When releasing abandoned profiles, automatically make any profile that doesn't have a birthdate after 1880 public and remove the ability to request management. Released profiles would remain manager-less until merged, at which time they would be managed by the person who managed the profile they were merged into. This would eliminate drama caused by users requesting management of profiles and never doing anything with them.
33 comments
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Jadra (Geni Curator) Would go a bit further, and request that all of the profiles acquired by people this way should be released from their ownership and treated the same way
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Lois Lubin Definitely against this as I understand it. If, for folks with no birthdate given, you consider generation -- that is, for example, the great-great grandchild of someone born in the 1800's treated the same as someone with birthdate after 1880 would be treated (in original suggestion), possibly. And if no date of birth can be found to reference from then treat as if born "recently".
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Eldon Clark (Geni volunteer curator) If there is no manager of a profile, how would merges approved?
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Judith Judi Elaine (McKee) Burns why should this be done??????When releasing abandoned profiles, automatically make any profile that doesn't have a birthdate after 1880 public and remove the ability to request management. Released profiles would remain manager-less until merged, at which time they would be managed by the person who managed the profile they were merged into. This would eliminate drama caused by users requesting management of profiles and never doing anything with them.
I have family profiles that are on geni that I can not access = merge or do anything with because of this - they seemed to be abandoned and taken over by another - and i send requests for colloboration to the exisiting name still on the profile
There are people who merge profiles who are not even related to the line directly - why should not one who is working on the family as a whole be able to request management of the profile(s) I have a whole bunch in the Hardesty/Whitworth families that i can not merge or correct data one as one example and it is fustrating to see the family tree strung-out over a mile oce screen that you have to keep panning either let or right to find people to merge and the only the get the that you are not allowed ot merge these people
my grandfather is split from his partial family listed with only one parent and the other 6-7 of the siblings are listed under another parent and all have incorrect data - the parents were married to each other never was divorced and never was married to anyone else and the sibling count was a total of 12 - right now these are private - and there has been no response from this person from requesting colloboration, to answering his e-mail sent via the Geni button what does one do but scream silent on this end....
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Catherine Erin Serafina Liora Spiceland (Pinder) Lois, in your example, any Geni user within 4 generations would automatically have the ability to make the profile private.
Judi, your problem would have never existed if what I have suggested came to be. No user would have been able to claim them, so you would have edit rights and could do whatever you wanted, including making them private and merging them. This is the solution. What I am proposing is that no one can take over large numbers of profiles like whoever took over your family members' profiles.
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Eldon Clark (Geni volunteer curator) When you are trying to do a merge and no manager is shown, that means that the profile has been released. Simply go to that profile and request management. If there is an option to manage more than one, I take it, Anyone who wants management of almost any profile that I manage, just ask and it will be given. Remember that when you request management you will not get management of any in the Geni privacy zone.
Judi/Judith If there is no manager to approve a merge, how do you propose it be completed
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Judith Judi Elaine (McKee) Burns I want to see the profiles with a death date in them of 1910 back open up - I personally can not see anythign past the 3-4 generation of being private - all or most pedigree charts are 4 genrations and as for any thing past the 3rd great grandparents being alive - that is debateable and I can maybe seeing up to and including the 3rd grand parents - - but there is one person who has a very very distant branch off of my Hardesty line and another has his profiles as best i can figure out - and he has made my grandfathers profile private - our nearest connecting ancestor is 6-7 generations back - and geni - claims that he is a direct ancestor to this person who no longer answers his contact mail, requests for merges and colloboration and this persons profiles affects 2 different lines of my Hardesty's plus my Whitworth line - he is not in what i considerr my direct line of my parents, grandparents, great grandparents - - as he stems off of my 6th grandmother Whitworth and off of my 7th great grandfather off of a different sibling than I do on each of these sets of distant grandparents - ; and . ONE reason I am making ALL of my profiles public and especially so if of distance branches - any one that is alive or possile could be alive born c. 1920 down I do not enter data on unless it is found on census reports etc. and then I some times omit dates and place for any one I consider to be possible living - but if most of the ancestors in the area of that family group are deceased i use that as my guide - - - To me this has extend his rank of "privacy" way beyond his direct line and affects many others besides me who are slowly going geni in these lines - To me this hinders the ultimate goal of GENI's big tree - - as these private proiles even in my Sexton line extened into the 6th and 6th generations - I want to be able to request managersip of these profiles and have 'custody' of them so i can merge them and correct his bad data - his splitting of my grandfathers siblings into 2 seperate families - etc. - oh well maybe one day..... but so far i keep checking keep requesting managership and nothing happens ...
