For privacy, this site’s not a good idea
There’s a genealogy website out there called FamilyTreeNow that sounds really great.
Its homepage says it has “one of the largest collections of genealogy records anywhere, and they’re all 100% free to search!”
And it then invites us to “Start researching your family tree by entering a name above and see what we find, or start your family tree now.”1
Want a bit of a jolt?
Don’t start by researching an ancestor.
Start by entering the name of a loved one and the state he or she lives in. Or even your own name, with your own state.
You may be frankly appalled at what you find.
The Legal Genealogist sure was.
The amount of information aggregated about, for example, a close female relative was stunning. Her full name. Birth year. All names and name variants she’s used. Her associates and relatives, including all of her children and all of their birth years. Her home addresses, now and in the past.
On a male relative, the data aggregated here includes enough information to track him through decades of military service.
Sorry, that’s just not right.
First off, no website needs to be handing out that much information about living people all in one place. It makes you want to scream: “Haven’t you people ever heard of identity theft?”
Second, applying the best and highest regard to ethical standards of our vocation or avocation of genealogy, no genealogy website should be giving our privacy that sort of short shrift.
The National Genealogical Society’s Guidelines for Sharing Information with Others remind us that, as genealogists and family historians, we are to consistently:
• respect the restrictions on sharing information that arise from the rights of another … as a living private person; …
• inform people who provide information about their families how it may be used, observing any conditions they impose and respecting any reservations they may express regarding the use of particular items;
• require evidence of consent before assuming that living people are agreeable to further sharing or publication of information about themselves;
• convey personal identifying information about living people—such as age, home address, genetic information, occupation, or activities—only in ways that those concerned have expressly agreed to; (and)
• recognize that legal rights of privacy may limit the extent to which information from publicly available sources may be further used, disseminated, or published…2
There’s no wiggle room here, no place for “but this is all out there somewhere so we can be ethical while aggregating it publicly no matter what the consequences are for an individual’s privacy.”
And what makes it worse — and utterly ironic — is that there’s no way even to know who’s behind this website: a WHOIS search shows that all the owner info is hidden behind a privacy wall. Think about that for a minute…
The only good thing about this website is that there is a way for each of us to have them take down the information they have. Frankly, it shouldn’t be necessary to opt out: this kind of data on living people should always be opt in. But since it is opt out, here’s how to do it:
Step 1. Navigate to the opt out page here (http://www.familytreenow.com/optout). Click on the I’m not a robot reCAPTCHA box and then the green Begin Opt Out Procedure button.
Step 2. On the search page that appears, find your own record. Click on the View Details button and make sure it’s yours and not that of some same-name person.
Step 3. Click the red Opt Out button.
Step 4. Wait — it can take up to 48 hours.
Note that you may have to repeat these steps if you find more than one record set that applies to you.
It’s up to you if you want your information appearing in this website.
But if you don’t, it’s up to you to get them to take it down.
NOTE: This isn’t the only website out there that does this. Opting out of this site will not get your data out of them all. (I don’t know of anything that will.) I’m noting it particularly because (a) it doesn’t tell us who owns this site, (b) it’s masquerading as a genealogy site, and (c) it invites unsuspecting new genealogists to set up a family tree there and validate all of this information — for the benefit of data miners.
SOURCES
- Homepage, FamilyTreeNow.com (http://www.familytreenow.com/ : accessed 11 Jan 2017). ↩
- Guidelines for Sharing Information with Others, National Genealogical Society (http://www.ngsgenealogy.org/ : accessed 11 Jan 2017). ↩
Judy, this sounds eerily like Spokeo when it first hit the Internet. Within a few months, there were so many complaints that they were forced to change the manner in which they were aggregating information. Sounds like we all need to speak up and let this site know that it is NOT OK, aggregating from public records or not, to put information out there on living people.
Yep, speaking out over and over is essential to combat this sort of thing.
Laura, Spokeo more than likely changed it’s methods because (1) it used free searches to build clients to level that would support a for-fee service, or (2) it built up enough traffic and ad revenue to sell to one of the big boys that charges. There are a handful of big boys that now control tons of these once start-up companies. The big boy info aggregators are aggregating info aggregator sites. 🙂
How could the information on this site be used for identity theft?
