Privacy policy

• Purchase data: your email address, the surname(s) you commission, order amount, and Stripe transaction identifiers. We never see or store your full card details — payment is handled by Stripe.
• Free check data: the surname you check and the email you provide to receive the result.
• Account data: your verified email, display name (if you set one), sign-in events, and the reports linked to your account.
• Verification codes and claim/share tokens, used to secure access to reports.
• Usage data: share-link view counts and basic analytics about how the site is used (see the Cookie Notice).
• Support correspondence you send to history@ancesta.co.

A note on surnames: a surname by itself is shared by many people and is not personal data. Combined with your email and purchase, it becomes part of your personal data, and we treat your account and report data accordingly.

• Delivering what you bought — research, dashboard, PDF, emails about your order (contract).
• Sending your free-check result and, unless you opt out, occasional Ancesta offers such as second-surname discounts (consent / legitimate interests, with unsubscribe in every marketing email).
• Fraud prevention, refund handling, and payment disputes (legitimate interests / legal obligation).
• Improving the product using aggregated, de-identified usage data (legitimate interests).

We do not sell personal data, and we do not use your personal data to train AI models.

Research is performed by third-party AI providers (currently Anthropic and Google). What we send them is the surname and research instructions — never your email, name, or account details. The surname you commission is processed by these providers solely to produce your report.

Service providers acting under contract for us: Stripe (payments), our email delivery provider (transactional and marketing email), our hosting/database provider, and the AI providers described above. We share what each needs and no more. We disclose data where the law requires it. If Sonder Brands LLC sells or restructures the Ancesta business, customer data transfers with it under this policy.

We are a US company and data is processed in the United States. Where we receive data from the UK, EU, or other regions with transfer rules, we rely on our providers' standard contractual clauses and equivalent safeguards.

Account and report data: kept while your account exists, so your reports remain available to you. Free-check leads that never purchase: deleted or de-identified after 24 months. Verification codes: expire within minutes and are purged. Payment records: kept as long as tax and accounting law requires. Deleted accounts: personal data removed within 30 days, except records we must keep by law. Surname research itself (which contains no personal data) is retained indefinitely as part of our research corpus.

Depending on where you live, you can ask us to access, correct, delete, or export your personal data, object to or restrict processing, and withdraw consent to marketing at any time (every marketing email has an unsubscribe link; transactional emails about your order will still be sent). To exercise any right, email history@ancesta.co — we respond within 30 days. You can also complain to your local data protection authority (for the UK, the ICO; for the EU, your national authority; for Australia, the OAIC).

Access to reports requires email verification; data is encrypted in transit; production access is restricted; roles are enforced at the database level. No system is perfect — if a breach affects your data, we will notify you and regulators as the law requires.

Ancesta is not directed at children under 16 and we do not knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has provided data, contact us and we will delete it.

We will update this policy as the product evolves (for example, when gift purchases and physical prints launch, which will involve recipient emails and shipping addresses). Material changes are notified by email to account holders; the effective date above always reflects the current version.

Privacy questions and requests: history@ancesta.co

Sonder Brands LLC, 701 Tillery St, Austin, TX 78702, USA