Family Tree protects privacy by limiting who can see the records of living and confidential people. Only the user who entered the information about a living or confidential person into Family Tree can see or change it.
Please be aware of these 2 possible exceptions:
- The memories attached to living and confidential people are potentially viewable by anyone unless you set them to "Private."
- Sometimes, a living or confidential person that you can see is linked to a deceased person that all FamilySearch users see. If another user merges or deletes the deceased person, FamilySearch updates the change history of the living or confidential person to show that a change was made to the relationship between the living or confidential person and the deceased person. This update may show the contact ID of the user who performed the merge or delete. This user did not see the living or confidential person.
Living people
In Family Tree, each person is marked as living or deceased. You can see this information in the Vitals section of the person’s details.
Confidential people
In Family Tree, data administrators occasionally set a deceased person's record to confidential. The record then becomes visible only to the user who added it. In Family Tree, you can identify a confidential person because a banner appears near the top of the person page. The Vitals section shows whether the person is deceased or living.
Administrators mark records as confidential if the ability for the public to view the information could harm the contributor. We do not accept user requests to mark records as confidential.
Related articles
Who can see my living relatives in Family Tree?
How does Family Tree determine whether a person is living or deceased?
How does Family Tree protect the privacy of living people?
Do confidential people in Family Tree ever become public?
How do I see a list of the private and confidential people I have added to Family Tree?
How do I make a memory private?