Our Stories of Becoming is a living family-history archive. Because it includes family names, photographs, documents, memories, historical records, and family contributions, the site is guided by practices intended to protect privacy, respect contributors, preserve accuracy, and handle family materials responsibly. This page explains how the archive approaches living persons, deceased ancestors, photographs, documents, copyright, corrections, submissions, and requests to remove or limit information.
This page is a statement of site practices and is not legal advice. When specific legal questions arise, they may require advice from a qualified attorney.
Purpose of This Page
Explains that the page describes how the archive handles privacy, submissions, corrections, photographs, documents, living persons, and family-history materials.
Living Persons
Explains that information about living persons will be treated with special care and may be removed, limited, anonymized, or withheld upon request.
Information about living persons will be handled with special care. Living family members may ask that their personal information, photographs, identifying details, or immediate household information be removed, limited, anonymized, or withheld from public display.
As a general practice, the site will avoid publishing sensitive information about living persons, including private addresses, phone numbers, financial information, medical information, and other details that could reasonably be considered private. Birth dates, family relationships, photographs, and personal stories involving living people will be reviewed carefully before publication.
When a living person requests removal or limitation of their own information, the request will be taken seriously and reviewed promptly. The goal is to preserve family history without creating unnecessary discomfort, exposure, or harm for living relatives.
Deceased Persons and Shared Family History
Explains that deceased ancestors are part of shared family history and that no single descendant automatically controls an entire historical family line.
Deceased ancestors are part of shared family history. No single descendant automatically controls an entire historical family line, especially when the information comes from public records, cemetery records, published obituaries, census records, church records, immigration records, military records, or other historical sources.
At the same time, the archive will handle deceased persons with dignity and care. The fact that information may be public does not mean every detail must be emphasized or displayed without context. Sensitive family history may be summarized, contextualized, or withheld when publication would be unnecessarily harmful, speculative, or disrespectful.
Requests to remove deceased ancestors or entire family branches will be reviewed, but they may not be granted when the material is part of the shared family record and is supported by documented sources. A reasonable compromise may be to limit living descendants while preserving the historical line.
Requests for Removal, Limitation, or Correction
Explains what people may ask for and how requests will be reviewed.
Family members may request that information be corrected, limited, anonymized, removed, or reviewed. These requests may involve living persons, photographs, family stories, disputed facts, sensitive materials, or concerns about how someone is represented.
Requests will be reviewed according to accuracy, privacy, documentation, family sensitivity, and the purpose of the archive. A request from a living person about their own information will carry significant weight. A request to remove shared deceased ancestors, public historical records, or an entire family line will be considered, but not automatically granted.
When appropriate, the site may correct the information, add a note, revise the wording, remove a photograph, limit identifying details, or mark the information as uncertain. The purpose is not to “win” disputes, but to preserve family history responsibly.
Photographs, Documents, and Copyright
Explains that contributors should submit only materials they own, created, inherited, or have permission to share.
Photographs, letters, written stories, scanned documents, and other family materials may be protected by copyright, even when they are old or privately held. U.S. copyright law protects original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium, and copyright owners generally hold rights such as reproduction, distribution, adaptation, and public display.
Contributors should submit only materials they created, own, inherited with permission to share, or reasonably believe may be shared for family-history purposes. When the copyright status is unclear, the site may still preserve the item privately or describe it without displaying the full image publicly.
The archive may use limited excerpts, thumbnails, citations, or descriptions where appropriate, but it will avoid knowingly posting copyrighted material in a way that violates the rights of others. When a copyright concern is raised, the material will be reviewed and may be removed, credited, limited, or replaced.
Right of Publicity and Use of Name or Likeness
The archive will avoid using a person’s name, image, likeness, photograph, or identity for commercial endorsement or promotion. The purpose of this site is family history, not commercial exploitation.
Because the site is managed from Indiana, it is worth noting that Indiana recognizes a statutory right of publicity, including protection against use of a “personality’s” identity for commercial purposes during life and for 100 years after death. This issue is unlikely to affect ordinary family-history presentation, but it reinforces the site’s commitment to using names and images respectfully and not for commercial endorsement.
Children and Minors
Explains that identifying information about minors will be limited or omitted unless appropriate permission exists.
Information about children and minors will be handled with heightened care. The site will generally avoid publishing identifying information about minors unless appropriate permission has been given by a parent or legal guardian.
Submissions should be made by adults. If photographs, stories, or documents include minors, the material will be reviewed before publication. Identifying details may be limited, summarized, or omitted to protect privacy.
Federal children’s online privacy rules apply to certain websites and online services directed to children under 13 or to sites that knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. This archive is not intended as a children’s website, and contributions should be submitted by adults.
Submissions and Editorial Review
Explains that submitted material may be reviewed, edited, declined, delayed, or revised for accuracy, privacy, clarity, and tone.
Submitting material to the archive does not guarantee publication. Photographs, stories, documents, corrections, and identifications will be reviewed before they are added to the site.
Submissions may be edited for clarity, spelling, formatting, privacy, tone, consistency, and factual context. Some submissions may be delayed, declined, summarized, or held for further review. This is not meant to discourage participation, but to protect the integrity and reliability of the archive.
The site steward may also add explanatory notes when a submission is based on memory, when documentation is incomplete, or when different family members remember events differently.
If you believe material about you, your minor child, a photograph, a document, or a family story should be corrected, limited, credited, or removed, contact the site steward. Requests will be reviewed promptly and respectfully.
The site steward reserves the right to remove, limit, revise, or withhold material when doing so protects privacy, reduces family conflict, addresses copyright concerns, or better serves the purpose of the archive.
Accuracy, Conflicting Records, and Family Memory
Explains that records and memories may conflict and that the archive will distinguish between documented facts, family memory, and interpretation where possible.
Family history often includes uncertainty. Names may be spelled differently across records. Dates may conflict. Census entries may contain errors. Family memories may differ. Some stories may be incomplete, painful, exaggerated, misunderstood, or passed down in fragments.
The archive will try to distinguish among documented records, family memory, interpretation, and unresolved questions. When possible, records and sources will be identified. When certainty is not possible, the site may use careful language such as “appears to,” “may have,” “family memory suggests,” or “additional documentation is needed.”
Corrections are welcome. The goal is not to pretend that family history is perfectly settled, but to preserve what is known while remaining open to better evidence and fuller understanding.
Site Stewardship and Succession
Explains that you currently manage and moderate the site, but future stewardship will need to pass to another family member or group.
This site is currently managed and moderated by Robert K. Green, Ph.D., who created Our Stories of Becoming as a living family-history archive. Site stewardship includes organizing content, reviewing submissions, protecting the privacy of living persons, correcting errors, adding new materials, and preserving the overall purpose and tone of the archive.
Over time, stewardship of the archive will need to pass to another family member or small group of family members willing to continue the work. This matters because a living archive depends on continuity. Photographs, documents, memories, corrections, and family stories will continue to emerge, and the site should remain available, accurate, and cared for beyond its original creation.
The goal is not simply to maintain a website, but to preserve a shared inheritance of memory. Future stewards are asked to carry forward the commitments to accuracy, respect, privacy, family participation, and careful preservation that shaped the archive’s beginning.
Contact About Rights, Policies, or Corrections
Family members who have questions, corrections, privacy concerns, copyright concerns, or requests about material on the site may use the Contact page to reach the site steward.
When submitting a request, please identify the page or item involved, explain the concern, and provide any supporting information or documentation. Requests will be reviewed carefully and handled as respectfully as possible.