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Terry Jackson (Switzer) Alternatively, managerless profiles could be in a pool 'managed' by curators.
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Judith Judi Elaine (McKee) Burns Abandoned profiles should be matched to those already existing of the tree and turned over to people who are researching or entered profiles and merged automaticaly into the existing profiles - within that branch of the tree - of the same branch - also i feel that any profile that bears a birth date of 1900 should be made public as that is 110 years old - 1910 would be even acceptable - as most public records ar e made public at 70 and 75 years.
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Terry Jackson (Switzer) Enabling abandoned tree profiles to be merged into existing duplicates by anyone would achieve Judi's latest suggestion which otherwise may be a little difficult to achieve automatically.
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Terry Jackson (Switzer) Enabling abandoned tree profiles to be merged into existing duplicates by anyone would achieve Judi's latest suggestion which otherwise may be a little difficult to achieve automatically.
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Lo Re: "i feel that any profile that bears a birth date of 1900 should be made public as that is 110 years old -" - Even at 110, they may conceivably still be alive. Info in Timelines and About on these Profiles may well include info on people who are still alive. Current rules allowing us to set Profiles to Private should not be in any way lessened!!
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Eldon Clark (Geni volunteer curator) Lo, and others "even at 110, they may conceivably still be alive" That is the exception not the usual. Sites such as Family Search and Find a Grave show profiles who have died recently, even in the 200s. The US census for 1940 will be released in March. The old rules and standards are changing whether you like it or not.
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Judith Judi Elaine (McKee) Burns thank you Eldon - and those not finding the the info they need here are surely not going to drop seeking the info they are going to go to the census which is opened at 72 years - many states already have online actual pdf files of death certificates up into the 1950's if 1970's and if not they have indexes of names, dates, and place; the Social Security death index as well as going to newspaper.com, ancestry.com, genealogybank.com etc. Many states have marriage and divorce indexes online up into the 1990's and I am sure those that are touting the privacy of profiles - if locked from their sight are going elsewhere off of GENI to these other sites and many others in order to get their information to complete their profiles - for here (even if locked down) or for their own personal files - I am sure LO among others can hardly wait for the 1940 census to open up so they can find data that is locked out on here the rule of standatd has been for death records to be open between 70 and 80 years after the event - the census has been for decades at the 72 year mark; courthouse records are open under the sunshine law which include all marriage and divorce records; adoption records alot of the early ones were sealed which may very well still be the case - but there are sites - posting adoption information by those seeking in formation of an adopted child or those seeking their biological parentage - times are a changing - but mainly that the information is now available at your finger tips through the internet rather than having to travel a far to get it like eldon said - "even at 110, they may conceivably still be alive" That is the exception not the usual
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Terry Jackson (Switzer) I would like to add that since Geni's recent changes this needs to be given even greater consideration as it is quite possible that abandoned trees will be passed on to Non-Pro users and therefore get stuck because Non-Pros cannot merge even if they want to.
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Lo Yes, I am looking forward to the 1940 Census becoming Public, yes, I love finding info in Public Records. Judi /Judith - which states have all those pdf-files of death certificates, indexes, etc. available free on line, how do I find them? Would love to know.
Find-a-grave is set up for folks to enter what they would like to share with the World. Geni's creators could have chosen to go this route. Instead, Geni was set up for what one would like to share privately with one's family. Then, later, Geni was extended to include Public Profiles.
Geni was set up to be a Hybrid. It is for the World Tree, but it is also for privately sharing info with family about family. To allow both to co-exist, Geni very purposely chooses to let us make 3rd-GreatGrandparent (of ourself and/or any other relative with claimed profile) and closer (and 4th cousin and closer) Private. Collecting oral histories and interviewing elderly relatives often results in anecdotes one would like to share with the family which are not part of any public record. Eldon and Judi / Judith - if either of you has no information about any of your relatives born before 1910 (or even 1900) which is not part of a Public Record, I am very surprised. You may choose not to list it on Geni - but those of us who want to accept Geni's offer of a great place to privately share Family info (complete with dirty secrets, obnoxious opinions held by some relatives, garbled memories, or whatever) with Family should be allowed to do so.
As an example of info not in the Public Records - (In my other account) my entries show several great-grandparents with siblings - for most of these Great-Grandparents and their siblings there are US Census Records showing them with their spouse and children (whom I also entered on Geni) - BUT possibly in every case, there are no Public Records documenting the connection between my Great-Grandparent and his/her siblings - that is the Generation that arrived in America, and the connection between the siblings comes from Family Information. Please do not keep saying everything is Public Record.
