Last updated: 11 September 2026
1. Who we are
AncestorPress is a brand of Black and White Trading Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 7711181), whose registered office is 23 Templemere, Weybridge, Surrey, KT13 9PA, United Kingdom ("we", "us", "our"). We are the data controller for personal data processed through this website and in connection with our products. Questions about this policy: accounts@bwtl.co.uk.
2. Scope of this policy
This policy explains how we handle personal data:
- when you visit or interact with this website (ancestorpress.com);
- when you purchase, license, or receive support for our WordPress plugins (AP Family Trees, AP One-Name Studies, AP Family Archive, AP One-Place Studies and our other AncestorPress products); and
- when a plugin, at your instruction, uses one of the optional services described in the plugin addenda below.
Our plugins are software that you install and run on your own WordPress website. An important consequence is set out in section 5: for the family history data our plugins handle, you - not we - are the controller, and the data is stored on your own site, not on our servers.
3. The data we collect and why
Website visitors. Basic technical data (IP address, browser type, pages requested) in our web server and security logs, used to operate the site and keep it secure. This site does not currently run analytics, advertising or tracking cookies (see section 9).
Forms. If you use our contact form or a plugin's "Future Direction" feedback form, we process the name, email address and message you provide, to respond to you and to inform what we build next. Submissions are stored in this website's database.
Customers and licence holders. When you buy or activate a plugin licence, our e-commerce and licensing partner Freemius processes your purchase and licence, and provides the account area on this site. We receive the name, email address and licence details needed to provide the product, deliver updates and support, and meet our legal and accounting obligations. Freemius's own privacy policy governs their processing (freemius.com/privacy).
Support. Any information you share when requesting support - on our support desk at bwtlsupport.com, through the in-plugin support assistant, or in a public WordPress.org forum thread - used solely to resolve your query. Forum posts on WordPress.org are public and governed by WordPress.org's own policies.
We do not collect special-category (sensitive) personal data through this website, and we do not knowingly collect data from children (see section 10).
4. Legal bases (UK GDPR)
We rely on: performance of a contract (providing and supporting products you buy); legitimate interests (operating, securing and improving our website and products, and business administration); consent (marketing emails, which you can withdraw at any time); and legal obligation (accounting, tax, and responding to lawful requests).
5. Who controls plugin data, and where it is stored
Because our plugins run on your own WordPress website, the people, families, events, sources, media, occurrences, places and studies they handle are stored in your own database, on your own hosting, under your control. For that data you are the data controller and we do not have access to it. That includes any data about living people you choose to import or publish; our plugins withhold records flagged as living or private from public pages and the study plugins apply a configurable living-person cutoff that fails closed, but the decision to publish is yours.
None of our plugins transmits family history data to us or to anyone else. Two kinds of optional service can receive limited, non-genealogical information, and only when you choose to use them: Freemius (licensing) and the AncestorPress Support Service (the in-plugin support assistant). Services you configure yourself - a map provider, an AI provider set in WordPress - process what you send them under their own policies. The plugin addenda below itemise this per plugin.
6. Sharing your data
We do not sell your personal data. We share personal data only with service providers who help us operate (Freemius for payments and licensing; our hosting and email providers; the support desk platform on bwtlsupport.com), each bound to process data only on our instructions; and with authorities or advisers where we are legally required to, or to protect our rights.
7. International transfers
Some of our providers are based outside the UK/EEA. Where personal data is transferred internationally, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement / Addendum or an adequacy decision.
8. Data retention and security
We keep personal data only as long as needed for the purposes above or to meet legal obligations, then delete or anonymise it. We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data. Data our plugins store on your own site is protected by your site's security and your hosting arrangements.
9. Cookies
This website uses only the cookies needed for it to function - for example to keep you logged in to the account area, and page-cache cookies set by our hosting. We do not currently set analytics, advertising or tracking cookies, and there is no cookie banner because none is needed. If that changes, this policy and the site will be updated first.
10. Children
Our website and products are intended for adults researching and publishing family history and are not directed at children under 16. We do not knowingly collect their data.
11. Your rights
Under UK GDPR you have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict or object to our processing of your personal data, to data portability, and to withdraw consent at any time. To exercise these rights, contact us at accounts@bwtl.co.uk. You also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).
12. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. The "Last updated" date shows when it was last revised; material changes will be made prominent on this page.
13. Contact
Black and White Trading Ltd (trading as AncestorPress)
23 Templemere, Weybridge, Surrey, KT13 9PA, United Kingdom
accounts@bwtl.co.uk
Plugin addenda
The policy above applies to all of our products. Each addendum below sets out what an individual plugin can send, to whom, and when - taken from that plugin's own published readme. Nothing here replaces or limits the policy above.
A. Freemius (all plugins)
Every AncestorPress plugin bundles the Freemius SDK for optional account connection, licence administration, checkout and updates to paid editions. Data may be transmitted only when you opt in to the activation flow, connect or manage an account or licence, use checkout, or consent to optional usage diagnostics: broad account and installation information such as the site URL, the administrator email address you provide, plugin and WordPress version data, and licence identifiers. The opt-in is optional; skip it and every free feature keeps working. Your family history data is never sent to Freemius - no person, family, event, source, media record, occurrence or study, and not the name of any tree. Freemius's terms and privacy policy: freemius.com/terms, freemius.com/privacy.
B. The AncestorPress Support Service (AP Family Trees, AP Family Archive)
AP Family Trees and AP Family Archive include an optional support assistant, opened from the Help button on their admin screens. Nothing is sent to us until you open the assistant and accept the privacy notice shown inside it. Passwords, API keys and your family history data are never collected, and the assistant is read-only.
With an AI provider set in WordPress (7.0+), AP Family Archive answers locally on that provider: your question and chat history stay on your site, and the assistant only fetches product documentation from our support service at bwtlsupport.com, sending your site address and plugin version. AP Family Trees has no local AI path; its questions are answered by the support service.
When the support service answers, it receives the question you type and the recent chat history (processed transiently, not retained), your site address and - where available - the Freemius licence installation identifier for the site (to authorise the request and apply the monthly fair-use allowance; on the free tier a value derived from your site address is held against a monthly counter for the current and previous month only), the installed AncestorPress plugin versions, the admin screen identifier, and a short whitelist of non-sensitive settings and totals (counts of trees, people, families and charts, and configuration labels). No person, family, event, source or media record is included, and no tree name or identifier, because a tree is normally named for a family. That metadata is retained only as aggregated operational statistics, never as a per-site behavioural log.
If, and only if, you click "Send to support", the transcript, the diagnostic context and the contact email address you supply are stored as a support ticket so that a support agent can reply. We are the controller for the data in this addendum, and sections 7, 8 and 11 above apply to it.
C. AP One-Name Studies and AP One-Place Studies
Neither plugin collects or transmits any personal data from your site or your visitors to us; all study data is stored in your own WordPress database. Neither includes the support assistant. Three optional features involve other parties, each under your control:
- The public contact form emails enquiries to the study contact address you set, and nowhere else. Submissions are not stored by the plugin.
- Map embeds (AP One-Place Studies): if you configure a map from OpenStreetMap, uMap, Google My Maps or the National Library of Scotland, your visitors' browsers load that map from the provider you chose, under that provider's policy. No map is loaded until you set one.
- AI import assistance (AP One-Place Studies Pro): if you configure an AI provider in WordPress, the paste, transcription and mapping assists send only the material you deliberately submit for that task, from your site to your own provider account - never your study database.
Licensing for both plugins is as described in addendum A.