Managing privacy
This page explains how FamYarn handles the privacy of your family history: who can see your data, what stays private, and the controls you have over sharing.
Who can access my data?
Access to a tree is decided by its owner. When you create a tree, you’re its owner, and no one else can see what’s in it until you invite them. You choose who to add, and each member has a role that determines what they can do:
- Viewers can see the people, stories, and photos in the tree.
- Editors can also add and change records.
- Admins can manage the tree’s settings and members, including whether the tree can be shared publicly.
Because these choices belong to the tree’s owner and admins, a tree is only as private or as open as they decide to make it. If you’re a member of a tree you didn’t create, your access — and how much of the tree is shared beyond its members — follows the settings the owner and admins have chosen. If you’re not sure how a tree you’ve joined is configured, ask the person who invited you.
Private by default
Your tree is yours. There’s no public directory for strangers to browse, and nothing you add is published to the world unless you deliberately choose to share it. By default, the people, stories, photos, and records you enter are visible only to you and the relatives you invite.
No data resale, no surveillance business model
FamYarn doesn’t sell your family data or use it to build advertising profiles, and it isn’t shared with third parties for those purposes. The service is supported by the people who pay for it, not by monetizing what’s in your tree.
Public sharing is off until you decide otherwise
Nothing in your tree is publicly visible until you choose to create a share. If you’d like to show part of your family history to people who aren’t members of your tree — say, a memorial page for a grandparent — you can create a share link for it. Until then, there’s nothing public to find.
You stay in control of any share you create:
- Turn public sharing off entirely. If you own the tree, you can disable public sharing for the whole tree in its sharing settings, which prevents any share links from being created or viewed.
- Revoke a link anytime. Any share you’ve made can be switched off, and links expire on their own after a set period rather than living forever.
- Living relatives are protected automatically. Public share pages leave out people who may still be living, based on their recorded dates, so a shared page won’t expose information about someone who’s likely still with us.
Be thoughtful about who has access
Privacy settings do a lot, but the most important control is who you invite. Anyone you add as a member of your tree can see the people, stories, and photos in it, so it’s worth being considerate:
- Invite relatives you trust, and share only the trees or details you’re comfortable with them seeing.
- Remember that a family tree can hold sensitive information about living relatives — dates, places, and stories they may consider private. When in doubt, ask before adding details about someone who’s still living.
- If you create a public share to send to a wider circle, take a moment to look at what it includes before you send the link around.
You stay in control of your data
Your information belongs to you, and you can take it with you or remove it at any time:
- Export your data whenever you want — you’re never locked in.
- Delete what you no longer want to keep, on your terms.
Cancelling is straightforward, and it doesn’t lock away your data — you can export what you want to keep first.
Where your data lives
FamYarn is a U.S.-based company, and your family data is governed under U.S. jurisdiction. If it matters to you where your information is held and who’s responsible for it, that’s worth knowing up front.
Where to go next
Ready to start a private family history of your own? The Getting Started guide walks you through adding your first people and building from there.