The fact that you could even ask that question suggests you’re not a spammer… and don’t have a devious mind. I could come up with half a dozen ways without even trying.
I think that this response to Rick’s question is “unfortunate.” There is essentially no marginal (and I emphasize marginal) risk of identity theft from the use of the information on this site.
I’m glad you believe that, and hope in your life it turns out to be true.
What are some of those ways?
I’m certainly not going to give anybody ideas if they don’t already have them… but you might read up on what’s called the “Grandparent scam” to think about how this sort of family-linkage information could be misused.
Common sense is the answer to your question. Think about it…this site answers all the questions people are asked at any type of financial institution, doctors office, etc. Living peoples private information should ALWAYS remain private.
On the other hand, this is the website I mine most often to find DNA donors in military repatriation cases and heirs in probate cases. With the Limited Access DMF rules, this is sometimes the only way I can find women whose names changed because of marriage, or kids of a decedent when there is no obit. Or find telephone numbers that were previously published but are now unlisted. Or email address when I can find no other current contact info.
It is one of hundreds of people-search sites that have mostly the same information, but at varying degrees. A search of several key sites will usually provide me with the same total of info, just bits and pieces from each. FamilyTreeNow is only as accurate as the latest update from the parent info aggregators. Sometimes what it shows as current address was actually many years ago, while several other sites will have address changes within a month or two of the move. Sometimes this site is the only one with correct info.
Almost all this data for all the sites comes through affiliations with LexisNexis. LexisNexis, the info aggregating service attorneys use. LN operates a service for public records that does not include info protected by law – Social Security numbers, credit info, and employment history among them. It has hundreds of commercial subscribers who package the info on their sites. I once got a list of those current subscribers and quit counting at well over 100. Many of these are start-ups that offer free searches until they get enough traffic and ad revenue, then they sell out to the big guys who charge for the info report, like WhitePages. That is one reason why we see a rotating door of these kinds of services, here today, merged, or gone tomorrow.
FamilyTreeNow has a catchy genealogy sounding name, and it does aggregate older records already publicly online, especially census and vital records. However, my guess is it’s core mission is aggregating public information, not being a “genealogy company” in our genealogy world with our genealogy standards.
Regardless of the utility of this information for forensic purposes, the total absence of transparency and appropriate safeguards on this site while it masquerades as a genealogy research site make it a definite “opt out” site for me.
The information this site has on my father, apart from his name and address, is entirely false. It exactly mirrors all the errors that were on his credit report when he died over a decade ago, including a long list of relatives which did include even one member of his actual family. We were never able to find any supporting evidence for any of this false information in any actual public record. Any legitimate genealogy site ought to know better than to post this kind of garbage info without first doing some basic vetting.
It’s not a genealogy site. It’s just data mining.
Just to clarify: I meant to say the list of alleged relatives did *NOT* include even one actual member of my father’s family.
A “grandparent scam” can be carried out with minimal public information available from many sources. As it is usually understood, identity theft involves getting someone’s Social Security or driver’s license number in order to obtain credit, merchandise or services in the name of the victim. The thief might open a credit card account or a checking account in someone else’s name. FamilyTree Now doesn’t provide enough information to do that.
If you don’t care about your data being available, leave it on the site (and others like it). If you do care, take action. It’s really all a matter of personal choice — and nobody is allowed to dictate for others on the basis of their own personal view of the risk.
My current address was correct and the attached google map would give someone directions to it. It also contained an address that appeared on my credit report erroneously, as in I never lived there in my entire life. Makes me wonder how far they are going to find information.
I have known about this site for a quite a while and even wrote about it a while back on my blog. When I looked for reviews about it, many complained that their requests to be removed from the database were totally ignored. It will take a lot of public outcry for them to stop.
These sites will never STOP. There’s too much money in it. But we don’t have to be complacent either.
