Creating a Next of Kin Certificate

To help ensure that the family history you have compiled remains accessible to family members and becomes part of your legacy to be enjoyed and added to by generations to come, you can designate a successor to your TreeVault^® account with a Next of Kin^® certificate. This legally valid document can be passed on to a family member who can use it to take over ownership of your TreeVault account and Family Tree Maker^® license. The certificate will allow your designated successor to receive a copy of Family Tree Maker, a unique access key generated by TreeVault, and instructions on how to gain entry to the account in order to retrieve and preserve your family tree.

To create a Next of Kin certificate, follow these steps:

1. Make sure you are logged in to TreeVault.
    
2. Click the TreeVault icon on the main toolbar or in the TreeVault Cloud Services panel under the Current Tree tab of the Plan workspace, then choose Next of Kin.
    
3. On the Next of Kin tab of the TreeVault Account Manager, click Designate Successor.
    
4. In the Designated Successor fields, enter the full legal name and relationship to you of the person to whom you want to pass on ownership of your TreeVault account.
    
5. In the Alternate Successor fields, you can do the same for a second person to whom ownership of the account should pass if the first person you have named is unable to take charge of it for any reason.
   
6. Click Register Successors. The names of the person or people you have designated are registered in the secure TreeVault Next of Kin database and a PDF file of the Next of Kin certificate is created.
    
7. Do one of the following:
   • To create a printed copy of the certificate that you can include with a will or give to your designated successor immediately, click the Print Certificate button.
   • To save the file on your computer to print later or share electronically, click Save Certificate.

If at any point you decide to change either or both of the people whom you have designated, just go to the Next of Kin tab in the TreeVault Account Manager as described above, click Change Successors, then proceed from step 4.