SGGEE Data Collection Guidelines

Originally Created: May 29, 2018

Last Update: May 29, 2018

The Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe does not collect any “personally identifiable information” about you unless you voluntarily submit it. The Society treats your personal information with respect and does not share it with any third party outside SGGEE. Your personal information is available to SGGEE directors and team leaders to conduct Society business and activities, and to fellow active members as part of our genealogical mission.

If you apply to become a member, register for a convention, submit genealogical data or use our website and/or the communication forums under the Society’s control, you are giving SGGEE permission to store your personal and genealogical information for the designated purpose and your participation is proof of your permission.

When you become a Society member, we ask for personally identifying information including name, address, phone and email. This is used to contact you about your membership and Society activities or by active members who wish to discuss your genealogical data (if provided).

When you use our website, we collect non-personally identifying information for demographic and security purposes

The submission of genealogical data for ancestors who lived in our area of interest is at the heart of the Society’s mission to assist members with their family research.

The Society’s Master Pedigree Database (MPD) contains data obtained through the years from a variety of sources including submissions from individual members. Before sending in your genealogical data, we ask that you read through the submission guidelines. Once it is received, it is compared with everyone else in the MPD in order to show connections among our members’ families.

If an individual is clearly deceased or older than age 80, all the available data is displayed. If the person is known to be living and under the age of 80, we do not display any data.

It is possible multiple members of an extended family will submit their genealogical data, but the information on common persons often will not agree. SGGEE does not verify the accuracy of the data submitted and does not “correct” data except at the request of the original source.

Access to the MPD is restricted to active members of the Society. If you are no longer an active member, the genealogical data you provided remains in our database along with the contact information that was current at the time of your membership. We request that you keep your contact information current, even if your membership is not, to facilitate other SGGEE members in contacting you.

SGGEE relies on the integrity of our members to respect others’ genealogical data and refrain from sharing that data or anyone’s personal information in any public forum unless prior permission has been given.

You may cease being a Society member whenever you wish. If you ask, we will delete your personally identifying information and your own genealogical data. But you understand that other members would have had prior access to both. And you also understand that while we can remove your genealogical data, it is NOT possible to remove ancestors you share with other members whose data remains in the database.

SGGEE may manage DNA projects on a third-party site. The scope of these projects is being determined as of this writing (May 2018). These projects are NOT limited to active SGGEE members and are separate from the Society website and databases.

As part of any DNA project, SGGEE may collect Gedmatch kit numbers you provide. To obtain a kit number, you must register and transfer the raw DNA data file to Gedmatch.com. You should refer to that site’s privacy policy and procedures before registering and its guidelines for removing your data from that site.

Should you decide to submit Gedmatch kit numbers to SGGEE, you certify that:

You may remove the Gedmatch kit numbers that you provided to SGGEE at any time by contacting SGGEE.

If you use our Facebook group, you understand this is a private group and you must request membership. However, the group is NOT limited to active SGGEE members. We urge all Facebook group members to consider carefully what personal or genealogical information you share about yourself, and living or deceased relatives. We request that you DO NOT share information to the group that was shared with you privately unless you obtain prior permission. You may remove yourself as a member of the SGGEE group at any time, but your posts will remain.

If you use our Google group to share and discuss questions on topic, you understand that this is a subscription service NOT limited to active SGGEE members. We recommend you carefully consider the personal or genealogical information you share about yourself, and living or deceased relatives. We request that you DO NOT share information to the group that was shared with you privately unless you obtain prior permission. You may unsubscribe from this Google group at any time using the link in any post. However, SGGEE cannot remove your history of participation.

Please refer to our privacy policy, our website disclaimer and/or instructions for specific functions on our website. Questions may be sent to webmaster-sggee@googlegroups.com.