Having a large family can sometimes leave you confused about how you’re related to family members. Oftentimes you might wonder how you’re related to that cousin. Or maybe you saw an old family photo and couldn’t place the faces staring at you.
Well, it’s easy to lose touch with our roots nowadays. But with websites like familytreenow, we can retrace our roots and celebrate our family history. Family Tree Now has digitalized how we understand our ancestral stories and connections.
With just a few clicks, you can uncover information about long-forgotten relatives you never knew existed. So, we’ve taken our time to thoroughly explain (in this article) what this platform is and how it works. Continue reading if you’re keen about understanding your family history.
Table of Contents
What is Familytreenow?
Family Tree Now is a website where users can create and explore their family trees and search for information about relatives who are still alive and have passed away. Users can obtain information on people’s phone numbers, names, addresses, alongside other personal information because the site has access to public databases and records.
However, Familytreenow has drawn controversy and criticism because of security and privacy issues. Criminal records and social security numbers are examples of personal information that some users claim to have found on the website.
Because of that, many people have asked to remove their info or opt-out from familytreenow; and Family Tree Now has included an opt-out feature to facilitate this request. You can also find various details that are helpful for discovering someone’s family records and details.
Some details you can find include the following:
- World War II Records
- Birth and death records
- Marriage and divorce records
- Census records
- Information about living people
Is Family Tree Now Free?
All of the information on familytreenow.com is completely free. You can search for someone and create your family tree without having to worry about any hidden costs or tricks.
Also, you will not ever be prompted to make any purchases while using familytreenow.com. While this is an unpaid platform, you can still opt-out or remove your info from familytreenow anytime you wish.
Is Familytreenow Legit?
We cannot exactly tell if Family Tree Now is legit. But similar to any site that harbors personal and sensitive information, it’s essential to review their terms of service and privacy policy.
This will help you understand how your information is being used and shared. Moreover, some familytreenow.com users have made several complaints about the site, which we’ll look at later in this article.
Is Family Tree Now Accurate?
Although this platform is 100% free, you might be concerned about its level of accuracy. Moreover, you’re not wrong to think this way.
Like we mentioned earlier, this site leverages data from public sources. In other words, it uses information that’s already available to the public.
That being said, Family Tree Now does not claim that details from public sources are accurate. So, ensure you fact-check any information you obtain from this website.
How To Find People With Familytreenow.com
Here’s a rundown of steps that’ll guide you to find people with Family Tree Now.
- Visit the Familytreenow’s website and click Search to access the familytreenow.com Search Records page.
- Type in the data you can supply and click Search.
Pro Tip: If you know the individual’s country of residence, birth country, death date, relative’s name, phone number, or home address, then include more specific details below the form.
- Beside the individual whose data you’re searching for, click the View Details button. Or, use the Filter Results at the left to display only specific data from public member trees, death records, or census records. If you want, you can still filter the results to display only living people.
- Now, the following page contains all the data that Family Tree Now has about this individual.
Pro Tip: Scroll down to their profile page to discover more information. Alternatively, tap the View Full Background Report button to search the name on PeopleFinders (note that this website is not free of charge).
How To Build a Family Tree
Building a family tree on familytreenow involves a straightforward process. If you want to create a personal family tree or inckude someone you discovered to your family tree, then create a familytreenow.com account.
One major benefit of doing this is that it helps you keep personal records and helps other distant relatives (who barely know you) to better understand how they’re related to you.
In addition, the owner of a particular family tree on familytreenow can decide on a particular privacy level they want. This includes:
Private: When it’s private, everything (profiles, all records, media, and others) is kept private. That way, it’s only visible to the creator of the tree and the individual’s it is shared with.
Public with hidden living people details: Here, any data about deceased people are will be made public; all data excluding the first initial and last name will be kept private for minors. But for adults that are alive, birth date, media (including photos, etc), and bio are made private. In this context, “Private” information can only be visible to the creator of the family tree alongside the individuals it’s shared with.
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Complaints From Users of Familytreenow.com
According to Better Business Bureau (BBB), some complaints made by users of familytreenow.com include the following:
Complaints From User 1
“FamilyTreeNow.com has published nearly all of my personal information. I work in mental health with unhealthy people. This is a danger to me and my family. *** never authorized this nor heard of this before. I am unable to remove my name in fear they will collect more data upon retrieving my email address. Please assist.”
Complaints From User 2
“This sight displays public information that has not been authorized by me.”
Complaints From User 3
“I just did a ****** search on my name and they have posted my full name, maiden name and phone number, my addresses, and many other details about me, without me ever having heard of them before. I want them to take down the content.”
Complaints From Familytreenow.com User 4
“Website has my personal information- Email, addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and ages, and information of family members they gathered and put public for anyone to search, this is a violation of basic decency and privacy rights and this information must be removed. If not removed I will be seeking a lawyer to go after FamilyTreeNow.com”
Complaints From Familytreenow.com User 5
“Family tree now is corrupt and they are illegally collecting my data information without my consent I have never been to their website I’ve contacted them multiple times requesting that they removed me from their data collection and they have flat out refused! this company has nothing to do with family or anything other than collecting personal data to be sold to Black market individuals.”
How To Opt-out/Remove Your Info From Family Tree Now
If you no longer want your info on familytreenow, you can request to remove it or opt-out. To do this, you’ll need to visit the Family Tree Now Opt-out Records page.
However, there has been mixed debates about how successful it is to opt-out or remove one’s info from familytreenow. Some users complain that their request was addressed within 48 hours or less. Whereas, others said they got error messages saying their requests could not be processed.
Note that when you opt-out or remove your info from familytreenow, it does not mean that your data will be deleted somewhere else on other people finder websites. Unfortunately, if your data (name, address, etc) changes any time, Family Tree Now will likely create another entry concerning you even though you opt-out now.
The reason being that it will be viewed as fresh public data.
Other Alternatives To Family Tree Now
Some alternatives to Family Tree Now are:
- Freepeoplesearchtool.com
- Truepeoplesearch.io
- Findmypast.com
- Optery.com
- Familytree.com
- MyHeritage
- Familysearch
- Genealogybank
Bottom Line
Family Tree Now is beyond a genealogy website; it’s a tool for discovery. With this platform, you can uncover information about your relatives (living and deceased) because it can access public records and databases.
However, familytreenow.com has several downsides including the complaints made by its users. It can collect and publish users’ data without their consent. Thus, entering your data on the website does not guarantee any form of privacy. But you can opt-out from familytreenow anytime you want.
Besides this, you can use this platform to build a family tree and choose a particular privacy level you want.