The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), Colorado Privacy Act (CPA), Connecticut Data Privacy Act (CTDPA), and Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA), give people who are residents of the above states certain rights with respect to understanding what personal information Ancestry collects, where we collect it, how we use it, and with whom we share the collected personal information. For more details about our U.S.-related privacy policies or practices, see section 16 of our Privacy Statement.

While the above laws pertain to residents of California, Colorado, Virginia, and Connecticut, all Ancestry users can use our online self-service tools to request a download of their account data and delete their Ancestry account.

Requests to know

U.S. State Privacy Laws may give residents of California, Colorado, Connecticut, and Virginia the right to request that we disclose what Personal Information (as defined in our Privacy Statement) we collect, use, disclose, or sell. This includes the right to request the categories of Personal Information we have collected about them, the categories of sources of Personal Information, the business purpose for collecting Personal Information, the categories of third parties with whom we share categories of Personal Information, and the specific pieces of Personal Information we have collected about the requestor.

To request to know your Personal Information, follow the instructions in Requesting a Download of Your Account Data or email us at usprivacyrequests@ancestry.com.

If you email a request to know your Personal Information, you’ll need to provide:

proof of identity
proof of current address

Proof provided will be used solely to verify your identity and address.

DNA Data (sometimes called “raw DNA data”) is considered unique biometric information that you may only access by downloading it directly from our site. Your DNA Data belongs to you, and you may download it at any time. Once you download your DNA Data, it will not be protected by our security measures. If you download your DNA Data, take precautions to protect it.

Requests to delete

U.S. State Privacy Laws may give residents of California, Colorado, Connecticut, and Virginia the right to request that we delete your Personal Information. To delete your Personal Information, you must delete your full Ancestry account and all of its information (including, but not limited to, family trees, records, photos, and DNA Data).

Deleting your Ancestry account is permanent and cannot be undone.

You can request to delete your Personal Information by deleting your Ancestry account or emailing us at usprivacyrequests@ancestry.com.

If you email a request to delete your Personal Information, you’ll need to provide:

proof of identity
proof of current address

Proof provided will be used solely to verify your identity and address.

Authorized agents

The CCPA allows California-residents to authorize a third party agent (“Authorized Agent”) to request a copy, or deletion, of the member’s Personal Information on the member’s behalf.

Before we can respond to a member’s request to know or request to delete submitted by an Authorized Agent, we need the Authorized Agent and member to provide the following:

Proof that the Authorized Agent is registered to do business in California with the California Secretary of State. This may be submitted to us by either the Authorized Agent or the member.
Signed permission from the member authorizing the named agent to act on the member’s behalf (request to know or request to delete). This may be submitted to us by either the Authorized Agent or the member.
Proof of the member’s identity and California address. This must be submitted to us by the member.
Confirmation that the member has provided the Authorized Agent permission to submit a request to us on the member’s behalf. This must be submitted to us by the member.

Authorized agents must submit requests to know and requests to delete by emailing us at thirdpartyauthorizationrequests@ancestry.com.

Note that in response to a request to know under the CCPA, we will not provide unique biometric information about the member to an Authorized Agent or to the member. The member must log into our site to download their DNA Data (see the information on this in Requests to Know above).

Frequently asked questions

Does Ancestry sell my personal information?
Ancestry does not sell your personal information, and has not sold it in the 12 months prior to the effective date of the U.S. Statement in our Privacy Statement.

Contact us
For questions about our US-related privacy policies or practices, email us at usprivacyrequests@ancestry.com.