Who can see my living relatives in Family Tree?

Family Tree protects the privacy of living people by restricting who can see their records. You can see the record of a living person only if you created the record. The system hides records that you create of living people from everyone else, including the people themselves and other family members.

Although Family Tree records for living people are personal, the memories attached to them are potentially viewable by others.

Identifying records of living people in Family Tree

Living people have a Living Person banner at the top of their Person page, underneath each person's name. In places where a death date would appear for a deceased person, the word "Living" appears instead.

If a person is not manually marked living, the system uses rules to determine whether a person could still be living. 

Church membership records

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sometimes see living relatives. The information came from your Church membership record.

Finding living people in Family Tree

The Find feature does not bring up a living person in a search by name or by ID number. The only exception is for when you use an ID number to search for a living-person record that you have created. If you do not know the ID number for a living person that you added to Family Tree, here are ways to find the record:

  • If you know where to find the person in the tree, navigate to the person.
  • Search for a close deceased relative in the tree. Then navigate to the person that you want to find.
  • Go to Family Tree, click My Contributions and click Private People.

How does Family Tree protect the privacy of living people?
Who can view the items uploaded to memories?
How does Family Tree determine whether a person is living or deceased?

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