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Your privacy is important to you.
That’s why it’s so important to us.
Your privacy is important to you.
That’s why it’s so important to us.
Your privacy is important to you.
That’s why it’s so important to us.
When you make new discoveries with us, we want you to be confident that we are good stewards of your personal information. Our customers have trusted us with personal information for over 20 years―and we’re committed to helping ensure you feel just as secure today.
Your trust is our top priority.
Your trust is our top priority.
Whether it’s your family history or your DNA data, we always strive to manage your personal information with integrity and respect. Earning your trust as we protect your privacy is at the core of what we do every day.
We will continue to earn your trust by:
Being transparent to avoid confusion and surprise.
Being transparent to avoid confusion and surprise.
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Simplifying our policies and making your choices clear.
Simplifying our policies and making your choices clear.
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Making sure you have control of your own data.
Making sure you have control of your own data.
You're at the center of the AncestryDNA story.
You're at the center of the AncestryDNA story.
See how we put you and your privacy first all along the way of your DNA experience.
See how we put you and your privacy first all along the way of your DNA experience.
You’re in control of your DNA and data.
You’re in control of your
DNA and data.
You’re in control of your
DNA and data.
From activation to results,
your privacy is protected.
From activation to results,
your privacy is protected.
Our safeguards for law
enforcement requests.
Our safeguards for law
enforcement requests.
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Learn how our policies put transparency, simplicity, and control into action for you.
Your Data
Your Data
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Ancestry collects basic information to create your account: name, email address or username, and password, as well as payment and billing information when you sign up for a free trial or make a purchase. We collect other data (e.g. family trees, photos, and historical details) that you voluntarily contribute or which can be found in public and historical records, and Genetic Information if you choose to take an AncestryDNA test. We also collect some information about users who visit our websites using cookies and similar technologies. See our Privacy Statement for more details on the specific types of information we may collect and your choices and rights related to that data. For an explanation of how Ancestry processes non-user data, click here.
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We use your data to provide and personalize your experience, such as providing your DNA results, identifying potential DNA matches, and suggesting “hints” for your family tree. We also use data for internal business purposes, including fraud prevention, information security, and improving our services.
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Ancestry does not share your Genetic Information with third-party marketers, insurance companies, or employers, and we will not use your Genetic Information for marketing or personalized advertising without your separate, explicit consent. We also do not provide customer data to law enforcement or government agencies unless we receive a valid, legally binding court order or search warrant.
If you have agreed to our Informed Consent to Research, we share de-identified Genetic Information with our research partners. For more details on the limited scenarios in which we use service providers (such as laboratory partners or shipping vendors), please see our Privacy Statement.
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Ancestry uses AI to help you make discoveries, from transcribing millions of handwritten records to providing the complex calculations behind your DNA results. Our use of AI is governed by our AI Principles, which prioritize privacy and security, transparency, fairness, reliability and safety, and accountability. For information on how Ancestry uses Generative AI for Member Services, click here.
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Ancestry uses facial scanning technology to help you compare the faces of deceased people in photographs. With your consent, we may also use this technology to help you organize your gallery photos. This process converts facial features into a mathematical representation so the system can identify similar faces. In some states, this type of data may be considered biometric information. Ancestry does not retain or store these representations after they are used to provide the feature. This feature may not be used with images of living residents of Illinois or Texas.
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You can download your account data, family trees (as a GEDCOM file), or raw DNA data through your Account Settings. For step-by-step guidance, click here.
You may also delete specific trees, DNA results, or your entire account at any time. For instructions on permanently removing your information, click here. Note: Account deletion is irreversible and removes all associated trees, records, and DNA data. If the account you delete has AncestryDNA results, then the saliva sample(s) associated with that account will also be destroyed.
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You can withdraw your consent to participate in research by visiting your Account Settings at any time. If you withdraw consent, we will stop using information about you for future research. However, your information cannot be withdrawn from studies in progress, completed studies, or published results.
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Yes. To request the destruction of your biological sample(s), please contact Member Services.
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If Ancestry is involved in a merger, acquisition (including in connection with bankruptcy or similar proceedings), or sale of assets, your Personal Information may be transferred to the acquiring or receiving entity and the commitments in our Privacy Statement will continue to apply to your Personal Information transferred to the new entity.
