Claims, Access Grants and Connections Explained
MyBloodlines has no owner and no administrator. Nobody sits at the centre deciding who sees what — each person’s reach follows from where they stand in the bloodline. So whenever something needs to cross from one person to another, it happens as a request that the other side deliberately accepts. The Access & Requests page is where all of those requests live, in three tabs: Claims, Access Grants, and Connections.
Claims
A claim is the link between your account and the one profile that represents you in the bloodline. Everything you can see and contribute to follows from where that profile sits, which is why claiming comes before anything else. The whole process is covered in how to claim your profile and start recording.
The Claims tab shows:
- Current Claim — the profile your account is linked to.
- Received Invitations — a relative has already recorded you and invited you to claim that profile. Accepting links it to your account; declining leaves it unclaimed.
- Sent Invitations — invitations you’ve sent using Invite User to Claim on the graph. Revoke one if it went to the wrong address.
- Claim removals — if a profile has been claimed by the wrong account, a contributor can start a claim removal. The current claimant has 14 days to cancel it before the claim is removed, and whoever started it can revoke it at any time. The profile itself always stays in the bloodline; only the account’s link to it is removed. More in how to remove a user’s access from your Bloodline graph.
Access Grants
By default you see your own permission boundary — everyone who shares a common ancestor with you, plus the other-side parents of those people. Your spouse’s side, for example, sits in your spouse’s boundary rather than yours. An access grant is how someone chooses to show you theirs.
- Sent Requests — requests you’ve made with Request Access Grant on someone’s profile. Withdraw one if you no longer need it.
- Received Requests — relatives asking to see your side. Approve to let them see it, or reject.
- Profiles Granting Access To Me — their sides of the bloodline are now open to you. Select them under Granting Profiles on the graph, stories, and photos pages. Give up access when you no longer need it.
- Profiles I Granted Access To — revoke any of them at any time.
A grant is read-only and one-directional. It lets someone look, never edit, and it doesn’t change how anyone is related. The full walkthrough is in how can I see my spouse’s bloodline history in MyBloodlines?.
Connections
Sometimes a new relationship has to join two bloodlines that can’t yet see each other — most often a child whose parents come from different sides. Whoever adds the relationship can’t reach the other person, so they send a connection request using that person’s profile ID instead.
- Outgoing Connections — requests you’ve sent with Connect to an External Person. Withdraw any you sent by mistake.
- Incoming Connections — requests that would attach someone to a person in your boundary. Approve to record the parent-child link, or reject it if it isn’t right.
Once a connection is approved, the two bloodlines are joined through that one link, and each side’s view widens by the same rules that already applied. Nothing is merged or copied. Profile IDs are shared personally — there is no public search — which is what keeps every connection a real one. See how to add a child when parents are from different bloodlines.
Why these are requests, not settings
Each of these actions changes what someone else can see or what is recorded about their relatives. Because MyBloodlines has no groups, only people, there is no administrator who could make those decisions on everyone’s behalf. Instead, the person each change affects makes the call — and the Access & Requests page is where they make it.
Start recording your bloodline Claim your profile and begin at MyBloodlines →