Allowing links to images of public documents that contain living people?

Question

This is in reference to Explaining unknown person found in family listing in 1940 Federal Census of Iowa?

Here, the questioner is asking about how to interpret an unusual finding in a US Census record from 1940. The poster happens to know that some of the people on that page are still alive, because they are her/his family. But any of us could surmise that on any given page of the 1940 Census, there is likely to be at least one, and probably multiple, people listed there who are still alive.

The 1940 Census is publicly available online to anyone with access to the internet or who goes to a library or genealogy/research center. Census records are sealed for 72 years after the head count for the sole purpose of maintaining privacy, but there is no expectation that all the people listed are dead.

Many other records with living people are also publicly available. From phone books to survivors in obituaries to birth and marriage indexes (or sometimes even certificates).

We really need to see the Census record (and surrounding pages) the poster is asking about in order to give an informed opinion on her/his question. It's possible to give general advice without it, but it does make a difference.

Should we allow links to images of publicly available documents, even if one or more people listed in them is alive?

Answer 1

Yes, such links should be allowed, provided that the placement serves the purpose of providing useful information to ask or answer questions that are appropriate for the Genealogy & Family History site.

Answer 2

Our policy is to not publish the names of living people. We shouldn't illustrate questions with links to un-redacted images. We don't have the permission of the living people on the image, so why should we expose their names indirectly by linking to it? I'd rather see someone clip out a part of the page and redact the names, not unlike what a presenter might do for a webinar where DNA matches are being shown on screen, and the emails and kit numbers and names are blurred out.

See Guidelines for Sharing Information with Others Recommended by the National Genealogical Society, a PDF download, for one example of recommendations for good practice on how to share information with others.

We really need to see the Census record (and surrounding pages) the poster is asking about in order to give an informed opinion on her/his question. It's possible to give general advice without it, but it does make a difference.

I don't think we need to see the image in order to answer this question. The question asks:

Can you offer any insights, or suggestions of sources I could check?

There are two ways to answer a question like this: a "little picture" solution and a "big picture" solution.

Our own personal insight into how often a census household doesn't compare to one we would expect is limited -- unless we are conducting a One-Name study or a One-Place Study, we've only looked at a limited number of pages for any given census. We don't have the in-depth knowledge of someone who has done population studies, or studied the community extensively, or has done the statistics to determine whether or not the census has under-counted the population.

Taking the "little picture" view, I can offer examples from my own research in other census years where people have been enumerated in ways that make Ancestry assign them to the wrong household. I can talk about all the clues I found that made me step back and take a second and third look at the census pages to see what was going on -- but that isn't a satisfactory answer to the question about whether errors in the census are common.

From a "little picture" view, I could advise someone to do newspaper research to see what they could find out about the enumerator for that district. In England, I found several long articles about how the Bishop had chastised the local vicar in one of my study places for not doing his job. It was a 'lucky dip' -- those articles directly answered my question about why I was seeing irregularities in the baptism register.

For a "big picture" view, a researcher can look for population studies that addressed under-counts and other irregularities in the census.

In some of the 'what's going on here' censuses, I discovered that the 'extra' person actually belonged to a nearby household.

In my opinion -- unlike the other genealogy groups you refer to in the comments, it's not our job to solve the specific problem that a person asks in the question. It's our mission to show how to solve that kind of problem, using the example in the question as a case study. We need to think like a teacher and a genealogy presenter as well as being problem-solvers.

So in this case, if I can get the time to find the examples from my own research, I could use as examples in my answer the case where an aunt was mistakenly put with the wrong family because the enumerator wrote the people down out of order, or the nephew who belonged with the family on the next page. I could link to examples in the answer which met our site guidelines of not talking about people known to be living.

The issue for the site as a whole is -- how much will my answer be improved by showing links to the specific examples, instead of just telling you about them? Will it be more help if I snipped out the examples, and included the images? Or would a "big picture" approach be of more use to answer this question?

Yes, we're all human and curious, so we like to see what people are looknig at. But if you aren't familiar enough with a record set to answer a question without looking at the specific image mentioned in the question, it's okay to pass on a question and not answer it.

See How to decode / read US Veterans Bureau Form 7202? as an example of a question where the specific person's information was blurred out. I was able to identify the source and answer the question without seeing the specific person's name on the card.

Answer 3

I think including a link to public documents that contain potentially living people (those born less than 100 years ago with no evidence of decease linked to) may be acceptable under these circumstances:

• that no part of that image itself is included within the post unless ALL potentially living persons and their details are redacted (blacked out).
• you do not refer to any potentially living person in that image by name. Instead say that the linked image may be consulted for additional background to the question.
• Moderator discretion will be used to remove and redact links if their use in a particular question is assessed to risk violating the privacy of any potentially living individual. Redactions always require the approval of a second moderator which guarantees that this can never be done unilaterally.

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I asked SE staff and moderators from all sites to review our Q&A here, and the only comment so far, from an SE staff member (not lawyer), has been:

I don't feel like I have a particularly useful opinion on this; y'all should settle on whatever policy avoids trouble for your community; if it looks like something is, can be, or may be used for nefarious purposes, shut it down.

My feeling is that we should continue to seek consensus here on our Meta and in the meantime work to our current privacy policy. Since that does not specifically include or exclude links to public documents that contain potentially living people I suggest we use them cautiously. If I see any that concern me I'll redact them, and redaction always requires approval by a second moderator.

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It should also be noted that we already condone/encourage posting of links that may contain living people's names within our Help Center where we say:

Acceptable evidence of death needs to come from some official or semi-official source such as an entry on a death-registration / grave / cemetery / obituary site. A website link (URL) should be provided wherever possible.

Answer 4

I no longer believe this is the right solution -- I'm leaving it here for the common trail, but support Jan Murphy's answer instead.

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Good question.

The "100-year rule" (as per the discussion at Should we reduce the 100 year privacy rule to something a bit more flexible?) is based on the privacy legislation for most of the world (the US is an anomaly in using 70-odd years) -- it's simpler to have a single rule rather than try to work out what legislation applies in each circumstance, so 100 years errs on the side of caution as well as consistency.

However, different countries have different rules for 'publically available info'. In England and Wales anyone can order a BMD certificate if they know sufficient basic information about a event up to 50 years ago (year/quarter, name, district -- and all those can be accessed via search engines such as FreeBMD. (Full information is needed for events less than 50 years ago). And because the certificate is 'Crown Copyright' they can legally publish it wherever they wish. However, the 1921 census is under 100-year embargo (the 1939 register is only available because of a legal loophole that doesn't apply to the census, but is only published with the names of the living and those who aren't proven dead redacted).

By contrast, in the States, it can be impossible for anyone other than a relative to get hold of a certificate, but the 1940 census is available online.

Should records for a living person (even the ones visible elsewhere online) be published here? I would prefer not -- we're searchable via Google etc. (while the records at the genealogical providers are not) so anything placed here is more widely visible. Perhaps a compromise would be to allow record references to be published so that people with access to the 'walled sites' can go and look if they wish -- it isn't as convenient as having (part of) an image inline but it may be the best we can do other than banning them altogether. Again, consistency will be important -- we don't stand a chance of enforcing a rule that varies by country especially when we're a worldwide site.

To clarify: detailed links to 'walled gardens' (site that can't be searched via Google etc) that don't name living individuals might be acceptable, but images or details posted in clear text should not be allowed -- if only to keep us in line with SE Privacy Policies (and -- perhaps -- the GDPR).