I believe Geni should secure its privacy so one can share such information just with the extended family of the Profile, or with those one chooses to share it with (often, Geni's definition of Family does not match what a person feels is their family) - not with everyone within the Profile Manager's Max Extended Family as well. But definitely one should not be forced to have the Profiles Public.
Eldon - In addition to the above, in your response to me you totally ignored the fact that making a Profile Public makes info on the Next Generation (birth dates, etc) also Public. Yes, one can avoid that by not entering any info - but that totally defeats the idea of Geni as a Place for sharing everything one knows about our ancestors and relatives with all our other family members.
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Judith Judi Elaine (McKee) Burns you will just have to google birth, death, marriage by state wanted - and read down the list - its a pick and hunt but they can be found some are absractions, some are just indexes and others can even be pdf of the certificate it takes time and effort to find them - but if a person wants them bad enough they will hunt for them - of course alot is readily available of ancestry.com
here are a few I have earmarked - also check local libraires under genealogy - libraries - here are 2 good examples = http://www.fulco.lib.in.us/genealogy/fulcogenealogyfrontpage.htm
washington state http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/Collections = abstracted = but the info is there birth http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/Record/View/64410F0E48CB52A03D2B0C53DE10A417 death http://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/Record/View/5532017BB384922632C909BD2657C759
check state libraries - http://www.in.gov/library/databases.htm http://web.isl.lib.in.us/INMarriages93to02/in_marriages_search.asp state archives = missouri - http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/ordb.asp(pdf files)
Illinois - http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/archives/idphdeathindex.html
ohio - http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/death//
Sorry the family connections are public and can be found eventually may take some dective work if a person marries in the United States the marriage records are basically open to the public no matter where they are - death certificates open up betwenn 70 and 75 years; there are city directories - obituaries in newspapers - articles on weddings, briths, annivesaries, reuniuons etc. - and now days with all the persoanal id checks that can be bought online if one wishes and has the money to spend possibly foolishly on such things -
as for the complete with dirty secrets, obnoxious opinions held by some relatives, garbled memories, or whatever they do not belong on any public profile -
if the dirty secret is a divorce, illigitmate birth out side of wedlock, common law marriage or even adoption - that is and was all to common; Adoption of any child shold be stated as "genealogy" is the blood line of a family - this only puts erro into the family records which is hard to correct once entered incorrectly; things such as murders, horse theft etc. are public record both in court records and in newspapers
any record in the clerks offices are open to the public unless specifically sealed by a judge - their are an arry of records their probate, estate, court ordered brith certificates, divorce filings and decrees, marrigae applications
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Lo Sort of an aside, but thought perhaps it might be relevant and/or folks would find it interesting:
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Lo Judi / Judith - Thanks much for your links, and taking the time for such an in-depth answer.
RE: "Sorry the family connections are public and can be found eventually" - if that refers to my comment that my GreatGrandparents connections to their siblings is just from Family Knowledge - I suppose it is possible there are public records, but it is definitely not for sure, and my guess would be that for at least some of them, there is not. Folks in my Extended Family much more skilled in genealogical research than I have been doing research for decades, much longer and more intensely than I; none have mentioned any such records; those relatives I have asked have only been able to give family memories to back up the relationships - including the one who seemed most skilled in genealogical research (and did it intensely). These GreatGrandparents and their siblings are all folks who immigrated to America as adults (some already married with children of their own) basically between 1875 and 1900, siblings coming over separately (parents never did). Names in America definitely Americanized, last names may well have little connection to the names they may have used before.
Re: "things such as murders, horse theft etc. are public record both in court records and in newspapers" -- often, yes, but not always - perhaps it was murder never discovered by the public, or some other crime never successfully solved. (In my extended family, I have heard accusations of theft by one family member from another that almost certainly were never made public). Certainly if it was known for sure that the person did the crime, there is probably a record - although I wonder if the records really identify the person enough so it is sure that the 'William Smith' mentioned in them, for example, is the specific relative you are talking about - or does that connection at least sometimes rely on some input of family knowledge?
Thanks for agreeing that "as for the complete with dirty secrets, obnoxious opinions held by some relatives, garbled memories, or whatever they do not belong on any public profile -" --------- Seems to imply if folks are using the Private Profiles for sharing all with their family, as Geni encourages, then those Profiles should not be forcibly switched from Private to Public.
