How can I keep a facebook profile as private as possible?

[Dance The Night Away]

The reason I want it as low profile as possible is there are a lot of family members (in fact most of them) I don't get on with so don't want them discovering it. I know you can set privacy settings to make your profile only visible to contacts. But someone also warned me I could end up appearing in a "people you may know" area as obviously I have the same last name as most family members. Is there a privacy setting that stops your profile appearing on that and do you have any other good privacy tips?

I know no option can guarantee full privacy and you should not put things on the Internet you don't want people to read (including judgemental family members)

P.S Is there any more appropriate alternatives to facebook?

[Verena]

This is very good. walks you through all the different steps you can take.
http://lifehacker.com/5813990/the-always...ok-privacy

[Ahmed Mohammed]

Don't watse your time .. There's no privacy in Facebook