Terms of use

This document regulates the use of this website

Membership at our website

The membership at this web site is free of charge. We have introduced advertising and will later possibly additional fee based services in order to finance the use of this website. We would also gladly accept donations.

Protection of privacy

To protect the privacy of our users is very important for us. Personal data will not be generally visible. Each member can decide what to share with other members. The settings are divided in three categories:

• Other members: Members who are actively using our website may leave trails behind, for others to see, but only if the member choses to allow that.
• Friends: Invited friends
• Relatives: Related persons, as derived from family structures.

The following sharing levels are available:

• User name: The member is only visible to other members by the user name that can be freely selected (as long as the user name is not already in use).
• Real name: The real name as entered by the member will be displayed in all available language version.
• Name and photo: The real name and a profile photo.
• Complete profile: Name, photo and any further added data, including birth date.

The minimum sharing levels are:

• Other members: "User name"
• Friends: "Name and photo"
• Relatives: "User name"

The sharing levels between two users will always be matched, the lowest level will be used for both. To enable communication between members without E-Mail addresses, a simple internal mail function is used. Please read our privacy policy for more detail on how you can use our service and remain anonymous.

Upload of family tree data

Upload of family tree data is supported in GEDCOM format (version 5.5). The file will be used to assist you in entering data to the website by matching data from the uploaded file with all data already entered into the database. The file will only be used as input, will never be made visible to anybody. No data will be published automatically, each user decides which parts of the family tree to publish. Published data from uploaded data will always follow same rules for privacy protection as if the data was entered manually. For best results, check all person and place names while adding and adapt them to formats used by the website.

Definition of relatives

We define the term relative in the following way:

• All children and descendants of the children (and their partners)
• All own ancestors and their descendants and partners
• All ancestors and descendandts (including partners) of all partners

All types of children, even for example stepchildrean are considerd. Only for the case of family trees, only the biological relationships are displayed. To make it more easily to view relationships, all own ancestors are displayed in a box with a red frame.

Protection of privacy for other members and for persons who are not members with us

This website allows our members to build family structures and to also invite friends. These links are used to connect people together across the world. For now living persons, any entered data will remain private and will only be possible to view for the person entering the data. We offer the possibility through entered data, to invite further members through friendhip requests. Invitations will be sent by e-mail, the own e-mail address will not be sent. It is also possible to provide a personal message with the invitation. The invited person can either start by confirming or modifying the data from the existing record or enter all data from scratch. If the person is already a member, the member who sent the invitation will be linked to the invited persons record. After confirmation of the friendship, the two members can communicate with each other based on the sharing level settings for the category friends.
If a member has living ancestor who are not members here, these persons will not be displayed. If you receive a friendship invitation from a relative, you can see that you are related, but in that case not how. In order to link the data together, it ins necessary to add the ancestors at least until you reach the persons who are not alive and then when informed about a match, confirm to link the records together.

Entering already deceased persons

Relatives can find each other over many generation linked together through common ancestors. In order for this to work, we need to compile and combine data of already deceased persons. All data for persons who were born at least 125 years ago will be visible to all members. We make an exceptions for cases where members confirm the death of their own ancestors by entering either a death or burial event. These records will be possible for other members to see, so it is important for descendants to carefully consider which ancestors will be displayed. Please read our privacy policy for more details.

Protection of minors (less than 18 years old)

This website has been built so that also children can use it to view their family structures. We allow children to access our website, will not impose an age limit. In order to protect minors, children will only be visible by others with the minimum sharing levels.

Basic rules for the users of this website

Our most important rules for keeping our website members happy:

• This website may not be used to spread spam messages, either through the internal mail system, through entered comments or through web links to external sites.
• It is not allowed to upload content protected by copyright to our website. The members are responsible for their own uploaded material. Members who repeatedly uploads improper contents may be barred from further access to this website.
• Uploaded profile photos must contain faces, not some nice holiday photo. Only one profile photo per person is allowed. If you detect photos not complying with this rule, please inform us and we will remove any unsuitable photos.
• Members must treat each other with respect, good manners, negative remarks and harassments will not be tolerated. Persons breaking these rules may get barred from accessing the website. Members can themselves block further contact with any other member at any time if they wish to do so.
• Any content which is unsuitable for children (for example pornography), is not accepted at our web site. If you report any violation of this rule to us, we will immediately remove the unwanted content. Violations may result in the member becoming barred from our website.

One account for each member

Members of our website are only allowed to use one account. All data entered must match the real person behind the account. To make it possible to monitor for who is a minor and who isn't, we need to collect the exact birth date from all our members. Whoever breaks this rule may get the membership barred.
If your account is barred, don't create a new one.
It is not allowed to pass one account with us on to someone else. Each new member must create their own account.
Please ensure to keep your internal website account secure. We will never ask for any password in case you have access problems, we instead offer a password reset mechanism, sending you an e-mail with a link to click with which you can set up a new password. In order for this to work, it is absolutely necessary for each member to provide a valid e-mail address for the user profile. Because of this, we require all members to enter an e-mail address.

Notifications

The member can decide how to be notified by us. We either will only send an e-mail in case of a password reset, or we will send a new e-mail for every time another user sends a message through our website. To change the settings just go to the user profile and select your preferences.

The use of place information

We use Google Maps to find and dsplay places. The granularity reaches to the level of cities or villages (in some cases parts). We don't wish to go deeper to keep up the privacy protection. If someone wants to add more detailed information for historical persons, hints can be added with event information. Please when doing that, respect the privacy of other persons.
If you find any problem with a map, please report this to us instead of Google directly. We will then clarify if the problem is actually caused by our website or whether there is a problem with material provided by Google. In case of a Google problem, we will contact them directly. Please note, that it may in some cases be necessary to add more information than just the name of the place itself for the search, especially if the place name is very common.
Each member can optionally enter the following place information:

• Birthplace
• Home place
• Current place

The purpose is to link persons to places to make it possible to list for example all living friends at a certain place. Which data can be seen depends on setting as described under "Protection of privacy". For safety reasons "Current place" information will never be displayed to other users. It is a help for the member to get quick access to information about other members or persons linked to the particular place. Our members have also the possibility to maintain a list of favourite places. This list is not visible for other members. It is only helpful for a person to quickly find certain places.

Ranking

For cities, areas (such as states and counties) and countries we have introduced rankings. The ranking of a place is based on the number of persons in the database linked to the place, regardless of whether the persons are dead or alive. This feature is introduced to give our users the possibility to monitor the activity at the website.