Terms and Conditions

By registering and logging into Family Tree Forum you agree to be bound by the Terms and Conditions laid out below.

We want this to be a safe, enjoyable and friendly environment for all of our members. These rules will help provide a framework for our members to achieve this.

The boards are read by our moderators but posts are not generally moderated before they are added.

You and your membership

• Your account is for your use only. Anything posted from that account will be deemed to have come from you, and you will be held responsible for any activity on that account.
• Registering with multiple accounts is not allowed.
• DO NOT impersonate anyone, regardless of whether the other individual is a Family Tree Forum member.

Overall Community Attitude

• Please keep in mind that Family Tree Forum is a genealogy community and our purpose is to share, help and support others with their genealogical research.

• Always display a positive, friendly attitude and be respectful of other's opinions. Rudeness, insults, arguments or threats against other members are not acceptable.

• Always try to give back to our community. For each time you find help or answers here at Family Tree Forum, try to help someone else out in return.

• Give people a little time to respond to your requests. There is a lot going on in these forums and it may take a little time for people to notice and respond to your request. Please be patient.

• Although you may consider yourself to be an "expert" now, try to remember that we were all new and learning once upon a time. Take it easy on your fellow members.

• DO NOT post any identifying details of living people either in forum posts or on our names database. Such posts will be amended by the moderators without warning and further action may be taken as per our abuse policy.

Respect your fellow members

• Family Tree Forum respects what other forums and websites have to offer. Do not try to degrade or discredit other forums, their administrators and moderators, or their members. This includes slander and other offensive comments.

• Family Tree Forum is open to people of all genders, races, and sexualities. Any inappropriate, discriminatory or offensive posts will be deleted and may lead to an infraction or suspension.

• This is a public forum and our members' reputations are valuable to them – do not communicate anything that is, or could be considered to be defamatory about any person.

• DO NOT POST pornography, adult or distasteful content or links to sites containing such content. Please be mindful that the minimum age for this site is 13 and inappropriate content will be removed without notice.

• Even though this is an international forum, please make sure that your posts are written in English.

• Do not post anything, including look-up offers or results, that infringes anyone’s copyright, trade mark or other intellectual property rights. If in doubt refer to the Family Tree Forum Copyright Guidelines.

Forum Abuse Policy

1st stage - A polite private message from a moderator pointing out the forum rules, in addition to the editing or deletion of the post.

2nd stage - A formal warning or infraction given to the member, plus deletion of offending post/thread.

3rd stage - Possible suspension or deletion of the member’s account.

• Depending on the situation, the moderating team may bypass any or all of these steps and take whatever action is deemed appropriate.

• Discussion of deleted threads or reasons for suspension should be by private message with the moderation team and not conducted on the boards.

• The Administrators and Moderators will not discuss with third parties reasons for suspension of members or deletion of threads or postings.

• Please do not discuss, or post on behalf of, banned or suspended members, or members who have left the site, on the boards. Posts/threads doing so will be deleted.

Private Messages, Email and SPAM

• Private messages between members should remain private and not be posted on the boards without the explicit consent of the sender. Abusive private messages should be forwarded to a moderator and will be dealt with by the moderating team.

• We take private message/e-mail/msn abuse very seriously, and if proven it may result in the immediate removal of your membership and ban of your IP address, without warning.

• Do NOT use the Family Tree Forum community for the purpose of 'spam' or excessive advertisements! This includes forum posts, private messages, or emails to other Family Tree Forum members

• Our moderators reserve the right to edit or delete any posts they consider to be 'spam'

Usernames and Signatures

• Change of username is only permitted in exceptional circumstances. Please contact one of the Admin team if you have a query.

• You may use images as a signature up to a combined maximum of 500px wide x 100px high. Anything larger may be edited down to these sizes

• Signatures are limited to 6 lines of text, or 2 lines of text with images. Blank lines count towards these totals.

• Up to 3 links are allowed, one of which may be to your own personal non-business or genealogy based business site. Illegal, pornographic or otherwise objectionable links will be removed without warning.

• Signatures may be edited by the moderating/admin team if they do not conform to the guidelines as stated above.

Uploading Files and Attachments

• We recommend that members use external sites such as Photobucket to host images they wish to post on the forum.

• Files uploaded to the Wiki should be for use in that section of the site only. Any files found within the Wiki which are not being used for that purpose will be removed without warning.

• By uploading files to our server you are licensing them for use by Family Tree Forum under the terms of the GFDL. If you are unable to grant such a licence please do not upload the file.

Charities and Fundraising

• The Administrators of Family Tree Forum do not verify the charitable status of any links, neither can they accept any responsibility for their contents. Their appearance on the site does not reflect any endorsement of them.

• Fund raising/charity threads should be posted in the "Hugs and Support" forum of the site.

• Direct requests for donations should not be made by members involved in fundraising although links to registered charities/fundraising sites are acceptable.

Advertising

• Apart from one link in a signature, members may only advertise their personal genealogy based business in the Advertising Forum of the site.

• The owners and administrators of Family Tree Forum do not endorse or verify the legality of any business enterprise that is advertised.

Magazine Submissions

• When submitting material to the magazine members are required to give their permission to Family Tree Forum to publish their articles and/or images on the website indefinitely. Copyright remains with the submitter and will be acknowledged alongside each piece.

• Submissions for the magazine cannot be withdrawn after the closing date for the issue in which they are due to appear. Articles or images will not be removed from the magazine once it has been published.

• The magazine editors have the final decision in respect of the wording and presentation of articles and illustrations in the magazine. The editors reserve the right to turn down offers of articles.

We do our best ...

Although the administrators and moderators of Family Tree Forum will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this forum, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author, and neither the owners of Family Tree Forum, nor Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd. will be held responsible for their content.

Members who violate these rules may receive a warning or infraction, or in more serious cases be suspended or banned. The Administrators of Family Tree Forum reserve the right to publish details of banned members.

If you see a post which breaches these Terms and Conditions please notify the moderating team by clicking on the red alert triangle alongside the post. If you have any queries then please contact a member of the Admin or Moderating Team – you can see who is online either by using the View Forum Leaders link at the bottom of the forum page, or the Site Team link in the navbar at the top.

These guidelines are subject to change and the version listed above is always the current version.

Last Updated 10/06/2009 by The Admin Team