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

Every desktop program has an export option for this. 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.

What it does varies slightly. Some replace the person's details with the word "Living" and keep the relationships, so the tree structure is intact but no facts are shown. Some drop living people entirely. Some let you choose. "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.

How the program decides who is living: no death date, and a birth date within roughly the last hundred years, or no birth date but a parent born recently. Check the result; 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.

Every desktop program's export dialog can select a subset: descendants of a person, ancestors of a person, everyone matching a search. Pick the common ancestor, choose descendants, and the file is exactly the overlap. GED-VIEW's Split tool will do the same from the viewer once it ships.

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

A careful share, start to finish

  1. Decide what they actually need. Usually one branch.
  2. In the desktop program, export that branch with living people privatized.
  3. Open the export 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, send the matching media folder, or a GEDZIP.

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.