Effective Date: October 29, 2026
Welcome to Generation Archives ("we," "our," or "us"). This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, and share information when you use our website and related services (the "Service") at generationarchives.com.
When you create an account, we collect your email address and password. You may also set a username. We do not require your legal name at signup.
You and people you invite may enter content such as family member names, dates and places of birth or death, biographies, memories, links, relationships, layout preferences, photo person tags (including optional face-box coordinates on images), and GEDCOM import data. This content may describe you or other people, including children and deceased relatives.
Photos, videos, and other files you upload, plus related metadata (file name, size, events, descriptions, and linked family members).
If you purchase storage credit, payment is processed by Stripe. We receive confirmation of the payment (such as amount and Stripe session or payment identifiers) and may receive billing details Stripe collects for the transaction. We do not store your full card number on our servers.
We send transactional email (for example account verification, password reset, and tree invitations). Those messages are delivered through our email provider.
The Service stores certain data in your browser, including a session token, the currently selected tree id, theme preference, cookie-consent acknowledgment, and a local media cache to speed up loading. These are primarily localStorage and Cache API entries. Advertising or analytics partners (when enabled) may also set their own cookies or similar technologies, as described below.
Like most websites, our hosting and infrastructure providers may automatically process technical information such as IP address, browser type, device information, and request logs. We also keep limited first-party counters (for example tree or demo visit counts). We record the referring site and landing page at signup to understand how people find us.
We use PostHog for product analytics: which public pages are opened, and whether someone signs up, logs in, verifies an email, or completes a purchase. We do not send family tree contents to PostHog. That includes names, dates, places, stories, photos, and tree or person identifiers. A page that shows a tree is recorded only as a generic tree view. We use Google AdSense to show ads and help support the Service. Google and other advertising partners may collect device and usage information, including through cookies or similar technologies, and may use it subject to their own privacy policies. We do not send your family tree, stories, or uploaded photos and files to Google to choose those ads.
We do not sell your personal information in the traditional sense of selling a list of users. Advertising and analytics partners may receive information as described in this policy in order to provide their services.
Family trees default to private access for you and people you invite as collaborators. If you mark a tree as public, or invite collaborators, those viewers may see the member profiles, relationships, memories, links, tags, and media associated with that tree. Collaborator invitations are sent to the email addresses you provide.
You are responsible for the information you enter about other people and for choosing who can view or edit your trees. Only share or publish content you have the right to share.
We use trusted providers to run the Service. They process data only as needed to provide their services to us, for example:
We may also disclose information if required by law, legal process, or to protect rights, safety, or security. Our pages may link to third-party sites. Their privacy practices are governed by their own policies.
We use browser storage as described above to keep you signed in, remember preferences, and improve performance. PostHog stores an anonymous identifier in local storage and does not set its own cookie. Cloudflare Turnstile on the Contact page may also set cookies as part of verifying that a request comes from a person. Advertising partners may also use cookies, pixels, or similar technologies. You can manage or clear cookies and site data in your browser settings; doing so may sign you out, reset preferences, or limit some features. In the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, Google's certified consent message asks you to accept or reject advertising cookies before personalized ads load.
Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to this website or other websites. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to this site and other sites on the Internet. You can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google Ads Settings. You can also opt out of a third-party vendor's use of cookies for personalized advertising by visiting www.aboutads.info. Google may use its DoubleClick cookie (IDE) to measure and personalize ads. How Google uses information from sites that use its services is described at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
A banner ad can appear on pages of the Service. It does not appear for a signed-in account that has more than 100 MB-years of storage remaining. It also does not appear, for anyone, while they are viewing a tree that has a custom URL, a tree with fewer than two people, or a tree we have flagged. Family names, stories, and uploaded media are not sent to Google to build the ad.
We use reasonable administrative and technical measures to protect information (including password hashing and authenticated access to media). No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
We retain account and tree data while your account remains open and as needed to provide the Service. You can delete individual media, tree content, or trees you own (subject to Service rules, such as keeping at least one tree). Uploaded media is stored at the account level and is not automatically deleted solely because a tree is removed.
Storage credit and media: Hosted media depends on prepaid storage credit. If your credit runs out or expires, we may keep your uploaded files for a grace period (on the order of several months) and then permanently delete that media to free storage. We may notify you before deletion when we have a working email on file. Genealogy records in your trees (names, dates, relationships, and similar text content) are not deleted solely because storage credit expired, unless we separately close or delete the account as described below.
Accounts: We do not currently offer a self-serve account deletion button. We generally keep accounts open so you can return and continue your trees. We may delete or deactivate an account if you ask us to, if required by law, or if we decide it is necessary for abuse, inactivity, or operational reasons. If you want your account closed and remaining data deleted, contact us through the Contact page.
Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under applicable privacy laws (including Canadian federal and provincial privacy law). Contact us to make a request. We may need to verify your identity before fulfilling it.
The Service is intended for adults creating and managing family history. We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13 for their own accounts. Family trees often include information about minors entered by adult users. If you believe we have information that should be removed, contact us and we will review the request.
The Service is operated from Canada. If you use the Service from another country, Canadian privacy law may still apply to how we handle your information. We also use service providers that may process data in other countries (including the United States)—for example hosting, payments, email, media storage, analytics, or advertising. By using the Service, you understand that your information may be transferred to and stored in those locations, which may have different privacy protections than your home country.
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The Effective Date at the top will change when we do. Continued use of the Service after an update means you accept the revised policy. For significant changes, we may also provide additional notice (for example by email or an in-app message).
Questions about privacy or data requests: use our Contact page.