Verification and disputes

• Pending — one person has proposed the relationship and the other has not yet confirmed it. It is visible, but never counted as verified.
• Confirmed — the people the relationship names have agreed to it.
• Disputed — a relative has formally disagreed. Both accounts are preserved while it is reviewed.

When a relative adds you to their tree, you get a notification. Open it to see who added you, what relationship they proposed, and the profile they attached it to.

• Confirm if it is right — the relationship becomes verified for everyone who can see it.
• Dispute if it is wrong — see below.
• Ignore it and it simply stays Pending. Nothing is asserted about you in the meantime.

Deliberately broad, because a platform that only accepts state-issued paper excludes most of the world.

• Photographs, including annotated family portraits
• Civil documents — birth, marriage, death, baptism, naturalisation
• Recorded oral accounts from family elders, credited to the speaker
• Community and religious records: naming ceremonies, clan registers, burial records
• Correspondence, diaries, wills, land documents and school records
• Links to an external archive, where the record itself stays with the archive

A dispute is the alternative to quietly deleting someone else's research. It flags the record rather than erasing it.

1. 1Open the relationship or profile and choose Dispute.
2. 2State what you believe is wrong and why. Attach evidence if you have it.
3. 3The record is flagged and stops being presented as confirmed anywhere in the tree.
4. 4The other party is notified and can respond with their own account and evidence.
5. 5A reviewer weighs both and records an outcome with reasons, which stays visible on the record.