Ethical Standards, Documentation, and Professional Conduct
Ethics and professional conduct
Ethical genealogists protect living people, obtain informed consent before sharing or publishing private information, and respect confidentiality in client work. They document sources honestly, distinguish their own conclusions from others' work, and credit collaborators. They avoid plagiarism, observe copyright and archive rules, and do not alter or conceal evidence. Professional conduct includes stating qualifications accurately, declining work beyond competence, disclosing conflicts of interest, and treating repositories and informants with courtesy. Documentation is an ethical duty because unsupported claims mislead future researchers.
Traps
Questions often test privacy: details of living individuals should not be published without consent, even if found in public records. Another trap is using another researcher's manuscript without attribution, or assuming that a public archive permits unrestricted publication. Client confidentiality survives the end of a project. Do not present a hypothesis as fact or omit evidence that weakens your conclusion.
Worked example
A client asks you to post a family tree including grandchildren born after 2000. You can publish deceased ancestors and the client's own immediate family with consent, but you withhold or anonymize living minors and unrelated living people unless consent is documented. Rule of thumb: if you would not want the detail published about yourself, require consent before publishing it about someone else.