Privacy policy

This policy describes what Family Tree Studio actually stores, where, and for how long. Family trees contain information about other people, including living relatives, so the website is designed to keep as little as possible on its server.

Who is responsible

This website is operated by Family Tree Studio. Privacy questions and requests: contact@familytreemakerstudio.com.

Using the editor without an account

• Your trees, photos and recent undo snapshots are saved in your browser’s storage (IndexedDB) on your device. They are not sent to this website’s server.
• The optional name typed on the homepage is held in your browser for at most 30 minutes, read once by the editor, and then deleted. It is never put in a web address or sent to the server.
• The browser also remembers small preferences: whether you dismissed the first-use tip, your last export settings (without the tree title), light or dark appearance, and whether a side panel is open.
• Files you open (backups, GEDCOM files, photos) are read in your browser. The GEDCOM viewer does not upload the file.
• Clearing your browser’s site data deletes all of this. Nobody else, including the operator, can recover it.

Requests to the server

Like any website, the server receives requests for pages and files. The hosting provider’s web server may log the time, address (IP), browser type and page requested. This website does not use advertising, tracking pixels or session-replay tools, and loads its fonts from its own server.

Website statistics (Google Analytics)

To understand which pages are useful, the public pages of this website (the homepage, templates, tools, guides and famous family trees) use Google Analytics through Google Tag Manager. It records things like the pages viewed, how you arrived (for example from a search), your approximate country, device and browser type. It is not loaded in the family tree editor, your dashboard, account pages or shared tree links, so the names, dates and photos in your family trees are never sent to Google.

• Advertising features and personalised ads are switched off.
• For visitors in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, analytics cookies are off by default; Google only receives anonymous, cookieless measurements.
• Elsewhere, Google Analytics sets the _ga cookies to tell visits apart. You can block them in your browser settings or with Google’s opt-out add-on, and the site works the same.
• Google processes this data under its own privacy policy.

Cookies

• Session cookie and XSRF-TOKEN: set by the server so that signing in and forms work securely. They expire after 120 minutes of inactivity, or when you sign out.
• Remember me (only if you tick it when signing in): keeps you signed in on that browser.
• sidebar_state: remembers whether the account sidebar is open.
• _ga, _ga_* (public pages only, not in the EEA, UK or Switzerland by default): Google Analytics statistics, kept for up to two years.

No cookies are used for advertising.

If you create an account

The server stores:

• Your name, email address, a one-way hash of your password, and whether your email address is verified.
• Only the trees you choose to copy or create in your account, their photos, and a history of saved versions (the newest 100 per tree). Photos are kept in private storage and are only served to signed-in people with access to that tree.
• Who has access to each tree (owner, editor, viewer), invitations you send (the recipient’s email, the role, and expiry; the invitation link itself is stored only as a hash), and read-only links you create.
• For each read-only link: the reduced copy of the tree it shows, when it expires, how many times it was opened and when it was last opened. The address of the visitor is not recorded by the website.

Email

Email is used only for account verification, password reset and the invitations you choose to send. When you invite someone, their email address, your name, the tree title and the invitation link are sent to them through the website’s email provider. The website shows honestly whether an email was handed to the provider; if email is not configured, nothing is sent and you are given the link to pass on yourself.

Read-only links

A link shows a separately stored, reduced copy of the tree. People marked living, and people whose status is unknown, appear as “Living” with no details unless you choose to show names; notes, sources, life events, photo captions, the tree description and imported GEDCOM data are never included. Anyone who has the link can open it until it expires or you turn it off. Shared pages ask search engines not to index them, but that is a request, not a lock: treat the link like a key.

How long data is kept

• Account trees: until you delete them. A deleted tree can be restored for 30 days, then it and its photos are permanently deleted.
• Version history: the newest 100 versions of each tree; photos are kept while a kept version uses them.
• Unfinished photo uploads: removed after 24 hours.
• Invitations expire after 7 days. Read-only links expire on the date you choose (at most 365 days).
• Deleting your account permanently deletes your account details and the trees you own, with their photos. Trees owned by others that you were invited to remain with their owners.

Your choices

• Download a complete backup of any tree, with photos, from the editor or the dashboard.
• Correct anything in a tree yourself; change your name and email in account settings.
• Delete individual trees, or your whole account, from the dashboard and account settings.
• Remove a family member’s access, cancel an invitation, or turn off a read-only link at any time.

Information about relatives

If you record living relatives, please consider whether they would be comfortable with what you record and share. Shared links and exports hide living people by default for this reason.

Security

Pages are protected against cross-site request forgery, account data is checked on the server for every request, and photos are not stored in a public folder. No system is perfectly secure; keep your own backups.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top will change. Significant changes affecting account data will be shown in the dashboard.