Privacy policy

 

MY BRITISH ROOTS

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026

At My British Roots, family history is personal. We understand that customers entrust us with information about themselves, their relatives and their family's past.

This Privacy Policy explains how My British Roots collects, uses, stores and protects personal information when you visit our website, purchase our services, complete a research questionnaire, communicate with us or commission genealogical research.

We aim to handle personal information responsibly, transparently and in accordance with applicable UK data-protection law, including the UK General Data Protection Regulation (“UK GDPR”) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

1. Who We Are

For the purposes of applicable data-protection law, the data controller is:

Trading name: My British Roots
Legal name: My British Roots
Business address: 10 Furnival Drive, Stoke Prior, Bromsgrove, B604FX
Email: support@mybritishroots.com
Website: mybritishroots.com

If My British Roots later operates through a limited company, the company name, registration number and registered office should be added here.

2. Information We May Collect

The information we collect depends upon how you interact with My British Roots.

Customer and Contact Information

When you purchase a service, contact us or complete a form, we may collect information including:

  • your name;

  • email address;

  • billing information;

  • country or location;

  • order number;

  • services purchased;

  • communications with us; and

  • information required to administer your order.

Genealogical Information

When you commission research, you may provide information concerning yourself, your ancestors and other relatives.

This may include:

  • names;

  • maiden or previous names;

  • dates and places of birth;

  • marriage information;

  • dates and places of death;

  • family relationships;

  • occupations;

  • addresses and places of residence;

  • migration and immigration information;

  • military history;

  • information about family events;

  • family stories and traditions;

  • existing genealogical research; and

  • other information relevant to your family history.

Some of this information may relate to living people.

Documents and Photographs

You may choose to provide or upload materials including:

  • birth, marriage and death certificates;

  • family photographs;

  • census records;

  • letters;

  • military documents;

  • immigration or passenger records;

  • newspaper clippings;

  • family trees;

  • funeral cards;

  • diaries; and

  • other family documents.

These materials may contain personal information about you or other individuals.

Research Information

During genealogical research, we may obtain information from historical and genealogical sources including:

  • civil registration records;

  • census records;

  • parish registers;

  • probate records and wills;

  • military records;

  • electoral registers;

  • immigration and passenger records;

  • historical newspapers;

  • directories;

  • archives;

  • genealogy databases;

  • publicly available records; and

  • other appropriate historical sources.

3. Information About Other People

Genealogy naturally involves information about people other than the person commissioning the research.

When providing information about living relatives, you should only provide information that you are entitled to share and that is reasonably necessary for the research.

Please avoid supplying unnecessary sensitive information about living individuals.

We may decide not to research, include or disclose particular information about a living person where we consider doing so inappropriate or unnecessary.

4. Information About Deceased People

UK data-protection legislation generally protects information relating to identifiable living individuals rather than information relating solely to deceased persons.

However, information concerning deceased relatives can sometimes reveal information about living family members.

We therefore still aim to handle genealogical information responsibly and respectfully.

5. Sensitive Personal Information

Genealogical research can sometimes reveal information that would be considered particularly sensitive if it relates to a living individual.

This could potentially include information concerning:

  • health;

  • racial or ethnic origin;

  • religious beliefs;

  • political opinions;

  • sexual orientation or sex life;

  • genetic information; or

  • other sensitive personal circumstances.

We do not ask customers to provide unnecessary sensitive information about living individuals.

Where such information arises during legitimate genealogical research, we will consider whether it is necessary and appropriate to process or include it and will apply an appropriate lawful basis and, where required, an additional condition under applicable data-protection law.

6. DNA and Genetic Information

Our standard genealogy packages do not require customers to provide raw DNA data.

Please do not upload raw DNA files through our standard customer questionnaire unless we have specifically asked you to do so as part of an appropriate DNA-related service.

If My British Roots introduces services involving genetic information, those services may be subject to additional privacy information, safeguards and consent requirements.

7. How We Use Your Information

We may use personal information to:

  • process and administer your order;

  • communicate with you;

  • understand your research objectives;

  • carry out commissioned genealogical research;

  • identify possible family relationships;

  • prepare family trees and ancestor profiles;

  • create your personalised family-history report;

  • incorporate photographs and documents you have supplied;

  • answer questions concerning your project;

  • provide customer support;

  • correct or update completed work;

  • maintain appropriate business and financial records;

  • prevent fraud or misuse of our services;

  • comply with legal obligations; and

  • establish, exercise or defend legal claims where necessary.

We will not use information supplied for genealogical research for unrelated purposes without an appropriate lawful basis.

8. Our Lawful Bases for Processing

UK data-protection law requires us to have a lawful basis for processing personal information.

Depending upon the circumstances, we may rely upon:

Contract

We need to process certain information in order to provide the genealogy service you have purchased and fulfil our contract with you.

For example, we need your contact details and the genealogical information necessary to carry out your commissioned research.

Legal Obligation

We may need to retain or process certain information to comply with legal, accounting, tax or regulatory obligations.

Legitimate Interests

We may process information where it is reasonably necessary for our legitimate business interests and those interests are not overridden by the rights and interests of the individual concerned.

This may include operating and improving our services, protecting our business, maintaining appropriate records and carrying out appropriate genealogical research.

Consent

In some circumstances, we may ask for your consent.

Where processing relies upon consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal does not make processing carried out before withdrawal unlawful.

Different lawful bases may apply to different information and activities.

9. Special Category Information

Where we process special category personal data relating to a living person, we will only do so where both a lawful basis under UK GDPR Article 6 and an appropriate condition under Article 9 apply.

