Data protection is an important aspect of family history research, and use of documents and data. While genealogists like to explore as many records as possible of their deceased ancestors, records offices and websites need to balance this against legal requirements to protect the privacy of the living. In this post, I look at Deceased Online's approach to this subject and explain why some of the records in the database have been redacted. Where burial or cremation registers contain information about possibly living people, Deceased Online , like other data providers, is obliged to mask (or redact) the personal details in the register scans. The legal requirements are set forth in the UK's Data Protection Act . Further privacy measures are taken as a result of the individual preferences of the participating cemeteries and crematoria whose records have been published by Deceased Online . At first glance, it may appear that Deceased Online's database holds information on