Genealogy Chat

From the 'Account' section

Hide living relations
Yes
This will hide details you have entered for individuals born in the last 120yrs with no death date; including you!

If you wish to keep living people public on your tree, you must have the permission of those individuals.

The 'hidden' living relatives will still show up if someone does a search of GR members' trees, with a link to contact you, even though you have elected to keep them hidden on your tree itself.

I've always thought that a bit strange.

Though maybe it's so they can tell you to remove them from your tree...

Regardless of whether the ‘hide’ facility is actually functional, the instruction about having permission is unambiguous.

Some people have stated that they weren’t aware of GR’s policy on this issue.

Oh, I agree, GR has always been clear on needing the permission of living people before you can add them to your tree.

And the hide function is useful if you want to share your tree.

But if you think you can get around the 'need permission ' by 'hiding' those people on your tree, you will come a cropper, as anyone doing a 'search members trees for theirself, will soon spot who has added them to their tree.

I did a search for myself, and found one person has me and some, but not all, members of my immediate family on their tree, without permission. Just wondering whether to get GR to get them to remove us or not. I'm not that bothered about myself, but my elderly mum would not be happy if she knew.

When quering why myself and my siblings were on someones tree I was told I should be proud to shown as a descendant.

It was basically a one name study and probably copied from someone else.

You can ask GR to get the tree owner to remove unauthorised living people from their tree, or GR can do the removing, but it does mean getting your request to GR through in the first place.

I'm not that bothered for myself, my birth record is in the public domain, and as I changed my surname by statutory declaration many years ago, there is little obvious connection between me and my birth and marriage records, other than my forenames remain the same. But my mum would not like it, so I guess I ought to chase it up :-(

I forgot to mention that person with us in the tree must have been a 13th cousin or more.
They did remove the names.

I can't even work out where the tree owner fits in with us, he must be extremely 'extended family'!