Reply

First, it is important to understand that “privacy” is entirely dependant on whether a person is dead or alive. Except in very exceptional (manually adjusted) cases that is the ONLY thing that matters.

If a person is defined as “dead” then they are “public” and viewable by anyone.
If a person is defined as “not dead” then they are private, and not visible to anyone except logged-in site members.

This means that all or any settings are designed to adjust the definition of “dead”. These are the processes used, in order:

First – if there is a death, burial or cremation record, then that immediately defines a “death” for that individual. Under basic settings, they are “public”. If not dead, they are “private’.

Second – you can extend the period they are “not dead” (i.e. private) further than actual death by putting a figure in the “died in the last xx years” setting. So adding 10 in that field means they remain private for exactly 10 years after the date of their death, whenever that might have been. (see more details below).

Third – if there is no death, burial, or cremation, the system needs to estimate whether they are dead or not, always erring on the cautious side by assuming they are alive (private) if there is any doubt. This is done in a number of ways:

a) – By you adding a death record, with no data other than a tick in the Death: yes” box. This effectively gives them a death record as per “First” above. This is the most efficient solution to use, and can be done regularly using the Tool > Batch update > Add missing death record.

b) – By setting the “Age at which to assume a person is dead”. If set at 105, as you have it, then in the absence of any other indicators (see c) below) then a person will be regarded as “dead” 105 years exactly, after their birth, and therefore no longer “private”.

c) – If none of the above solutions exist or are possible to calculate, then the system will consider a number of other tests using dates in the records of the person’s parents, spouse(s), children, and grandchildren. This is the least efficient solution, so I always advise to find other solutions rather than falling back to this one.

Finally – the “born in the last xx years” and “died in the last xx years” settings. These are separate from each other, and applied ONLY to people already defined, by the rules above, as “dead”. Simply – the keep people marked as “not dead” for the set number of years beyond their respective birth date or death dates.

In the case of “died in the last xx years” the figure is added to their recorded death (or burial / cremation) date, thus extending the period they are “not dead” and therefore remain “private”.

In the case of “born in the last xx years”, the set figure as added to their recorded birth (or christening / baptism) date, thus potentially extending their “not dead” period beyond their actual death date.

It is important to remember that these two settings are ONLY applied after death has already been determined according to the First, Second, or Third rules above, and they must have a recorded birth date (for “born in the last xx years”) or death date (“died in the last xx years”).
These two settings are applied in the order above, so the second can over-write the first. This would normally result in the longest “not-dead” period (years of privacy).

Now to address your specific examples……

macalter wrote:

If people born say 1950 and died 1950 to 2010, what numbers should I be using? I want under 21 born to be private. Died for 25 years after death.

If they were born in 1950, and you have a date of death recorded, using your existing settings:

a) using “born in the last 21 years” would be ignored, as 1950 is not in the last 21 years. But if they were born in (say) 1999, and have now died, they would remain private until this year, 21 years after birth.

b) using “died in the last 10 years” they would be still be private this year (2020), if they died between 2010 and now (last 10 years). If they actually died in 2010, they would become public next year, on the 10th anniversary of their death. If they died earlier than 2010, then they are already public.

One final recommendation. Check that you have enabled the module “Privacy”, for the sidebar on indi pages. I would set it’s access level to admin only. That uses all of the above to give you a simple and immediate explanation of why any individual is being treated as “private” or not, at a glance.

Nigel
My personal kiwitrees site is www.our-families.info