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Judith Judi Elaine (McKee) Burns My intent was that no information that is not wanted to be public SHOULD NOT BE PLACED in GENI profiles and/or any profiles on line - whether it Be geni, wiki, ancestry.com - infact that information should be left out of any personal genealogical program that would and could be gedcom-ed as that information will eventually leak out through sharing with others -
as for family members wiriting it down or passing it down thorugh oral history must of wanted the information known for future generations - possibly as a clue for further research - in my opinion most families who wrote out family history whether how brief, inaccurate, whether very detailed or little detailed wanted to leave something behind of their hertiage -
i remember my grandmother out of the blue announing she had had 5 siblings and then 11 half-siblings - she named all by name - nothing said of her parents - Great grandfether was a well-to-do farmer during his first marriage; great- grandmother died in the South Hospital Insane hospital of evansville of 'Mania - General Debility' by 1893 he had taken up with "another woman" and between 1894 - 1898 they had 3 childrne out of weblock - and the 3rd was on the way by the time Grandmother's elder brother's had had it with Dad's philandering - and escorted the couple to the county seat for marriage of so it was told by the one brother's daughter - and how the 1st daughter was born out in an animal shed while her mother was attempting either to get to her mother's for help because great grandfather was gone from the house - - its related that he took to drinking and by the time he had died or maybe well before had squandered away all he had built up. Of course I was gently told census records and court marriage and birth records lied by one of the second family children's wives but soon changed attitude - the great uncle's daughterr also claimed their was a family bible but convientely disappeared - tho i have a handwritten page which was torn from a animal husbandry book 9the colored plates) and the info of the first family as to brith and death dates written out on it this page came from another branch of the family - grandmother under age was not living with her father tho married but with her brother and his wife
as for accusations of thefts not recorded i am sure all sides invovled knew of the accusations - they either have re-told the stories among themselves or completely swept it under the carpet - but i would say if one side still knoews the sotries accusations the other side does too and that it is recorded somewher in family papers - - but like i said if not wanted to be made known then it should not be written into any profile whether online or into a computer generated program file that is shared with others - it should be private written to whom ever you want it known and specified it is private and top secret.
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Lo Re:"... no information that is not wanted to be public SHOULD NOT BE PLACED in GENI profiles and/or any profiles on line - whether it Be geni, wiki, ancestry.com - infact that information should be left out of any personal genealogical program that would and could be gedcom-ed as that information will eventually leak out through sharing with others - "
You may be correct, BUT Geni has promised us Privacy, and it is Geni's responsibility to fulfill its promise. And the fact that you do not think they can fulfill their promise does not mean that of course all of us must act as if we believed that way as well.
An early article about Geni is: http://magazine.uchicago.edu/07910/features/take2.shtml
In it, it quotes David Sacks about Geni:
"“We want to be the repository of all your family’s information,” he says. If users enter cause-of-death information about family members, he wants the site to help predict genetic susceptibility to illnesses. If it appears that someone is at an increased risk for heart disease, the site could advertise exercise books or specific medicines. He wants people to see what cars their family members are driving, what books they are reading, and what music they are into. …” This is clearly talking about folks entering lots of private info on Geni for sharing with their family. This is just as important as the World Tree -
Judith Judi Elaine (McKee) Burns - the cause of death information death information is available to anyone who gets a death certificate - they open up any where from 50 - 70 years depending up on the state or country
if you want scandaless & personal opinions or descriptions of a family member that could be termed possibly as malicious information about a person written in on a profile and then lock it out thats up to you but eventually if and when ever you leave GENI or if someone else in your family tree or another very distant GENI member relative has connected to the profile they just may make the profile public which they are entitled to do so - also when it falls outside GENI's term of privacy it will be opened up - and GENI could always change their terms of privacy too – even if it is oral history and recorded it is could very well becaome public knowledge - allot of our local libraries genealogical and historical societes are recording oral family, town and county histories and making them available to patrons and researchers thus what you would be consider to be private and unknown - just might be recorded somewhere without your knowledge - the saying is that nothing is private once it is told orally to someone or written down and passed on to another person -
living people should in my opinion should have no biograpical data put within their profiles of any kind unless the person personally shares it and know that it could and will eventually possibly be public accessable - and joining GENI I know i am not naive or gullible enough to think that profiles will forever remain private and locked down as the years roll on and add up and children and grandchildren are added by geni members
Range should be only within the parents, grandparents and great-grandparents & great grandparents - a generation is considered to be 20 years X's that 4 four equals 80 years or if you for the 4 generations as GENI has thats 100 years as private in a direct line of descent and any one who has the same set of grandparents as you may want their profiles public etc. Thus information that is 100 years should be open to all - as it is already opened to all at 72 years for census records, between 50-70 years for death cerificated beng issued; marriage records are open as well as divorce, wills, probate etc. and any other civil court records that are about a person;
the only thing i can imagine being sealed and private as yet is adoption records - but if they are family records and known to family members - then they should be open as well - adopted relatives should be stated as being adopted publically in all genealogical records or works as genealogy is a recording of blood lines - and such societies as SAR, DAR and other requires or did require that to join 'blood descent' had to be proven and established.
