A relative asks for the tree. You want to say yes. But the file has your children in it, and your siblings' children, and their birthdates and birthplaces, and none of them were asked. Here is how to say yes without handing that over.

The problem, plainly

A GEDCOM export includes everyone in the tree by default. If the file goes to a cousin, that is probably fine. If the cousin uploads it to a public website (and they will, with the best of intentions), the living people in it are now searchable by anyone. Birthdate plus mother's maiden name plus birthplace is what an identity thief starts with.

The fix is to send less. Two ways to do that, and they combine.

Privatize living people

Tools > Privatize living people does it in GED-VIEW. It lists who counts as living, with the reason for each: born within the last hundred years (the number is yours to change) with no death recorded; no dates but a child, spouse, sibling or parent who counts as living; or marked private or living in the file. Untick anyone the rule got wrong. Then choose, per kind of information, what happens: names (keep, initials only, or the word Living), dates (keep, year only, or remove), places (keep, country only, or remove), events and attributes, notes, sources and media (keep or remove), and the person (keep the person and the links, or remove the person entirely). Country only leaves nothing but a country: the site's place data supplies it for a place that names none, and the page lists the places it cannot place, which are left empty. Nothing is applied until you choose; families with a living spouse follow the same choices for their events. The Review lists every record that changes in words, and the endings are Download, Open in app, or Preview on every page and Accept. The original file is never modified.

Every desktop program has an export option for this too. It is called Privatize living people, Exclude living, or Living people filter, depending on the program. RootsMagic, Family Tree Maker, Legacy and Gramps all have it in their export dialogs; the export guides say where.

"Living" with the structure kept is usually right, because the cousin can still see that your grandfather had four children even if they cannot see the children's dates. Check the result either way; the rule occasionally marks a long-dead person as living because their death was never recorded, and occasionally the reverse.

Send only the branch they need

A second cousin cares about your shared great-grandparents and their descendants. Not your spouse's family, not the other three lines you have researched. Export only the branch.

Tools > Split tree does it from the viewer: pick the common ancestor (by name or on a small tree), choose descendants, untick anyone who should stay behind, and the branch is exactly the overlap, with the sources and notes its people use. The branch guide walks through it. Every desktop program's export dialog can select a subset as well: descendants of a person, ancestors of a person, everyone matching a search.

Smaller files are also easier for the recipient to make sense of.

A file for a bug report

When the point is to show a problem and not the family, Tools > Anonymize replaces every name, place, note, citation text, identifier and other free text with a placeholder that keeps the structure (Person 1, Place 12, Note 3) and reduces every date to its year. The Anonymize guide lists exactly what goes and what stays.

A careful share, start to finish

  1. Decide what they actually need. Usually one branch.
  2. Split the branch off, then privatize the living people in it, in GED-VIEW or in the desktop program.
  3. Open the result in GED-VIEW and look at it. Check the People table for anyone born after about 1930 who still has full details. Check that the branch is the right one.
  4. Send the .ged with a note saying it is a private file, that they should not upload it to a public site, and that GED-VIEW opens it without an account.
  5. If they want the photos too, convert the file to a GEDZIP with the media included, or send the matching media folder.

Things people forget

  • Notes. A privatized person still carries their notes in some programs. Check whether "Uncle Bob's second marriage was a disaster" is going along.
  • Sources. A citation to a living person's birth certificate can reveal the date even if the fact is hidden. Look at the sources on privatized people.
  • Photos. A photo of a living child, attached to a "Living" record, is still a photo of a child. The media folder is a separate decision from the file.
  • The recipient's habits. If the relative uploads everything to a public tree, then whatever is sent will be public. There is no technical fix for that; there is only sending less and saying so.

Next

Pick the relative who asked most recently and try the workflow once. About ten minutes the first time, two minutes after.