Your Privacy
Your Privacy
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For information about how to request deletion of information you find on our site about you or people in your household, click here.
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DNA matching is an opt-in feature. If you choose to participate, you can see biological relatives who have also tested with Ancestry, and they can see you. You control your visibility; you can choose to show matches your full ethnicity estimate or only shared regions, and you can opt out of participating in matches at any time in your DNA Settings.
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No. In order to see people who match with you, others will need to be able to see you, too. If you turn matches off after receiving your results, your list of DNA matches will disappear until you choose to participate in matches again. If you choose not to participate in matches before receiving your DNA results, you won’t receive your list of matches until you turn matches on. You won’t have access to ThruLines or to Common Ancestor Hints while you have matches turned off.
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No. We don’t allow our site to be used for law enforcement investigations. Law enforcement—or anyone working on their behalf—cannot use Ancestry’s DNA tools, family trees, record collections, or any part of our platform to investigate crimes or identify human remains. For more information, visit our blog post.
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No. The restriction applies to all Ancestry services. While many of the records on our site are public documents, the digital images, search algorithms, and family tree tools we provide are part of a private service governed by our Terms and Conditions. Law enforcement agencies (or those working on their behalf) are prohibited from using the Ancestry platform to investigate crimes. However, this does not prevent them from obtaining the necessary documents from the original government custodians or other non-Ancestry sources.
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Yes. This includes research for probate, heir searching, citizenship, military repatriation, and adoption cases. These activities are distinct from law enforcement investigations and are permitted under our Terms and Conditions, provided they are not being conducted on behalf of law enforcement or for the purpose of a criminal investigation.
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In our Terms and Conditions, "judicial proceedings" refers to the use of our services for any law enforcement investigation or criminal legal process. This includes cold cases, the identification of human remains by law enforcement, or gathering evidence for criminal court. This policy ensures that our platform remains dedicated to personal family discovery while strictly limiting its use in contexts that our customers have not consented to.
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No. If the ultimate goal of the research is to assist in a law enforcement investigation, such as a cold case or identifying a suspect, you may not use any part of the Ancestry platform for that purpose. This includes building trees, searching public records and archives, viewing community trees, or messaging other Ancestry users, even if you are not using the DNA services.
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No. Ancestry does not own the underlying public facts or government documents. We are a private service that creates convenient, searchable indexes and digital copies of records that exist in the public domain. Our Terms and Conditions govern the use of our specific platform and tools, not the records themselves. Law enforcement agencies remain free to access these records directly through the original government custodians or other sources, just as they always have. We are simply stating that our commercial platform, which was designed and optimized for personal family history discovery, may not be used for that purpose.
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Our customers share sensitive data, including DNA and personal family trees, with the expectation that it will be used for personal discovery, not law enforcement investigations.
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Our platform was built for one purpose: to help people discover, preserve, and share their family history. We believe that earning and keeping our customers’ trust is paramount, and that means ensuring their data is used only for the purposes they intended and not for activities they did not consent to, such as law enforcement investigations.
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Our services are designed for personal discovery and family history research, not for official legal use. Our DNA tests are taken at home, and not under supervised conditions, and our historical records are for informational and genealogical purposes. Because of this, they do not meet the strict standards courts typically require for legal evidence. For these reasons, Ancestry cannot provide certified records, sign legal affidavits, or offer expert testimony for legal disputes.
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As explained in our Ancestry Guide for Law Enforcement and our Privacy Statement, we do not provide customer data to law enforcement or government agencies unless we receive a valid, legally binding court order or search warrant. We scrutinize every request for legal validity and seek to narrow or challenge any that we believe are overly broad.
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We publish a regular Transparency Report that summarizes all government and law enforcement requests for customer data.
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If you have questions or concerns regarding Ancestry’s privacy practices, we encourage you to contact us first at [email protected]. We are committed to working with you to resolve any issues directly. If we’re unable to resolve your inquiry to your satisfaction, depending on your location, you may contact the following regulatory bodies:
- EU/EEA: the Irish Data Protection Commission or your local data protection supervisory authority
- UK: the Information Commissioner’s Office
- Other international users: your local data protection authority
Your Security
Your Security
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Ancestry maintains a comprehensive information security program designed to protect our customers’ Personal Information using administrative, physical, and technical safeguards based on the sensitivity of the Personal Information collected. We use industry-standard security practices to store your DNA sample, DNA test results, and other information you provide, and we limit access to authorized individuals who have completed privacy training. We store your DNA test results and DNA sample without your name or other common identifying information, such as your address. We do not share common identifying information linked to your genetic data with third parties except as legally required or with your explicit consent.
