Inheriting your online account

[Carla]

I want to say a BIG thank you to Peter. In the latest Lost Cousins Newsletter, amongst all the other interesting information, was one that caught my eye and got me thinking...

Who will inherit your online accounts?

To be totally honest i had never thought about this! Along with other people i have made a joke of the fact that my sons are not that interested in our family history at this moment in time, and the fact that i hope they will as they grow older. I have commented, as have others, that interest in family ancestry tends to happen later in life, although not always. I have my information filed and have an online Gedcom. I have lots of paperwork and lots of certificates. But is it all in order. No way! Not only that but what if something happens to me? I am the researcher of the family. In fact the researcher for all my extended family...and my husbands too. So who would i like to have this information should i be unable to continue, for whatever reason?

But what I found most interesting about the announcement is that Google are 8 years behind LostCousins in identifying the problem - since 2005 it has been possible to enter on your My Details page the email address of the person you would like to inherit your LostCousins account.

That said, 90% of the readers of this newsletter haven't completed that box. Maybe you should?

To my utter horror i was in that 90%. But not any more. As soon as i read this i went and filled in the details of my beneficiary. Thank you for bringing this to my attention Peter

 

[Emma]

I want to say a BIG thank you to Peter. In the latest Lost Cousins Newsletter, amongst all the other interesting information, was one that caught my eye and got me thinking...



To be totally honest i had never thought about this! Along with other people i have made a joke of the fact that my sons are not that interested in our family history at this moment in time, and the fact that i hope they will as they grow older. I have commented, as have others, that interest in family ancestry tends to happen later in life, although not always. I have my information filed and have an online Gedcom. I have lots of paperwork and lots of certificates. But is it all in order. No way! Not only that but what if something happens to me? I am the researcher of the family. In fact the researcher for all my extended family...and my husbands too. So who would i like to have this information should i be unable to continue

Likewise currently no interest from my children in the family history. Must admit I hadn't thought about the digital aspect but as to all my paperwork I have specified my various files with instructions that they are to be passed to the appropriate family history society. That way if anyone had an interest in the future it would be available.

 

[raven]

Thank you for bringing this up, I hadn't filled in the beneficiary part either. I just hope my nominee appreciates the gift.

 

[Alexander Bisset]

Peter's idea is a good one however there are issues with the solution first it assumes that you remember to update the email address as it changes over the years. I'm assuming here that people are expecting numerous more years before the hand over needs to take place. In a digital age we have yet to get used to the pace of change. Even ideas like adding information to a will as to who should inherit the research, with info like login names and passwords so that your beneficiary can actually get access once you are gone, even that idea is problematic given you are extremely likely to change password in that time (there's a whole other problem to discuss if you don't). In addition to changing passwords, it is quite likely that you might upgrade or change what programs you use to record your data.

Lets assume you have another 20-30 years plus - think what sort of computer software was in use 20-30 years ago to record family history - fairly basic stuff. In another 20-30 years today's software will probably look just as antiquated and we will have moved on to newer and better things. In the meantime how do we safely record the details for how someone else should access the data after we are gone? Tricky, however its a problem not just of family history software but all manner of things now done online. The person who comes up with a safe workable solution for both whilst you are alive and after you are gone will probably make a lot of money from the idea.