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The Storied Family CompanyFamily history, researched and told

Privacy notice

Last updated 31 October 2026. Pilot version, for our free trial with friends and family.

Who we are

John Haywood, a sole trader trading as The Storied Family Company is the controller of the personal data you give us, registered with the Information Commission (formerly the Information Commissioner's Office), registration number ZB553125. Contact: john.haywood@storiedfamily.co.uk.

What we collect, and why

  • Your details (name, email, phone if you give it): to do the research you ask for and to deliver your family tree. Lawful basis: the agreement between us (our trial terms; UK GDPR Article 6(1)(b)).
  • What you tell us about your family. People who have died are not covered by data protection law, and researching them is the service. For living relatives we ask only for their names and, at most, a birth year; we use these only to place them on your tree. Lawful basis: our legitimate interest, and yours, in producing the tree you asked for (Article 6(1)(f)). We do not research a living person in any records unless you confirm they agreed. If you are not sure whether someone has died, we treat them as living.
  • Surprise gifts. If the tree is a surprise gift, the people named on it (the person it is for, and any other living relatives) have not been told yet. We hold only their names and years of birth, never research them, and show them only on the finished tree. Lawful basis: the legitimate interest in giving a family a gift (Article 6(1)(f)). We do not tell them before the gift is delivered, because telling them would spoil the surprise: UK GDPR Article 14(5)(f) allows this where telling someone would seriously impair the purpose of the processing. This notice is our public statement of that. When the gift is delivered, it comes with a short note telling them what we hold, how to see it, and how to have it deleted. We delete the names of living people from our research files once the gift is delivered, keeping only the finished tree.
  • Marketing: only if you tick the box, and you can stop at any time (Article 6(1)(a), consent).

Please do not tell us anyone's health, religion, ethnicity or similar details about living people. For people who have died, anything that helps the research is welcome.

Who sees it

  • John Haywood, and the researcher who works on your tree.
  • Our hosting and storage: our server in the UK, and our encrypted storage with IONOS in Germany (EU, covered by the UK's adequacy regulations).
  • To read records and draft the stories we use AI services (Anthropic, through OpenRouter, in the United States, under the UK International Data Transfer arrangements). We send them only the genealogical facts about your ancestors, never your contact details and never details of living people.
  • We never sell your data, and we do not put your family on any family-tree website.

How long we keep it

your research file is kept until we deliver your tree and for two years after, so that we can answer questions and make reprints, then deleted; you can ask us to delete it sooner. Invoices are kept for six years, as HMRC requires. Our web server's own logs (the address of each visit and the page asked for) are kept for 14 days.

Your rights

You can ask to see the data we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, to restrict or object to our use of it, and to have a copy to take elsewhere. Write to john.haywood@storiedfamily.co.uk; we reply within a month. If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, please complain to us first at the same address: we will reply within a month. You can also complain to the Information Commission (formerly the Information Commissioner's Office): ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, 0303 123 1113.

Security

The form is sent over an encrypted connection. Your file is stored where only our research account can read it, and backed up encrypted. It is not shared with anyone else.