Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Tuesday Tip - Protecting Your Identity

From time to time I will be sharing a random Tuesday Tip.  Over the weekend I saw this report on Fox News.  I am a big fan of genealogy and often do searches to try to track down long deceased relatives.  Fox News shared about a "genealogy" website that has too much information on living people.  If you go to Family Tree Now and search for yourself, odds are you will find yourself, almost every address you have lived at, and your closest living relatives.  If you are like me, you probably do not want this to be easily accessible.

Here is how to Opt Out:

  1. Click This Link.
  2. Follow the steps to search for yourself.  Narrow it down faster by adding in the state or birth year.
  3. Make sure you select all records that link to you.  I found multiple ones for myself and my husband.  You can easily find the appropriate records by scrolling down to the addresses.
  4. Share with your family & friends.
The website states that it will remove the records within 48 hours.  I checked and mine were removed in less than an hour.  Your name will still show up in the search.  However, when you click on "view details", you will be directed to a "webpage cannot be found" message.

3 comments:

Bethany said...

Wow, thank you for posting this! I opted out right away.

Rhonda said...

Thanks for this info, Dawn. I found myself and my immediate family members and was shocked at how accurate all the current and past addresses were. I opted out all of us

terry said...

Thank you for this! Not only did it show my address and possible relatives it also shows me linked to my husbands ex and her page shows all of children as being linked to her. That's scary.