2 replies to this topic

[danslater]

Suggestion:  Provide option check box when creating reports/lists/charts to "Hide Date of Birth (DOB) for Living People".

 

On April 9, 2017 I wanted to create a simple Descendant List report to take to a funeral.  I wanted to hide the DOB for Living people for obvious protection of privacy/personal information reasons.  I could not find how to do it and reached out to the Roots Magic Users Facebook group for help.

 

I was told this was not possible without exporting a GEDCOM and creating a new database to use for the report.  

Here is a link to that Facebook conversation:  https://www.facebook...84197045101178/

 

This seems like a difficult work-around for something that could and should be built in as an option (using the Living filter) when generating any output.  

 

Protecting living people's DOB is critical in this day and age of identity theft.  As a genealogist it is also essential research information to store in our Roots Magic databases.  Report, list and chart output to share is also critical and should include this basic protection option for any output.  I would even suggest that "Hide DOB for Living People" should be the default to prevent inadvertent disclosure by RM users.  For secure situations the user could deselect that option.

 

thanks,

Dan Slater

Peterborough, Ontario

[Renee Zamora]

Confirming this is on the enhancement request list. 

[danslater]

As an additional thought and if possible please consider this.

 

If you implement the "Hide DOB for Living" output option and it is selected, and if there is a Birth fact Date and the Living box is checked, replace the date field with "Living" in the output. 

eg: "B:  Living"

 

This will help interpret the output by clearly showing the following:

1)  Birth fact Date=yes and Living=no will display the "B: date" as usual.  All good.

2)  Birth fact Date=no and Living=no will display blank as usual. All good to see where the date is needed.

3)  Birth fact Date=no and Living=yes will also display blank, indicating that a Birth Date is not present and needed for living people.

4)  Birth fact Date=yes and Living=yes will display "B:  Living". Good to find old ancestors incorrectly checked as Living, and identify current Living people who do have a Birth fact Date stored.

 

Additional options to consider if "Hide DOB for Living" output is selected may be "to what extent?"

1)  Replace Birth fact Date with "Living"

2)  Replace Birth fact Date with the year only, eg: 1980.

  

thanks,

Dan