Thursday, April 26, 2012

Terms of Service: Official Response from Ancestry.com

In response to my previous blog post questioning the change in Ancestry.com's Terms of Service I have received this official communication:


In a recent update, the Ancestry.com Terms and Conditions excluded “or professional” as part of the terms of service. This change was in no way intended to exclude professional genealogists from using Ancestry.com in a business or professional setting. Our legal team has reviewed the statement and has reinstated the original text to include “or professional” into Ancestry.com’s Terms and Conditions. We apologize for any misunderstanding. The statement is now updated and reads as follows:

“You may access the Website, use the graphics, information, data, editorial and other Content only for personal or professional family history research, and download Content only as search results relevant to that research.”     

This was received from Mathew Deighton, Public Relations Specialist, Ancestry.com. A big thank you to Ancestry.com for clarifying this issue quickly and restoring the language to include professionals.

4 comments:

  1. Don't thank me. Thank Judy Russell for bringing it to our attention and to Thomas MacEntee for contacting Ancestry.com and eliciting a response.

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  2. It's good to know this was addressed quickly!

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  3. Thank you to all at Ancestry.com and throughout the genealogy community who were involved in getting this clarification. While I am a hobbyist (as opposed to a professional genealogist) I still feel its crucial for the professional genealogist to be able to have full use of Ancestry.com material--in the end it benefits everyone.

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