I found myself easily, but it was trickier to find my husband. I would suggest to everyone to really, really try every possible combinations of given names, nicknames, middle initials, middle names… to see if one shows up on this site before concluding one is not there. It took me a few tries to find him, as I knew his name would be there since we share so many common addresses and phone numbers. We moved over 10 times in our military journey and I was able to follow us on this site from station to station, including overseas (APO address). Thanks Judy and Dick Eastman for pointing this site out.
And remember that this is only one such site. It just happens to have absolutely no transparency… and is masquerading as genealogy.
Thank you! What’s troubling is that I found many records and opted out of the first one. Then when I go back in, I don’t seem to have the “opt out” feature for the rest of them.
You might try waiting until later and trying again.
Never mind. I figured out my error. Carry on…..
You need to start way back at the same place you started for your name.It will not give you the opt out button unless you do that.
Maybe you could contact one of the TV stations? ABC Channel 6 Philly Nydia Han does reports about things that are wrong.
There has been some press coverage of this site but remember: this isn’t the only such site. I’m addressing this one only because it’s masquerading as a genealogy site.
I did the opt out twice, but got a repky that my time had expired both times. I am appaled at the amount of information and note that they often conflate people with the same name. I assume you have to opt out of all the ways your nane appears.
Not fun, and remember: this isn’t the only such site. I’m addressing this one only because it’s masquerading as a genealogy site.
“it doesn’t tell us who owns this site”
Not only is the site silent on ownership, whoever owns this is hiding behind a third-party domain privacy service provider, which means they don’t show up on a WHOIS search. Another flag that should give rise to caution.
Already noted in the blog post, Sean: “And what makes it worse — and utterly ironic — is that there’s no way even to know who’s behind this website: a WHOIS search shows that all the owner info is hidden behind a privacy wall. Think about that for a minute…”
Snopes.com put out a piece on the website today also, calling it the Tree of Fear (http://www.snopes.com/sensitive-personal-information-police-officers/). Snopes noted that “removing your personal information from display by Internet aggregators isn’t a one-time deal, but rather more like a never-ending game of Whack-a-Mole.”
It absolutely is not a one-time deal — but we can all start somewhere, and a site like this masquerading as a genealogy site is a good place to start.
Thanks for the info. It was shared to me. I opted out several times including my spouse and son. I did a bit of research and may have found the information: I will supply the link. The company has 1 principal on record. The principal is Dustin Weirich from Roseville CA. https://www.bizapedia.com/ca/family-tree-now-llc.html
Thank you for this information. I found they have too much and are inaccurate on some things.
Clear indication that this is not about genealogy at all: they have info under both of my married names – but nothing at all under my ‘maiden’ name!
Nope, not genealogy. Pure data mining.
Thanks, Judy, for speaking up. I went to the site and found it can trace me to Timbucktu with every address change. I opted out and did so w/ my parents and siblings. Ancestry.com does something similar.
I don’t find Ancestry providing access to my living family members. That’s a big difference.
Judy, actually, Ancestry.com DOES provide access to public records about your living relatives. I find records like that all the time on Ancestry.
And you pay for access to Ancestry, which is one gatekeeper. And have to work at least a little to connect (just as an example and not as a challenge, say) a sibling of mine with all of that sibling’s children. Not have it spoonfed to you free in one place.
Judy, that’s a distinction without a substantive difference.
In your view, for you, in your world. And we disagree. Enough already yet.
I immediately went and asked them to remove my information. I fail to understand why I must wait 48 hours to have information that I did not submit to them to be removed. I am already overwhelmed with SPAM alone. I cannot imagine what might be done with my personal inforamtion. They displayed the Google Earth image of my Home! Now, of course, it is visible on Google earth but to gind it, you must at least have my address which might also be easily found. In fact, what is on this site can be found by anyone but I still resent it being easily displayed in this way.
It may not take 48 hours, but if they’re busy, it could be that long. In addition, remember that this is just one site that has your information. Getting it off this site doesn’t address the easy display by other (non-genealogy) sites.
Judy, you didn’t mention any legal restrictions on data brokers like this, and I presume you would have- is it as “Wild West” as it feels?
