Authorize Merging information for Living Relatives
I love using family search to go through my history, but there is a potential issue that I have an idea on how to resolve. Right now, the privacy policy prohibits editing of information for relatives marked as 'living'. Essentially, that makes all 'living' relatives local to one's own account. That goes a long way in preventing malicious editing of living individuals, but poses a potential problem. Right now, my father, as a living person, has information he has uploaded to his own account. I'll be doing the same thing to mine, and I could add info to the version of my father I see on mine. My siblings could do the same. When he passes, merging all the information becomes possible, but for example if we lost the 'id' tied to his account when he passes, any info he uploaded on his own behalf would be lost.
Also, right now, the wife that I have on my account is different than what she see's on her own account, meaning I can't glance at her history. I understand the procedure right now is to go to the nearest dead relative and add by that Id, but I would also like to be able to help her add info to her account if she's willing. I wonder if it would be possible to have an approval system in place for these kinds of situations; If we consider that an ID (say for my father) tied to a Family Search account can be considered a 'prime' ID, then I could request merges / edits into that id, that would have to be approved by the prime account? That would allow us to ensure for close family relatives that there are fewer rogue ID's for the same person, and make compiling all that data a bit easier to accomplish.
Comments
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Online genealogy is not for keeping track of the living. Do that offline: it's the best way to prevent identity fraud, and it will also eliminate problems with account access after death.
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That works only assuming people have contact between each other and are coordinating to merge and compile everything after a person passes. It should be possible to merge living accounts while still keeping potentially sensitive information hidden; By making the person whose account is tied to the name the master of that, it solves all those issues. Redundancy is important in making sure records aren't lost, and relying solely on offline records to the point of death still invites the distinct possibility of loss.
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The current procedure upon death would be - the living person who entered their own records in their 'living space' would be updated - I suppose by Familysearch since others couldn't view that record. Then any duplicates could be merged to add any differing records/memories - nothing would be lost.
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