public information. Additionally, I find marriage sources being suggested for living persons, as another example of public sources of info. Recent census data also includes information for living persons. So I would think that as we evaluate what information we have on a living person, we also consider what aspects of that information is also in the public sphere and not require permission to have that information in the Family Group.

It would be nice to have FamilySearch provide additional details about this aspect of the "Permissions" component of Family Groups in FamilySearch.

MarlenePitman

In my case, I have previously published a family history containing many living people. The information was provided to be published in a publicly available book. It is available in many libraries, and a copy can still be purchased online.

I have been waiting with much hope for this new feature to allow the shared ongoing maintenance of the family branches of this tree.

My proposed Family Group Tree will be large enough to contain all of those published people, and for their family members to participate in maintaining the tree. Membership of the Family Group will be open to people within the scope of the tree, ie Descendants of X and Y and their spouses only. This means the people who can see the information will be a smaller cohort than can see the published information.

So...

1. Is it reasonable to consider that having been previously given the information to publish in a family tree book, the inclusion of the information in the Group Tree is consistent with that? Perhaps I need to ask people to 'opt in' or 'opt out' but that's a big job?
2. Even if I don't put certain people onto the tree (eg they ask me not to), there is no way I can ensure that no-one adds those people. Am I, as administrator, indirectly responsible for the people that others add?
3. The expectation seems to be that Family Group Trees will be small close-knit families, and I'm sure it would be OK for that purpose without privacy issues. However, once some cousins have been added, and they get interested in joining in, it could easily grow.... The FamilySearch limit of 500 group members suggests there is the potential for very large groups to work together.

Will be interested in other thoughts on this discussion.

Finally, in order to invite someone to the tree they already have to be added to the tree, so I have to have their permission to first add them to the tree and then invite them to participate in the tree. Should work, but feels a little odd.