Also, when I looked back at the NGS guidelines, they seem to presume that information about living people would be obtained directly from such people rather than from public sources. For that reason, they don’t seem to squarely address this issue, and there aren’t any citations or further explanations. Do you think they might need an update or some commentary? Do other genealogy codes of conduct or ethics more clearly discuss the use of public information regarding living people, such as marriage/divorce records? It doesn’t feel as black and white an issue to me; many of the concerns you express could equally apply to public information available through Ancestry.com, and I’m trying to figure out where the line should be.
It is pretty much Wild West, yes. And the NGS Guidelines do caution us about information about living people no matter where the information is obtained. They tell us to “respect the restrictions on sharing information that arise from the rights of another… as a living private person” and to “recognize that legal rights of privacy may limit the extent to which information from publicly available sources may be further used, disseminated, or published”. Neither of these provisions says it’s limited to information we receive from that living person.
Right, but from where do living people derive a right to restrict the use of publicly available information about them (or where does NGS think they do)? While “legal rights of privacy” may provide some limits, I think we just agreed it’s not clear that they do limit what FamilyTreeNow does. I don’t feel I can stop another genealogist from citing the Nevada public record showing my marriage, for example, and I know that several sites have that posted for me. It feels like there should be a line somewhere, but I’m having a hard time drawing that line cleanly.
This isn’t a legal question, with clear lines between what can and can’t be done. This is an ethical question where, in part, we need to be guided by our own consciences. I may know that your marriage record is online. I’m not going to republish that without your consent. That’s where I draw the line and where the ethics codes, I think, would draw it as well.
The NGS guidelines are drawing a distinction between legality and ethics. There are many things which may be legal, at least arguably) but which lie beyond the pale of ethical conduct, meaning you won’t go to jail for doing them, but may find yourself ostracized. Sharing personal information concerning a living person with a third party when the person has not consented to having the information shared, or has actually asked you not to share it with others, may not be illegal, but it is definitely a serious breach of trust and completely unethical. The third party may ultimately discover the information on his or her own, but you cannot be a party to its disclosure.
Thanks, Judy, and to all who are discussing this issue. You made it easy for me to decide to opt out and to actually do it. I know the info is “out there,” but it doesn’t have to be so ridiculously easy to get all of this info with one or two clicks.
FWIW, I tend to agree with Mark Hyman. This is a free society and we depend for its functioning on information about us being available to those who offer us credit and so on. What we can do among other things is to remind our banks, insurance companies and so on that use of easily available information like mother’s maiden name does not make my account secure.
I don’t care either for its passing itself off as a genealogy site, but it’s a free society. Part of the remedy is exactly what you have done: point out that it exists and that it’s possible to opt out.
I’m not calling for legal action, Paul. This is an ethical issue more than a legal issue.
Correction, Paul — We depend for its functioning on *accurate
* information about us being available.
One problem with the proliferation of these free “public records” sites is that some people, such as prospective employers and landlords, deny people a job or refuse to rent an apartment to them on the basis of the garbage information they find on these free sites, instead of buying a proper background check or credit report from a company that goes through the time and effort of cross-checking and verifying the raw data to weed out cases of misattribution and mistaken identity. So the existence of these free “public information” sites can actually impede the functioning of the system.
That being said, the real complaint about this particular site seems to be that it looks like it is masquerading as a *genealogy* site in order to “sucker” novice genealogists into giving non-public birth, death, marriage and relationship information to whoever owns the site to possibly be used for purposes that having nothing whatever to do with legitimate genealogy. I do not see people asking to have the site shut down, just advising others as to its existence so they can take advantage of the opportunity to have their own information taken down from the site.
Evidently your blog has caused a backlog of opt out requests. When I try to opt out, I am sent directly to a page “Error 524. Website is offline”. I note when I can get through, that deleting a record for Lawrence, does not delete a record for Larry; and deleting a record for one state does not delete a record for the same person in a different state.
All I can say is, keep trying if you want to opt out, and the blog post notes that the opt out procedure has to be followed for every different record set (“Note that you may have to repeat these steps if you find more than one record set that applies to you”).
