honestTree

Terms of use

Last updated October 28, 2026

These terms are the agreement between you and Wieslaw Zych, who runs honestTree. By creating an account, you accept them. Please also read the privacy policy.

The service

HonestTree lets you keep family trees online, with their photos and documents, and share them with people you invite. It is a hobby project, run on a small scale by a private person in their spare time, not by a company.

Your account

  • You must be 16 or more and give a real email address.
  • Keep your password to yourself; you are responsible for what is done with your account.
  • One account per person. Accounts are personal and cannot be passed on.

Your trees and what you put in them

  • What you add stays yours. You allow the site only to store it, copy it for backups and show it to the people you share it with.
  • You may only put online what you have the right to: your own research and documents, or material whose owner agrees.
  • Be careful with living people: share their details only with their agreement or when the law lets you, and answer their requests. The site hides living people from guests, but you choose who sees what.
  • Do not record sensitive details of living people (health, religion, ethnic origin, sex life, criminal records) without their agreement.
  • Nothing unlawful, hateful, or that harms someone's privacy or reputation.

Fair use

Do not try to get around the access rules, open other people's trees, overload the site, collect data automatically, or upload harmful files. Storage is limited per account; the limit is shown on your profile.

Paid storage and gifts

  • Larger storage plans are paid monthly through Stripe and renew until you cancel them, which you can do at any time from your profile. When a plan ends, nothing is deleted: your trees stay as they are, but adding photos, documents or imports above the free limit stops until you free space.
  • Gifts to support the site, once or monthly, are voluntary, give no extra rights, and are not refunded unless the law says otherwise. Monthly gifts can be stopped at any time.
  • If you live in the EU, your legal rights as a consumer are not affected.

Availability and backups

The site is offered as it is, on a best-effort basis, without a guarantee that it will always be available or free of errors. Backups are made, but keep your own exports (one click on the trees page) of what matters to you. The operator may change or stop the service. If the site is to close, account holders will be told by email, where possible at least 30 days before, so they can export their trees; paid plans then stop and are not charged again.

Ending

You may close your account at any time from your profile; your trees are deleted with it. The operator may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, after a warning except in serious cases.

Liability

The operator runs this site with care but as a hobby. As far as the law allows, the operator is not liable for indirect loss, for loss of data, or for content that users put in their trees. Nothing here limits liability for intent or gross negligence, for harm to life or health, or any other liability that the law does not allow to be limited, and consumer rights stay as the law gives them.

Changes and law

If these terms change in a way that matters, account holders are told before the change applies and asked to accept the new terms; if you do not agree, you can export your trees and close your account. The law of Scotland applies, without taking away the protection given to consumers by the law of the country where they live.