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We recommend enabling two-step verification via email, phone, or an authenticator app, which you can manage in your Account Settings. Using a strong, unique password and being cautious about downloading and sharing your raw DNA data are also critical steps in maintaining your privacy.
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While we provide the ability to download your raw DNA data, doing so creates a copy outside of Ancestry’s secure environment. Once downloaded, this file is no longer protected by Ancestry’s security measures. We recommend being extremely cautious about uploading this data to third-party sites, as their privacy and security standards may differ from ours.
Sharing with Others
Sharing with Others
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You control the visibility of information in your family tree.
Public trees allow other users to view all content except for information about living individuals and private notes. A public tree is visible to anyone with an Ancestry membership. It shows up in search results and hints, allowing others to find and view your tree.
Private trees are only visible to you and those you invite. You can choose whether it’s searchable or unsearchable. A searchable private tree shows basic details about deceased people, like names, birth years, and birthplaces, in search results and hints. Others can see this information and message you to ask for access, but you decide whether to share your tree with them. An unsearchable private tree is completely hidden from search results and hints; others won't see it unless you share it with them.
Information about living people in your tree is protected by default and is not viewable by the public or searchable by other users. Only the tree owner and those specifically granted “view living people” permission can see this data.
Your public profile only shows your name or username, date joined, and last active status by default. You can add information such as a profile photo, location, and research interests to your profile.
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Only you (the tree owner) can edit your tree unless you invite others as editors or contributors. While your tree is public, others can view and save information from it, but they can't change it without your invitation.
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Changes to your tree's privacy settings take effect immediately, but the change may take about a month to be reflected in the search index.
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Yes. You can invite others to collaborate by assigning them a specific role.
For Family Trees: Invite others via Tree Settings as a Guest (view only), Contributor (view and add photos/stories), or Editor (view, add, and edit content).
For DNA Results: Invite others via DNA Settings as a Viewer (view results only), Collaborator (view results and add notes/edit match info), or Manager (full access to settings and sharing).
You can revoke these permissions or change a person’s role at any time.
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With our tree collaboration tools, you can see who’s viewed your tree in the past 7 days.
If you'd like to connect with someone who’s viewed your tree:
Send them a message to introduce yourself.
Tell them why you’re reaching out—you noticed they recently viewed your tree, and you might be researching the same people.
Offer to help with their research and ask if they can help with yours.
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Yes, via our secure messaging system. This allows for collaboration while keeping your personal email address private. You can manage your messaging preferences or block specific users in your Account Settings.
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You can designate a Legacy Contact in your Account Settings. This person will be entitled to receive access to your account and manage your trees and DNA results if you are no longer able to use the service. If no Legacy Contact is named, your account remains subject to our standard privacy protections, and family members would need to provide specific legal documentation (such as a court order or proof of executorship) to request access. For more information, see this Support Center article.
Advertising and Cookies
Advertising and Cookies
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We use cookies (including pixels and local storage) to understand how you interact with our Services, remember your preferences, and detect fraud. Please see our Cookie Policy for more details.
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No. Ancestry does not sell your personal information to third parties for money. We share some limited data for targeted advertising—which certain laws define as a "sale" or “share” of personal information. You can learn more about our practices and the controls we provide you or opt out of certain types of such sharing by visiting our Cookie Policy.
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You can manage your preferences through the “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” page, which is linked in the footer of some of our sites. We also honor the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal from your browser; if detected, we automatically treat it as an opt-out request for targeted advertising. For users in certain regions, such as the EU and UK, we provide an explicit opt-in consent flow before firing non-essential cookies.
Manage your information and privacy on Ancestry
Your Profile
Your Account Options
Your Site Preferences
Your Email Preferences
Your Test Preferences
Your Alerts
Your Family Trees Settings
Nevada Residents Opt-Out
CCPA Authorized Agent Request