Judy — I agree completely that we should be concerned, especially when we have no idea who is running this website. However, I wonder if opting out is really the best thing to do. Doesn’t that just confirm that the information is valid to the people running the site? My recommendations would be 1) don’t build a tree on this site, which only gives the site holders more information and 2) if you do opt-out, use whatever features you may have in your browser to create an anonymous session, so they can’t associate where you’re browsing from with the information they already have.
An anonymous browser session is an excellent suggestion, Jan. This particular opt-out doesn’t require an email address and can be repeated for records other than your own, so the risks are relatively small. But using an anonymous browser session would reduce them to almost nothing.
We’re making a mountain out of a molehill IMHO on this issue. All they are doing is aggregating information that already is available for free, whether it’s accurate or not. Frankly, I’m amazed at the personal information that people freely put out on social media. My suggestion: get over it and move on to more important things.
That’s your choice for you, Charlie. Others may not see it the same way, and have the right to start drawing the line with a site that masquerades as genealogy and refuses to say who owns it.
Judy, I agree with you but I submit that there can be no expectation of privacy for living people when there are public records on line (or available through personal visits to the relevant repository) – I happen to disagree with the legal genealogist on this one – there is essentially no marginal risk of identity theft from this particular site. The same information is available from all sorts of other sites, including Ancestry.com.
Linkages to living family members, with their ages and their separate addresses, are a definite risk. It may be one you’re willing to accept, or even just endure with the idea that you can’t do anything about it, but I’m still drawing the line on this site. It may be futile, but hey… you never know.
“Linkages to living family members, with their ages and their separate addresses” are readily available on Ancestry.com even for living people on private trees. All you need to know is how to key in the search parameters.
It’s still behind a paywall and that alone is a difference that’s important to some of us. You are free to disagree for yourself and your own privacy — and have done so — and should be willing to let others make their own choices.
In addition to Ancestry’s paywall, I believe both Ancestry and FamilySearch restrict access to even the public family trees on their sites to registered users only. FamilySearch has certain other restrictions designed to prevent the presence of living people on members’ family trees from being accidentally revealed by any of the various search features via hints or linkage to sources records.
I’m not seeing an “opt out” button.
Make sure you follow the steps, starting with the opt out page, then search for and locate your record and select it.
I’m glad I’m not the only one. I followed the directions and no opt out is to be found anywhere. I tried several times over the course of the day today, I’ll keep trying. The hubby and I were victims in the IRS breach almost two years ago. For anyone who does not take identity theft seriously is just asking for trouble. I cannot begin to tell you what a chore this is, it’s a ton of work to keep up with things!
You have to choose the View Details button on the individual record, wait for the page to appear, and then you’ll see the red Opt Out button appear.
Hi Judy, I never got that far. I finally did get that far, where I could select the record and get to the red box, I just kept trying. I think with numerous genealogy blogs and sites posting this today, their site got really bogged down. Now it remains to be seen if removal will happen. Thanks for the warning, it’s greatly appreciated!
Glad you finally got the red box!
While I don’t disagree with a single point raised by my “famous cousin” about this site, I’m not going to opt-out for two reasons:
1. I’m paranoid enough to think that by opting-out, even anonymously, I give them an additional piece of information about me- I’m a real LIVE person- which they can’t be sure of from their public record trawls;
2. I live in a state where the Department of Revenue has already generously supplied hackers with the identity of every tax paying citizen, so why bother at this point 😉
This is entirely a matter of personal choice, Jim, so if you’re comfortable, no sweat. But the opt out here doesn’t require an email or other contact info, can be done by anyone, and can even be done using an anonymous browser window.
That was interesting. You have a mighty influence, Judy– we crashed their server. I think they are going to be very busy for quite a while with all the requests to opt-out. I got mine, and captured a list of “associates” (relatives, former relatives, some friends and professional associates). I’ll take care of those later. There were a couple of items on mine I’m going to check out further. They don’t appear in my credit report, so I’m curious to see what they are about.
A note about Ancestry: I am bothered by the fact they show living people, paywall or not. It is still unethical. I do not use Ancestry.com, and that is one reason why. Another reason is $$$.