so called hidden family secrets should not be put into anything that goes into public files such as GENI, ancestry.com or even person genealogical programs that can be gedcom and copied by and for others as eventually by being shared and passed around the information will become public and actually once it does leave a persons custody it is public knowledge ho many people can remember jus what they have full entered into every profile - and do back and either delete the
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Jordan Eric O'Brien I have come across a bunch of duplicate profiles for long-dead cousins but I can't merge them because they are private and their manager hasn't signed into Geni since Feb 2011. There should also be an ability to force a profile public if the birth date is before 1880 and the manager is inactive.
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Lo RE: "There should also be an ability to force a profile public if the birth date is before 1880 and the manager is inactive." - Definitely NOT!! Geni has promised us we can make Profiles Private back to our 3rd GreatGrandfather - this should under no circumstances be lessened. Just because the manager is inactive DOES NOT mean all family members are inactive. Nor does it mean the manager does not care - he might care and might be very unwilling for those relatives to be made Public.
If it is truly a relative of yours, use your detective skills to discover a way to contact the manager outside of Geni, and discuss it with him/her.
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Eric Randol Schoenberg, Geni Curator Who ever invented the idea that "privacy" included the identity of our ancestors? So silly. That type of privacy never existed before and doesn't exist now. What you do in your home -- that's private. Who your parents, grandparents, etc were, that's public information. Always has been, always will be.
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Jordan Eric O'Brien Lo - the whole purpose of Geni is to build one big global family tree. If I have an ancestor that is a 100% match of someone else on the tree (same name, birth date, death date, parents, spouse, children, etc, etc) it defeats the whole purpose of Geni to prevent a match. Especially if the birth date is in the early 1800s as is the case for a few of my relatives that I am unable to merge. I'm not advocating all profiles before 1880 be public (though I would support that), I am advocating that if a manager doesn't respond to a merge request after some period of time (3, 6 or 12 months perhaps?) or if they haven't logged in in over a year, then merges should be able to go ahead.
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Lo Jordan - re: "if a manager doesn't respond to a merge request" - if the manager has clicked "I'll decide later" - that is a response, but seems pretty clear the system does not keep any record of it. If the manager sends a message to the person - or one of the persons - who requested the Merge/approved the match - again, this is not recorded as a response.
Geni just recently announced that they were Temporarily allowing Non-Pros to accept merges. I do not know if this temporary policy of allowing Non-Pros to accept merge requests is still on, or if so, for how long. But even while it is on, I do not believe they are allowing them to reject them. Even for Pros, there is No option to say "I do not want to merge" - just No, it is not a match - and, as I said, "I will decide later" - which is perhaps better than No, since perhaps I will in fact change my mind eventually - that is not recorded as a response.
So - your suggestion amounts to - either say yes, and let me merge; or else I get to merge after such-and-such a length of time -- because NO is NOT AN OPTION.
Also Note: If the Primary Manager has not logged on, but one or more of the other Family Members have, this may still be an actively cared about Profile. Moreover - do not know how many users notice or check their Merge Centers.
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Jordan Eric O'Brien Lo - here is an excerpt of Geni's mission statement: "Geni is solving the problem of genealogy by inviting the world to build the definitive online family tree... allows users to find matching trees and merge those into the single world family tree." If users do not want to allow the profiles of their long-dead ancestors to be merged, then why are the using Geni? They would be better served to keep their family tree on their local computer.
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Terry Jackson (Switzer) Lo, if a user says 'no, this is not a match' then the request is removed. It clearly is NOT a match and 'NO' has been said.
If a manager of a profile has not been logged into Geni in over 10 months the tree is considered abandoned and can be reported as such. If the profile has other interested relatives 'caring for it' as you suggest then the likelyhood is that they too will be a manager of that profile and so if they are active this is no longer a problem because the inactive manager will be reported and the active manager will become the primary manager of that profile and receive merge requests.
We are talking about profiles that really are abandoned. Sometimes people join Geni add their own profile and their immediate family and then don't return to Geni again. Do you suggest that all such profiles are sacrisanct and should just float around Geni in the ethersphere forever and if someone finds a connection and realises they are family and want to 'care for the profile' they shouldn't be allowed to?
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Jordan Eric O'Brien Terry - thank you so much. I didn't realize you could report abandoned trees. I have done this for several of mine and (assuming it works) you've largely resolved my issue. Thanks so much!