As keepers of family history we have a responsibility to maintain and preserve the family history for future generations. The issue of privacy is even more important in today's world as things can be shared all over the world with just one click of a button.
We rely on many types of vital records to conduct our research. Sometimes those records are easily available to us and sometimes they are not. In doing my own family research I found that due to
privacy reasons, many of the areas would not release birth records until after 75 years, death records until after 50 years, and some had completely different restrictions in place.
I've run into situations where I'm on a good lead for a record and it comes to a screeching halt because of privacy restrictions. While it hurts me to my core to know I may have to wait some time to find out what's contained in the record, I can tell you it's for a good reason - protecting personal information! And I'm OK with that!
Birth and death records within 50-75 years can contain lots of information about people including:
- Names of living individuals
- Addresses
- Medical history
- SSN
This is definitely the kind of information you wouldn't want falling into the hands of any random person, so you can see why such restrictions are set in place.
Protecting personal information goes even further than this. We can sometimes become overzealous as we share information about our family discoveries. We're so excited to share what we've found that we've just shared names and photos of individuals without their consent, or a vital record that contains personal information pertaining to other people, or maybe even someone's location. Imagine your image or your personal details being shared with millions of people. Imagine some random person walking into the vital records office and gathering information about you. I'm sure that thought makes you feel a little uneasy and now you can understand why such privacy restrictions are put into place.
Here are a few tips to help protect personal information:
- Keep personal information on living individuals private. I know sometimes it's hard not to include living individuals as it relates to discoveries, but think about giving that person a code name so you're not giving out their real name or any other personal details about them. Some people don't mind you sharing their name, but if it can be protected, do so.
- Ask for permission before sharing someone's photo when you're sharing your discoveries. If no permission is given or you feel that you don't want to show the faces of the people in the picture, there are tons of apps where you can blur the faces out before sharing the photo.
- Blur out/cross out sensitive information on vital records such as SSN, addresses, full names, etc. This practice still applies when sharing screenshot images. While we know that some records are so old they become a matter of public record, you still want to protect any sensitive information contained, especially if it relates to living individuals or the next closest generation to living individuals.
- This one is a matter of preference but I'll throw it out there anyway and let you use your own judgement - Family Trees! I had my tree public at one point, but recently decided to make it private. In many programs the information for living individuals is kept private. I got to thinking "What if there is some unsavory person out there lurking for information?" They could be looking for any type of information that could connect them to something else. My mind went all over the place so I decided to make it private. And there's a rigorous questioning process I'll take them through before deciding to share that information!
Enjoy your privacy! ;-)
