Can I make my family tree accessable to another person , who may or may not be ralted to me? How?

Richard Starkeson

Can I make my family tree accessable to another person , who may or may not be ralted to me? How?

Marilyn Larson

Your question is a good one, has been asked frequently and fortunately, it has a pretty straight forward answer. We currently do not have a way for a family group to share a private space and work together on it. It might seem confusing at first but after you understand what the issue is, it will give you one of those ah–ha moments. It has to do with ID#s of living people and is called “private spaces.”

A private space is a location in Family Tree that only you (as the account holder), have access to. It helps you manage information about your family while maintaining privacy and protection of sensitive information. Each user of Family Tree has a private space. Other users cannot see the records in your private space, including your ID#. The people in your private space do not come up in search results when other users use the Family Tree find feature.  

Because of the privacy issue, you cannot merge living people. All records of living people added within a private space remain attached to the contributor's account, even upon the account holder's death. A record in your private space contains a yellow banner across the top of the Person page. In multiple places, the word "Living" appears instead of a death date or the word "Deceased."

1. Essentially, any living relative can have many different ID numbers because you are all living.  They will have an ID number in their private tree, a different number in your tree, and yet another different number in someone else’s tree. 

2. Each person has a private space until they are deceased. After a person is deceased all their various numbers in FamilySearch can be merged.  

3. Only the deceased members ID#'s would have the same ID#'s once they are merged.  

4. When you add any of your living relatives, you can add them to your tree by just using their names as kind of “place holders”.  

You will connect into your relative’s line when you add the first deceased people to your tree. You will use the deceased person’s ID# that is in your relative’s tree.  

Here are some links from our Help Center that will help you understand Private Spaces better:

How does Family Tree protect the privacy of living people?

https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/what-is-a-private-space-in-family-tree 

Can my living relatives share a Family Tree private space to work together?

https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/share-a-family-tree-private-space-with-family

Who can see my living relatives in Family Tree?

https://www.familysearch.org/help/helpcenter/article/who-can-see-my-living-relatives-in-family-tree 

We hope this answers your question and helps you understand the living people aspect of FamilySearch.  

Áine Ní Donnghaile

Your entries in the FamilySearch tree of deceased people can be seen by everyone - no permission or invitation needed. Living people are in your private space and cannot be seen by others.