April 4, 2025
Genealogists often debate whether online family trees should be private or public. The choice is personal, and neither is better or worse than the other. However, there are pros and cons to each choice.
There are several good reasons to have a public tree. One of the benefits of online trees is the opportunity they present to connect distant family members. Whenever I’m beginning a new search on an individual, my first step is checking public family trees to see what’s already been done.
Over the years I’ve connected with many distant relatives who had more information on my family lines than I did. Sometimes I’ve found never-before-seen photos of ancestors and learned about heretofore unknown relatives. Distant cousins have also contacted me because they found my public family tree. I’ve sometimes been able to fill in blanks for them.
I have heard genealogists complain that public member trees get copied with no credit given to the original poster. They feel that their hard work to find the info on the tree has been “stolen.” It can be frustrating for your work to show up on another tree, but it’s important to remember that you can’t copyright a tree. Names and dates are not private, no matter how much time and money you’ve spent discovering them.
No one owns his or her ancestors. Deceased people have no right to privacy. Your fourth great grandparents most likely have many descendants that you’ve never heard of. Those descendants have as much right to the information you’ve found as you do.
I do think there is a place for private trees when it comes to living relatives. If you want to include a lot of living relatives such as grandchildren, nieces, and cousins on your tree, you might want to keep your tree private. However, as far as I know, no reputable genealogy site will ever publicly post living individuals, even if a tree is public. If you are concerned about private information being shared, it might be best to keep a tree on your own computer instead of online. Programs such as Roots Magic and Family Tree Maker are good choices to do this.
Another potential reason to keep a tree private is if you use it as a tool to explore potential family members and relationships. You might post information on such trees that is unverified. Anything that is posted publicly online is likely to be copied. A private tree can be a way to protect your theories from being posted as verified information.
You might also want to keep a tree private if there is information on it that may be sensitive for still-living people. This doesn’t mean that you can’t post about your fifth great grandfather who was a slave owner. It may mean that you keep information about your grandparents’ shotgun marriage private if some of their children are still alive.
Even if you decide to keep your tree private, it is a good idea to make a bare bones tree that is public. This can be used as “cousin bait” to help you contact distant relatives.
Carol Stetser
Researcher
Larimer County Genealogical Society