Re: Schema design: user account deletion vs. keeping family tree data

> On Nov 24, 2025, at 6:18 AM, Bernice Southey <bernice.southey@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Christoph Pieper <christoph@fecra.de> wrote:
>> Question:
>> From a PostgreSQL point of view (database best practices, data integrity, performance and long‑term maintainability at millions of rows), which approach would you prefer, or is there a better pattern for this kind of “account can be deleted, but genealogy should remain” use case?
> 
> I can tell you what I'm doing. It solved many design problems, but I
> don't claim it's "best practice". I split my table in two.
>    1 - columns that I can keep indefinitely
>    2 - personal data
> That way I just delete the personal data row when I want to remove it.
> 
> Thanks, Bernice
> 
> 

+1
Names are tricky, messy things.[1] Keep egoMaPa as leans as possible.

[1] https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/