What do know about Ancestry media posting and privacy when you decide to take down, for example, a photo from your public tree?
This is something I really didn’t know anything about until recently.
This is what happened. I decided to make a photo private with my Family Tree Maker software.
Yes, the photo no longer appeared on my public ancestry tree, but I could still see my photo in the thousand plus other ancestry trees that downloaded my photo.
I was under the impression that using Family Tree Maker would be the best method for making photos or documents private while still keeping my Ancestry tree public.
To a point this is true, but where it impacts my online public ancestry tree is from all the older media files I added before implementing Family Tree Maker.
With a little investigating this is what I discovered on Ancestry support about uploading photos or documents.
“Your files may continue to exist publicly or privately on the family trees of people who saved them to their trees while your tree was public.”
Yes, my photos are no longer visible on my tree, but any tree that has added my photo to their tree, which happens to be over a thousand plus people, get to keep their copy online.
I really thought that if I simply used my Family Tree Maker and made the photo private, then anyone that added it to their tree would no longer have access to the photo and it was truly taken off Ancestry. Boy, was I wrong!
Things to Consider with Ancestry Media Posting:
- If you are new to Ancestry, one option is to make your tree private but searchable.
- This allows you to add any photo or document and not have to worry about other trees copying your information.
- The downside is that you might not collaborate as much as if your tree is public.
- As you build your tree, have a plan about which records or photos will be public on Ancestry.
- The media that you decide not to have on your public ancestry tree will need to be stored for safe keeping by other means.
- Maybe use a software program like Family Tree Maker to have the perfect balance of public/private and only one tree.
- See my blog about Family Tree Maker.
For me, finding out that my media that is downloaded by other trees that will never die has changed how I want my tree to be.
My tree will still be public, but by using the private feature on Family Tree Maker, things that I want private will never be public on Ancestry® .
Now that you know the facts about Ancestry media posting, what will you decide?