We will seek to minimise the processing of such information and will not intentionally collect special category information merely because it might be interesting.

10. Children's Information

Our genealogy services are intended to be purchased by adults.

Family trees may naturally include children and younger family members.

We ask customers not to provide unnecessary private or sensitive information about children.

Where information concerning a child is relevant to a commissioned family-history project, we will aim to process only the information reasonably necessary for that purpose.

11. Payments

Payments made through our website may be processed by third-party payment providers.

My British Roots does not normally receive or store your complete payment-card details.

Payment providers process payment information in accordance with their own privacy policies and security arrangements.

12. Service Providers

We use third-party services to operate My British Roots and provide our services.

Depending upon our systems at the relevant time, these may include providers used for:

  • website hosting and ecommerce;

  • payment processing;

  • customer forms and questionnaires;

  • email;

  • cloud storage;

  • genealogy research databases;

  • analytics;

  • customer communications; and

  • other business administration.

For example, our online store is operated using Shopify.

Where a third party processes personal information on our behalf, we will seek to use providers that offer appropriate data-protection and security arrangements.

Some third-party genealogy databases and archives may operate independently as data controllers under their own privacy terms.

13. International Transfers

Some of the service providers we use may process or store personal information outside the United Kingdom.

This is particularly relevant because My British Roots may use international technology, ecommerce and genealogy platforms.

Where UK data-protection law requires safeguards for an international transfer of personal data, we will seek to ensure that an appropriate lawful transfer mechanism is in place.

This may include an adequacy regulation, appropriate contractual safeguards or another mechanism permitted by law.

14. Sharing Your Personal Information

We do not sell your personal information.

We may share personal information where reasonably necessary with:

  • service providers helping us operate our business;

  • payment processors;

  • website and ecommerce providers;

  • IT and cloud-storage providers;

  • professional advisers;

  • genealogy or archive services where appropriate;

  • regulators, courts or authorities where legally required; and

  • another organisation where necessary in connection with a legitimate business restructuring, subject to appropriate safeguards.

We will not provide your family-history research to unrelated third parties for their own marketing purposes.

15. Your Family Photographs and Stories

Family photographs, documents and stories can be among the most personal materials customers provide to us.

Material supplied for your research will be used to carry out your project and create the products or reports you have commissioned.

We will not use identifiable private family photographs, your personalised family tree, your completed report or your family's private story in public advertising, social-media content, case studies or promotional material without appropriate permission.

If we ever ask whether we may feature a customer story or research project, participation will be optional.

Declining will not affect the service you receive.

16. Marketing Communications

Where permitted by law, we may send marketing communications about My British Roots services where you have requested them or where another lawful basis permits us to do so.

You can unsubscribe from marketing communications at any time using the unsubscribe option provided in the communication or by contacting us.

Opting out of marketing will not prevent us from sending necessary communications concerning an order or research project.

17. Cookies and Website Analytics

Our website may use cookies and similar technologies.

These may be necessary to:

  • operate the website;

  • remember preferences;

  • process purchases;

  • understand website usage;

  • measure performance; and

  • support marketing where permitted.

Where required by law, non-essential cookies will only be used after appropriate consent has been obtained.

Further information should be provided through our Cookie Policy and cookie-consent system.

18. How Long We Keep Information

We will not retain personal information for longer than reasonably necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, including satisfying legal, accounting and tax requirements and dealing with potential disputes.

Different categories of information may therefore have different retention periods.

For example, we may need to retain basic order and financial records for longer than working copies of documents used solely during research.

Because customers may later ask questions about their completed family-history research, we may retain appropriate project records for a reasonable period after completion.

We will periodically review the information we hold and delete, anonymise or securely dispose of information when it is no longer reasonably required.

19. Security

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures designed to protect personal information from:

  • unauthorised access;

  • accidental loss;

  • inappropriate disclosure;

  • alteration;

  • destruction; or

  • misuse.

No internet or electronic storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

Customers should therefore avoid sending unnecessary sensitive information.

20. Your Data-Protection Rights

Depending upon the circumstances, UK data-protection law may give you rights including:

  • the right to be informed about how your personal information is used;

  • the right to request access to your personal information;

  • the right to request correction of inaccurate information;

  • the right to request deletion of information in certain circumstances;

  • the right to request restriction of processing;

  • the right to object to certain processing;

  • the right to data portability in certain circumstances;

  • rights relating to automated decision-making; and

  • the right to withdraw consent where processing is based upon consent.

These rights are not absolute and may depend upon the circumstances and legal basis for processing.

To exercise a data-protection right, contact:

support@mybritishroots.com

We may need to verify your identity before fulfilling a request.

21. Complaints About Your Personal Information

If you have concerns about how we have handled your personal information, please contact us first so that we can investigate.

Email: support@mybritishroots.com

You also have the right to complain to the UK's independent data-protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

Information about your rights and how to make a complaint is available from the ICO.

22. Links to Other Websites

Our website may contain links to third-party websites, archives, genealogy platforms or other services.

We are not responsible for the privacy practices of websites that we do not operate.

You should review the privacy information provided by those organisations when using their services.

23. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy as My British Roots develops, our services change or legal requirements evolve.

The latest version will be published on our website and the “Last updated” date will be changed accordingly.

Material changes may also be communicated to customers where appropriate.

24. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or how My British Roots handles personal information, please contact:

My British Roots
Trading name: My British Roots
Legal name: My British Roots
Business address: 10 Furnival Drive, Stoke Prior, Bromsgrove, B604FX
Email: support@mybritishroots.com
Website: mybritishroots.com

Your story started here.