Heritage Album

Is it legal to publish names from family tree?

I did a search on my name in google and discovered a website with my family tree on it. They have put my name on there without asking me if it's ok. Are they legally allowed to do that without my say so? It concerns me for personal reasons and also because it's easy to gain information that could be useful like my mothers maiden name.

Public Comments

1. I don't know if it is legal or not but I often see people complaining about it so it is a common problem. Have you tried contacting the owner of the website and asking them to remove it?
2. Hi Just contact the website and ask them politely to remove your name,I am sure they will.I have a website,I would always contact any living person for permission first,they obliviously haven't.
3. I'm not sure if it is legal or not to publish extended family members' names online without permission, but Ancestry.com customarily doesn't show names of living people when allowing paid subscribers to look at other subscribers' trees. Furthermore, if a dues-paying member of Ancestry.com gives someone permission to look at his or her family tree, he/she has the option of allowing or disallowing that individual to view the names of living individuals.
4. It is a grey matter. Decent genealogists will change the first name of living people to "Living" or to their initials, and wipe out all of the details, like birth and marriage date and place, for all living people. I do it for recently living too, since I don't particularly want to tell the world which of my relatives are widows and which had a child die young. Write to the web site owner, politely, and express your concern. On a related note, you don't have to tell the bank your true mother's maiden name. They are happy if you say it was "Trapezoid". You have to remember if you told them it was that or "Periwinkle", so write it down, but then they know that anyone calling to say they are you who says your MMN is "Smith" is a flim-flam artist.
5. sadly, those who don't have the courtesy to not do this.. are the ones who claim "its all public record, and I am just sharing!!" If it is public record, I still don't know how he "gave" my 3 kids to my husband's first wife. and the info he had was taken directly from a notebook, clearly marked with a copyright (since it was a family book, not public records). It is completely unethical in my view.
6. If an email address of the subscriber is listed, just email them and ask them to change your name to "Living." They might not be aware of the fact that they could be setting you up for identity theft. Now, if they refuse after a polite request, you can email them and tell them you will hold them responsible if you are a victim of identity theft. Now, it is wise never to use your own mother's maiden name for a password on sensitive matters. Make one up. Too many people will know your mother's maiden name. In Texas a person has to wait 75 years before they can obtain a birth certificate on someone that is not immediate family. Still the State of Texas sold the complete Bureau of Vital Statistics Birth Index to Ancestry.Com from 1903 to 1997. It gives the names of both parents including mother's maiden name. It has been helpful for me in getting family information However, I can see why some people would go through the roof knowing that information is about them on a website.
7. Unfortunately it is legal as your name is not covered under intellectual property rights (unless under some bizarre token of circumstance you changed your name and had it trade marked like some artists). It is not ethical for the poster to have done it, but recourse against the site is limited. Most genealogy sites won't remove it, even under request of the poster, as they have multiple waivers of liability as open source and subscriber-posted sites.