I’m certainly not the only one raising this site, Annie — I know Dick Eastman did as well, and others too.
Judy, you are correct – this isn’t genealogy. And much of the information isn’t correct.
I looked up my mother. Her birth year is correct and in the Age field, it lists deceased and the month and date of her death, also correct. Under possible relatives, I find my father and my sister. But not my brother or me. The others listed are my father’s brother, sister-in-law, and their 3 children. There are many more of exactly these same relatives where these 5 came from. So incomplete.
Under possible associates, there are only 2 names I recognize, both relatives by marriage, one fairly close, and the other not so.
Current and past addresses made me laugh. All correct for at one time or another. The address where my siblings and I grew up is listed as her current address. WRONG! She is deceased.
I am opting out.
It’s an individual choice whether to opt out or not… but I sure did.
Makes you want to scream! But, its like a tree falling in the forest? How many hear it? When its brought to the attention of a few thousand users…maybe we can steer people from sites like this, using genealogy to gather more information on people is all they are doing I think.
This is a data mining site for sure, Stan, and it’s masquerading as genealogy. I hate that.
I use this website. It does not have everything but along with ancestry.com and some others it helps to find family members. I am looking for descendants so I can contact them and possibly get them interested in family genealogy and dna testing. Actually Facebook has a lot on it too and I use that. FB was better in the past when your message went into their regular message folder. I found many cousins that way. I do not think everything is accurate on this website but there are other websites that also have information that I use to compare. It will make it so much more difficult to find people if websites like this were to not be available. Possibly even impossible.
The fact that some people find it useful doesn’t excuse the fact that (a) this isn’t genealogy, (b) the website doesn’t even disclose who owns it and (c) the information on living people should be opt-in, not opt-out.
Did they obtain this information illegally ?
But I do think it is genealogy.
Think what you wish, act as you wish with your information. I opted out on mine. Personal choice. And this is ethics, not law.
I found out about this website from another genealogy website that posted it. I have been using it since. Many people including adoptees are looking for family. This is one source that can help them. It just makes it more difficult for them to do their research without this. I think a lot of their records have the same source as ancestry.com.
I understand that some people can use this information (and I understand only too well how it can be misused). Which is why I also understand that many living people don’t want this type of personal information readily available online, not behind a pay wall such as Ancestry has, and linking together family members and more, particularly on a website that doesn’t even disclose who owns it. It’s up to the individual to choose for himself or herself whether to opt out. Period.
You are concerned about who owns it. I do not know how you would find that out. Is this something that is usually listed on the website. Did you use the contact option to ask that question. I never had a bad feeling about them. But if you were find they were in an unfriendly country that would give me some pause.
You can run a WHOIS check on any website.
Yes, I used the whois and see it says private. But there is a form to contact them and ask questions. This is what their website says on the about which does not seem bad to me.
About Us
Our mission is to create the best free genealogy site in the world. We want it to be super easy to use for new users yet powerful for experienced genealogists. We’re working really hard to improve the site and add great new features. If you have any suggestions please let us know your thoughts so we can improve!
FamilyTreeNow.com was launched in 2014 by some technology veterans who like taking services that typically cost money and making them free so everyone can use them. We have great offices in Roseville, CA where we draw up new features on our giant whiteboard wall and generally try to have a good time while also working really hard.
Where in Roseville, CA? Who in Roseville, CA? Where’s the name, the address, the phone number? It’s not my job to hunt that down even via a contact form. It’s the website’s job. This is like “trust me, I’m a web designer.” No, no, no.
Look, I get it: you like having this information available. That’s your right; leave your info on the site. I don’t, and I won’t. That’s my right.
This is a difficult topic, especially for historians who depend on information in public records.
First, I agree that sites like FTN offend our sense of what is right. But this flies in the face of a simple distinction: is the information public or private? We have no middle ground: if it is public, we can aggregate it and the aggregate is also public. If this were not so, indexing the census records for people who were alive in 1940 should be immoral. Including those records in genealogical databases which aggregate data from multiple sources should also be immoral.
