Ancestry Terms and Conditions Effective August 3 DO Affect Users Greatly

Note: Originally posted at 2:57 ET August 7, 2021. Changed date of 30 days after.

In case you have not heard elsewhere on the internet, Ancestry.com has updated/changed its Privacy and Terms and Conditions effective August 3, 2021 with a 30 day window for pre-existing user-submitted content. Sometimes these changes just update language with no real change on users BUT ... sometimes aspects do change that effect users. This is one of those "but" times.

But do not panic. Read a couple other blog posts about this change in Terms and Conditions and decide what is best for you. Who should you read? We suggest the following:

Judy Russell aka The Legal Genealogist

One Big Change at Ancestry on August 4, 2021

Ancestry Retreats on August 6, 2021

DNAExplained

Clock is Ticking: In 28 days Ancestry CAN DO ANYTHING THEY WANT with Every Image in Your Tree on August 4, 2021

Ancestry Blog

Making Our Terms and Conditions Clearer on August 5, 2021

So what is the big change?

According to Judy Russell, "As of the change, effective yesterday (3 August 2021), a user can’t change his or her mind about any content uploaded to Ancestry: as of yesterday, you’ve just gifted the rights to that content to Ancestry, forever."

Read her blog post AND the reader comments, as usual Judy Russell explains it all well based on what is there in the Terms and Conditions text. This is Contract Law not Copyright Law. You (or whoever took say a photo, made the scan or wrote a story) still own the copyright to the item but as of August 3rd you are granting Ancestry perpetual ... non-revocable ... use ... (read the post for all the specifics.) She notes in response to a comment that DNA has a separate Terms and Conditions so do not panic about that.

Readers of the post of course questioned, what if I delete my content (such as photos, stories) that was there prior to August 3 does Ancestry still have use? One of Judy's responses was, "
There is a provision in the terms that says: “… material changes will not apply retroactively and will become effective thirty days after they are posted, except that changes addressing new functions in the Services or changes made for legal reasons will be effective immediately.” Anything uploaded on or after 3 August will be covered and I expect Ancestry will argue that anything retained more than 30 days after 3 August is covered."

Other questions brought up in Judy's blog post comments were what about photos you have uploaded to public trees and others have copied (downloaded and re-uploaded) to their trees instead of linked to the photo you uploaded. Pointing out that that person that copied does not own the photo/scan and has no legal ability to "grant" Ancestry this use and if I delete mine it does not delete the copy that person made. That was a question without an answer based on the text of the Terms and Conditions Ancestry posted. Additional questions without answers related to items in Private trees that are indexed and un-indexed.

Apparently this "change" is still fluid. The Legal Genealogist ran another post on the subject today that indicates that Ancestry has slipped in some additional wording to its Terms and Conditions after the date the change took effect. (See the Ancestry Blog post on August 5.)

The additional two sentences inserted after the August 3 effective date clarifies some of the questions brought up by many Ancestry users.

Essentially do NOT panic and delete everything. That just hurts yourself. Look through your online trees and decide: Is there anything I have uploaded like photos or stories that I do not own or I do own and do not want Ancestry to "potentially" use anyway it wants in the future? If yes, make sure you have a copy of that item on a your hard drive or another storage device for your personal use and then delete that photo, story, etc. from your online tree BEFORE September 1, 2021. If no, then you do not have any action to take. And in the future, consider that question before you upload anything else.

What about any photos other Ancestry users have copied and re-uploaded to their trees? If you have no problems with this Terms & Conditions granting Ancestry more rights, again you do not have any action to take. If you do have an image you want removed, that is a bit tougher task that may or may not work. Do as you would in that situation prior to this change. First contact that Ancestry user and ask the person to remove your photo scan (story, etc.) from their public tree. (It will be very difficult to learn if any private trees have a copy.) In this case, mention the change in Terms & Conditions and that as the owner of the original image you have decided not to grant Ancestry the rights to the image. Sometimes that "ask" will be enough to work. Other times, you will have to ask Ancestry for help but that route does not always work.

For Family Tree Maker users who sync their FTM trees to an Ancestry Member Online tree, be careful and check your manual or the MacKiev Software website support pages for the exact process. Likely to remove any photos synced online from only the online side and not the FTM side you will need to change the media image to "private" first on the FTM side. Then you can delete the image from the online side only. The original images should still remain on your hard drive or storage device so if needed you can re-link FTM to the image files. Hopefully recent sync problems have been resolved. So be sure to check the Sync Weather Report before syncing and be sure to make backups of your FTM tree files before syncing.

See you soon at Mt. Clemens Public Library! (someday soon)
LE