Privacy Policy

This policy describes the privacy practices of Kleinmann Genealogy regarding information collected from you and other visitors to this website. This policy describes what data is collected and how that information is used. Kleinmann Genealogy may, at its sole discretion, change, modify, add, or delete portions of this policy. Because this privacy policy only applies to this website, you should examine the privacy policy of any website you access through this website.

Objectives

The primary objective in genealogy is to identify all ancestors and descendants in a particular family tree and to collect personal data on them. At a minimum, this data includes the individual's name and the date and/or location of birth, marriage, and death. In order to support research by other genealogists, this data is often published on genealogy websites.

As a genealogist, therefore, we may have collected personal information on you and your family from a variety of sources. The privacy of this information is important to us and we assure you there is a privacy policy in place for the Kleinmann Genealogy website with which you will be satisfied.

Most of us would prefer not to have to worry about our personal data but, in this day and age, we must use caution to prevent misuse of the information. Identity theft and credit fraud are the worst problems. There is concern that information distributed to distant relatives or put on a genealogy websites makes it easier for unscrupulous individuals to commit invasions of privacy or other frauds. However, the personal information that the identity thieves and credit fraud perpetrators want are full names, social security numbers, dates and places of birth, current occupation/employment data, and bank/credit card account numbers. One or two facts alone (e.g., your name and/or your mother's maiden name) are not enough information to cause damage.

Personal Data Suppression

Many genealogy programs can suppress the names of living individuals and substitute "living" or "still living" in their place. In addition to marking these individuals as "living", this website goes one step further. We have also marked all living individuals as "private," which makes their presence invisible to the general public. This extra layer of security suppresses publication of any and all references to the individual (including name and relationship) in any family group sheet, as well as linked photos, documents, and other graphics.

Every individual in our database will belong to one of the following three classes:

1. Individuals will be marked as "living" AND "private," (i.e. completely invisible) if one of the following conditions are met:
   • the person is known to be alive
   • the person was born on or after 18 April 1930 with no known death date
2. Individuals will be marked as "living," (i.e. visible by relationship, but name replaced with the word "living", and all data suppressed) if one of the following conditions are met:
   • the person has a known death date on or after 18 April 2014
   • the person was born on or after 18 April 1914 with no known death date
3. Indviduals will have no markings (i.e. all data completely visible to the general public) if one of the following conditions are met:
   • the person has a known death date on or before 17 April 2014
   • the person was born on or before 17 April 1914 with no known death date

To insure the privacy of living individuals, the Kleinmann Genealogy website always suppresses the personal data of living individuals from viewing by the general public. Personal data includes, but is not limited to, birth and/or marriage dates and/or locations, photographs, notes, and biographies.

Photographs & Documents

Photographs of living individuals are considered personal data and are normally suppressed. However, if the individual so chooses, a photograph can be tagged as "always visible". Before any photograph can be included in this website, permission is obtained from the owner of a photograph (U.S. Copyright Law). Permission is also obtained from living individuals in a photograph if they are identified in the caption/description or they can be identified through deductive reasoning using names/relationships found elsewhere.

The statement "Used with Permission" after the owner's name identifies compliance with these requirements.

When a document is added to the database, a thumbnail image is generated. Hovering over the thumbnail with your mouse will expand the image to a larger picture for viewing. The functionality of the Kleinmann Genealogy website has been changed so that now this only happens after you have logged in with your user account.

Personal Data Access

Personal data access is restricted to family members who must login to access the normally suppressed personal data of living and private individuals, as well as being able to view full size images of any document, including those of visible ancestors. The access to living and private data will be restricted to a user's own family branch. You must first read the Kleinmann Genealogy Privacy Policy, agree with the Kleinmann Genealogy Terms of Use, and register for a user account. When registering for your user account, you must indicate how you are related to our family. If you are not related, you will not be granted access.

With registration, you will be granted access only to your unique family branch within the database. Your access will be restricted to:

• You (the registered user) and your spouse (but not your spouse's family).
• Your descendants and their spouses.
• Your parents and grandparents.
• Your uncles/aunts and their spouses.
• Your 1st cousins and their spouses (but not their children).
• Your siblings and their spouses.
• Your nephews/nieces and their spouses (but not their children).

Note: To see the personal data of a spouse's family branch, married users will have to log in with their spouse's user name and password. If you consider using your spouse'e user ID a security violation, please request a second login account that will be restricted to your spouse's family.

Personal Data Security

Original data given to us in trust (personal information, e-mail/street addresses, phone numbers, etc.) is not provided to others unless your approval is first obtained. You should be aware, however, that most of this information is public domain and may be readily available to others using internet search engines (e.g., Yahoo People Search, Google.com, Birthday.com).

Data Collection

When visiting this website we may automatically collect and store the following information about your visit:

1. The Internet Protocol (IP) address and domain name of your internet service provider. The IP address is a numerical identifier assigned either to your internet service provider or directly to your computer, which can be used to direct internet traffic to you
2. The type of browser and operating system you used
3. The date and time you visited this site
4. The web pages you accessed at this site
5. The URL or web site address of the web site you visited prior to coming to this website and from which any web page on this site was linked
6. If you downloaded any data, the data that was downloaded

None of the above information is deemed to constitute personal information.

This information, that is collected automatically, is used to improve this website's content and to help us understand how people are using this website. This information is collected for statistical analysis, to determine what information is of most and of least interest to our visitors, and to identify system performance or problem areas. The information is not collected for commercial marketing purposes. We do not sell or distribute the information collected from the website for commercial marketing purposes.

Cookies: We do not use cookies at this time, and it is unlikely that we will in the future.

Email addresses: If during your visit to this website you send an email and/or complete and submit a suggestion box, your email address and the contents of your email will be collected. Your email address and the information contained in your email will be used to respond to you, to address issues you identify, or to further improve this website. Your email address is not collected for commercial marketing purposes, and we do not sell or distribute your email address for any purposes.

In order to aid you in your research, this website provides links to other websites. A link does not constitute an endorsement of the content, viewpoint, accuracy, opinions, policies, products, services, or accessibility of that website. Once you link to another website from this website you are subject to the terms and conditions of that website, including, but not limited to, its privacy policy.

Policy Updates

If the privacy policy practices change at some time in the future, we will post the policy changes to our website to notify you of these changes and provide you with the ability to opt out of these new uses. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back to this page periodically.

If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, please contact us.

Effective: 18 February 2014