Nowhere in our ideas of public and private do we include the notion of what it costs to find the information. If your parents announced your birth in the newspaper, it is public information. But there was a time when a researcher had to visit the library and laboriously search through every day’s paper looking for the elusive announcement. Today, at 3 o’clock in the morning, we have full text searching over every edition of the paper for the last 130 years! Clearly the cost of searching affects how we feel about this information being public.
Second, I don’t know how one could easily distinguish between information about dead people and living people. If I look at the 1940 census, how do I know whether the individual is alive or not? Should this be the responsibility of every indexer and aggregator? Is that reasonable?
The NGS guidelines don’t help much. Have Ancestry and its competitors obtained express consent to include data about people still living today in their index to the 1940 census?
Third, our discomfort comes from a desire to prevent knowledge about us falling into the wrong hands. But opting-out of this, or any other, site does not protect us at all. Law enforcement, journalists, lawyers, corporate marketing and sales, private eyes, criminals, potential employers and the like won’t be deterred. They will still have easy access to all this information. So the only people from whom we are protecting ourselves are those who are no threat to us.
Fourth, I suspect that our discomfort stems from a mismatch between our expectations and the legal landscape and the consequent dossier-building practices of many organizations. Most of us would prefer to pretend that this not the world we live in. Opting out may help us feel that we have just become a bit safer, but this is just fooling ourselves. We may be better off adjusting our expectations to accept reality. I’m not quite there yet; all this dossier-building still makes me angry.
Having these dossiers hidden behind paywalls allows us to pretend they don’t exist, but they do exist and that’s the problem. This may be an ethical issue, but there is no solution without legal limits.
Finally, the FTN website seems relatively useless for genealogical research; I could only find data about living people! And without proper source citations, the information can never be more than a hint or clue.
So, is the existence of sites like this uncomfortable? Yes. Does opting-out make any difference? No. What effort should be required to obtain this “public” information? I don’t know and the NGS’s guidelines don’t address this question.
Not a matter of law, but purely a matter of ethics. And opting out of one site isn’t a cure, but it’s a start.
Frankly, Gerry, you have hit on a particular concern of mine. Unlike most other countries, which do not release census schedules with the names, dates of birth, and familial relationship information until 100 years have passed, the USA has adopted a much shorter deadline of just over 70 years. This would have been adequate back in the days when most Americans did not live much longer than 70 years, nowadays the current release schedule leaves a large percentage of America’s senior population unprotected. Given that seniors are disproportionately targeted by the grandparent scam, the phony IRS agent scam, and other con-games, I believe it is time to join the rest of the civilized world by going to a release date of at least 90 (and preferably 100) years. The alternative may be growing agitation to remove more and more of the personal questions until the census finally becomes useless for genealogical purposes, or an outright revolt in which people refuse to answer the questions truthfully or even at all.
The world is going to be so different even by 2022 that releasing the 1950 census then isn’t likely to cause any more issues than releasing the 1940 census did — in other words, none.
I suppose by 2022 they will have passed a law requiring everyone to provide a DNA sample to the Social Security Administration and then be micro-chipped.
It’ll help them return us when we wander away from home… 🙂
There are a number of other websites that also will list potential relatives when you so a search. You can see without paying. This website also lists information which is more genealogy related like some vitals. But those vitals are available many places free not just on ancestry. It saddens me to see comments that may hinder research.
So their About Us says they located in California … Here are CA’s privacy laws:
The California state constitution declares privacy an inalienable right in Article 1, Section 1.
California Online Privacy Protection Act(OPPA) of 2003
SB 1386 requires organizations to notify individuals when PII is known or believed to be acquired by an unauthorized person.
In 2011, the California State Supreme Court ruled that a person’s ZIP code is PII.[28]
I’m unable to find an opt out button on the detail page
Make sure you begin on the opt-out page (click here), not on the main entry page. If that doesn’t work, all I can say is, try again later. (It just worked for me now.)
