Big change to Ancestry's ToS

pinkypinky

This is about any content you may have uploaded to your tree such as photos or stories.

I've always felt once I put a photo up, it was out there in the wild and of course other people have copied mine. The changes mean Ancestry can do whatever they like with your images in perpetuity.

Judy Russell broke this news yesterday on her Legal Genealogist blog. https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2021/08/04/one-big-change-at-ancestry/

Also have a read of Roberta Estes's summary of Ancestry's changes:

https://dna-explained.com/2021/08/04/clock-is-ticking-in-28-days-ancestry-can-do-anything-they-want-with-every-image-in-your-tree/

I presume this will cover FindaGrave as well, since Ancestry owns them.

My knee jerk reaction was to start removing my photos but I'm going to watch what develops over the next few days. There's been such a negative response on social media that Ancestry will have to comment.

VirginiaB

This is really shocking. It doesn't make clear if it also applies to private trees but either way....Thanks very much for letting us know.

Rmulvany

I've always been of the opinion that once something goes online you have to expect that it's up there forever and you have little control over who uses it from there on.

Having used Ancestry for a few years now I have added plenty of photos up to my trees, from time to time I stumble across "hints" to my relatives that are my pictures that have been saved from my tree.

It would be beneficial to know to what extent Ancestry could use the photos for. Are we talking minor things such as the pictures being used in Ancestry hints worldwide, advertisements on their website, or are we talking possibly darker like selling images, owning the IP...

The article says "Ancestry CAN DO ANYTHING THEY WANT with every image". If they chose to put some family pictures in advertisements etc then I'm sure that would get plenty of people in bother.

KildareFan

I put up photos and information on Ancestry, Findagrave and other sites for use by others who are researching their family history; like Rmulvany I have seen my photos used by other researchers and I have no objections as I too use photos and information put up by others to help with my research. I make sure to keep a note of the source of photos and also to check the original sources of information if available.

What Ancestry is doing now is worrying and they will need to clarify what exactly they have in mind.

pinkypinky

They've done a bit of clarifying. If you delete something from your tree before the month is up, it will be gone BUT only if no one has copied it. I just looked at a sample few of my photos. Only found 2 that no one had copied. I did send some messages to people asking how we were connected, but they're all people with tens of thousands of people in their tree, so probably not a true connection, just a name grabber.

https://www.family-tree.co.uk/news/ancestry-terms-of-use-update/

Jellybaby_1

My tree is private and I don't have photos of people on it but I have one photo of a gravestone for one person. I was given that photo by a distant relative whose tree is public and it just keeps turning up all over the place. He also has it on WikiTree. Once I read that Facebook owns any photos uploaded there I deleted all my photos from it and don't use FB anymore. I'll be doing the same on Ancestry.

Hermy

That’s the worst thing about this - it will discourage people from sharing info and pics.

VirginiaB

I always share with people who contact me and I can see are related to me, however distantly. I'm still wondering about private trees but can't seem to find an answer. And incidentally, I heard about this here first, thanks to pinkypinky. It's just now spreading around the internet, at least on blogs etc I follow.