People changing trees

Why has the amount of blood relatives gone down significantly from 100,000? I noticed people have been changing certain branches of my tree.

It's not "your" tree past about four or five generations. Once you link to the Big Tree, you're subject to whatever changes whoever makes to the upper branches. (I lost a bunch of ancestors when it was decided that Nicholas Wyatt was not the son of Rev. Haute Wyatt - a decision I was *in favor* of, because there was absolutely no documentation connecting them and several reasons to think they were not related. Got some of them back later when a different link was made. So it goes.)

this is from my Grandfather onwards → Anthony Huxtable (her father) → John Huxtable (his father) → Elizabeth Pugsley (his mother) → Richard Pugsley (her father) → Grace Pile (his mother) → Grace Knight (her mother) → William Knight (her father) → William Knight (his father) → John Knight (his father) → Christian Thorne (his mother) → Jane Fortescue (her mother) → Ellen Moore (her mother) → Cecily Bonville, 7th Baroness Harrington (her mother) → Lady Catherine Neville, Baroness Harrington (her mother) → Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury (her father) → Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland (his mother) → John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster (her father) → Edward III, King of England (his father) → Edward II, King of England (his father) → Edward I ‘Longshanks’, King of England (his father) → Henry III, King of England

Once you get back to "Richard or George Pugsley" Richard Pugsley, all profiles at and beyond that point are public.

Please DO NOT start Privatizing them - it is rude and inconsiderate, and could cause serious problems for people who turn out to be closer relatives than you might think.

(We're only 17th cousins, with a string of Cheneys in it on my side. I have a bad case of "Six Degrees of Dick Cheney" - feh!)

Maven

I really dislike the management idea of making everything private Mike Stangel Erica Howton Private User I agree with maven here.. those are my ancestors too and it's just vandelizing to do that.. I get the need to keep like mom and dad and granny and grandpa and maybe at the very least ggreat private but beyond that..

Michael - it may be very unpleasant to you, but it is not vandalizing.

Whether it is advisable or not to make those profiles Private, whether Geni deems to allow it or not - those are all valid questions. But making them Private is not vandalism. I really do not like to see that term so misused.

Lois, it's not fair to argue that someone is misusing a word if they have a different definition than you do.

I think MIchael is right. Making a profile private beyond a very narrow circle is vandalism. Many of us think Michael is right. I don't know if Geni agrees. If they don't, I think they should and I will continue to argue my case.

If you make my 4th great grandfather private, depriving me of the details, that's vandalism.

If you take a profile private after I've contributed a substantial amount of the work there, that's vandalism.

If you make your 7th cousin private, someone you've never met but someone I know, maybe even a cousin of one of my cousins, that's vandalism.

Within a very, very narrow circle we all have a right to keep a few profiles private. Beyond that, blood relationship is not a good standard. If it's really private, it shouldn't be on the Internet.

Susan Muir

I think you're back to 100,000. I am.

There's a mysterious (to me) counting thing that goes on with "Statistics.". I've gotten the technical explanation a couple of times but forgotten. As long as I'm not sprouting new people in the "family tree" box I don't know about, I'm good.

justin I've seen people do they just because they don't want to admit they come from slaves or people who have questionable morals such as born out of wedlock and all. . and I can see the motives for making that kind of stuff private personally as for my choices I embrace every ancestor of my crazy tree I've not happy I am related to hitler and such satan spawn but I don't make my connections to them private and hitler is far enough away from me that don't have the go postal on every one gene.. ha ha

as for this tech bug that erica talks about I havn't encountered it.

Privacy rules are there to protect you, not them. If they're dead they don't have or need privacy. If they're alive, Geni already makes them private.

If your idiot uncle voted the wrong way in the last election or belongs to the wrong church, you have every right to hide such a fiend. People might hold it against you.

But if great grandpa was a horse thief, no one cares. It's not going to hurt your chance of getting a job.

When I told my mother that our cousin was a plural wife of Joseph Smith, she said something I cannot repeat in public that her mother always said. A staunch Scotch-Irish Presbyterian family - no Catholics or Mormons. Jews seem to be okay to marry with however, which makes sense!

I can see my grandmother hiding all Catholics, Mormons, and horse thiefs.

justin my point exactly.. I don't get why people want to hide such things.. I don't well except maybe my connection to hitler.. but I openly embrace all the crazies in the family in the past..

and some in the present.

it's just that this site is supposed to be about colaberation and helpfulness and when some one takes away from that by making their past private it creates headaches for all of us.

One definition I found - others ALL seem basically similar -- "noun: vandalism -- action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property"
- No place is vandalism defined as the changing from public to private property --

In my view, using that term is just trying to be inflammatory. AND trying to force Geni to punish people because vandalism is against the TOS. Implying - or stating - that something Geni explicitly allows is against Geni's TOS is attempting to argue nonsense and to intimidate people.

Why not just say you think it is "despicable"? Or am I correct and it is due to a desire to scare folks and/or inspire Geni to punish them because of the TOS?

Switching to Private does not destroy any content -- and for someone born before 1786 - which is topic here, I believe -- I believe I read that now Geni could ask the person to give a good reason, and if they did not give an acceptable reason for its being private, then the Profile would be made Public. AND please note - if this happened, then since no actual vandalism had taken place, all would then reappear - so why not just chill and let geni's system work??

On the other hand, if there were actually vandalism, then all would not be fixed by simply making the profile Public again!

Lois whilst I agree that vandalism is not the best description of over-privatising profiles, I think that arguing about the use of words takes the discussion away from the main issue - i.e. privatising records of the long-deceased is not in the spirit of Geni.

Many of us here have been disadvantaged by those of us (yes, some in this discussion) who have a desire to privatise profiles that are long since deceased and in the public record (usually in the form death certificates, census records, etc).

Frankly, I don't understand why anyone would want to keep such records private and the practice makes me question whether, in doing so, they are breaking their 'contract' with Geni and the majority of members who joined because in addition to enhancing our own trees, we are genuinely trying to help build a world-wide version. Those who over-privatise are preventing use from making progress towards those two key aims. They are quite happy to use the combined fruits of our labour but not share theirs.

Lois whilst I agree that vandalism is not the best description of over-privatising profiles, I think that arguing about the use of words takes the discussion away from the main issue - i.e. privatising records of the long-deceased is not in the spirit of Geni.

Many of us here have been disadvantaged by those of us (yes, some in this discussion) who have a desire to privatise profiles that are long since deceased and in the public record (usually in the form death certificates, census records, etc).

Frankly, I don't understand why anyone would want to keep such records private and the practice makes me question whether, in doing so, they are breaking their 'contract' with Geni and the majority of members who joined because in addition to enhancing our own trees, we are genuinely trying to help build a world-wide version. Those who over-privatise are preventing use from making progress towards those two key aims. They are quite happy to use the combined fruits of our labour but not share theirs.

Lois whilst I agree that vandalism is not the best description of over-privatising profiles, I think that arguing about the use of words takes the discussion away from the main issue - i.e. privatising records of the long-deceased is not in the spirit of Geni.

Many of us here have been disadvantaged by those of us (yes, some in this discussion) who have a desire to privatise profiles that are long since deceased and in the public record (usually in the form death certificates, census records, etc).

Frankly, I don't understand why anyone would want to keep such records private and the practice makes me question whether, in doing so, they are breaking their 'contract' with Geni and the majority of members who joined because in addition to enhancing our own trees, we are genuinely trying to help build a world-wide version. Those who over-privatise are preventing use from making progress towards those two key aims. They are quite happy to use the combined fruits of our labour but not share theirs.