I just don’t understand what all the fuss is. Its a public records database. I checked it out and MyHeritage public records database gives me even more info. Full birth dates. I love this, I find so much on my living relatives. The only place I can find more is friending them on Facebook and watching for all their happy anniversary and birthday wishes and wedding and birth announcements. If you want to opt out of this fine, but really you have to opt out of everything in life. If you’re worried about identity theft then you work with the credit reporting agencies and flag your accounts. Just one hack into your medical records would expose more than this. The targets criminals are after is not the public records database. They need SSN, credit cards and bank account numbers. They don’t even need the right name or birth date to use them anymore. I’m afraid this is barking up the wrong tree. Very low tech, old school thinking.
Feel free to leave your data anywhere you’re comfortable leaving it, and taking it down (where you can) from sites where you’re not. That’s your personal choice, based on your personal comfort level.
I have used a similar site before for researching living people. This one has mostly same but puts dates on addresses. Thanks for the tip – another handy research too.
These lists are generally bought or licensed from Acxiom, Experian, Dun & Bradstreet and some others, but those are the big three aggregators. The Family Tree Now data probably originates from one of those three but seems to have added historical data as well. The website claims to have 1.6 Billion of the records and I do know that on average there are roughly 110 million current records. So the 1.6 billion must combine historical data with current data. The aggregators create marketing lists and resell or license to tons of others out there. Most buyers are interested in current rather than historical data. Many of the buyers will do a value add by combining new data sets with the purchased data. Great and informative column Judy! I opted out as well! Hank
Judy, My biggest concern is that by opting out of this site, you are really “opting in.” What I mean by this is that by clicking the opt out button you are confirming that you are the person to whom the information belongs and now they can tie the information back to your email account or whatever. Have you looked into this possibility?
There is no email required to opt out, and you can use an anonymous browser window to do it.
This information is widely available on the web. Check out http://www.pipl.com, which aggregates info from all kinds of sources. It’s out there, part of the public record. FamilyTreeNow just taps into that.
That doesn’t alter the fact that (a) this is a data-miner masquerading as a genealogy site and (b) the site owner is hiding behind a privacy wall. That alone tells me this is one to opt out of. It doesn’t cure the problem, but it’s where I draw my line in the sand.
Judy, FamilySearch has this same information. On a free site. I’ve written a blog post about what kind of information they are providing on living people. http://www.mkrgenealogy.com/searching-for-stories-blog/familytreenow-and-familysearch
Yes, FamilySearch has some of the same information on living people, but not nearly as much and not the kinds of one-stop-shopping family linkages. I’m sure there are some, so we don’t need to debate specific cases, but in general it’s not as bad. I’m not fond of any of this info being aggregated like this, frankly, but am appalled when it’s done on a site that refuses to disclose its ownership and attempts to hoodwink genealogists into verifying it under the guise of putting up a family tree.
I have not read all the comments above, so maybe my points have been made. The hosting company for FamilyTreeNow.com is CloudFlare and the discussion about it’s controversies in down towards the bottom of this commentary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloudflare. It does give one pause. If you want to hide what you’re doing and be protected from attacks (even from good folks like us), they are the service for you.
That’s just the hosting company, however, and not the people who own the website.
Understood. But the clients they serve have a track record that is perhaps notable: ISIS, etc. They are rated as one of the worst hosting entities.
Judy has pointed out that this is an ethical issue, not a legal one. My big worry is the usual, “there aughta be a law (or regulation)” response. And sure enough, an accommodating legislator will come up with one, imperfect and obtuse as always. Then we will all wind up losing something. Small example: Think of how the new Social Security Death Index regulations have improved our lives in the matter of privacy, or identity security, or something.
The living/dead issue seems to be the big hangup, but not easily solvable as the 1940 Census discussion shows. People leave footprints and always have. I regret my poor farming ancestors left little but birth & death, if that, and rejoice at the few dog licenses and public drinking arrests that help flesh them out. If the footprints of more recent folks are deeper, I won’t complain.
One’s got a perfect right in wanting to smudge his own footprints, but I hope the Law doesn’t get involved.
My concern as well — and especially now in this unsettled political climate. Anything we can keep the politicians away from is a good thing.