Terms of Use
Last updated: 16 October 2026. Please read these terms before using Familines. By creating an account, signing in or using the site, you agree to them. If you do not agree, do not use Familines.
1. Who we are
Familines (“Familines”, “we”, “us”) is an online service at familines.com for building family trees and keeping family stories, photos, videos, recipes, memories and letters. You can reach us at hello@familines.com.
2. Who may use Familines
You must be at least 18 years old, or the age of majority where you live if that is higher, to create an account. Younger family members may appear in a tree, but only an adult (for a child, a parent or legal guardian) may add or manage their information. You must give true information about yourself and keep your sign-in details safe. You are responsible for everything done through your account.
3. Your content belongs to you
Everything you add (names, dates, places, biographies, photos, videos, recordings, recipes, memories, letters, messages and any other material, together “your content”) remains yours. You give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, copy, process, display and transmit your content only as needed to run Familines for you and for the people you share it with (for example, members of your family tree, invited relatives, heirs you choose and the recipients of your letters), to make backups and to keep the service secure. This licence ends when your content is deleted from the service, except for copies kept in backups for a limited time or where the law requires us to keep them.
4. Your responsibility for what you add
You may only add content that you have the right to share. In particular, you confirm that:
- you own the photos, videos, recordings and texts you upload, or have permission from whoever does;
- when you add information about other people (living relatives especially), you have a lawful reason to do so and you respect their privacy; you will remove or correct information when the person concerned, or their legal representative, asks you to;
- you will not add information about a living person's health, religion, beliefs, sexual life, criminal record or other sensitive matters, or their identity numbers, without their explicit consent;
- information you import (for example from an e-Devlet document or a GEDCOM file) is information you are entitled to use, and you are responsible for checking it is correct.
You are solely responsible for your content and for any harm it causes. Familines does not check content before it appears and is not responsible for content added by users.
5. What you may not do
You may not use Familines to:
- post anything unlawful, defamatory, harassing, hateful, violent, sexually explicit, or that exploits or endangers children;
- infringe anyone's copyright, trademark, privacy or other rights;
- impersonate anyone, claim a page that is not yours, or gain access to a tree, page or account you were not invited to;
- collect other users' information, send unwanted messages or advertising, or use the service for commercial genealogy research about people without their consent;
- upload malware, probe or break our security, overload the service, or copy it by automated means (scraping, bots) without our written permission.
We may remove content or limit, suspend or close accounts that break these terms or the law, or that put other users or Familines at risk, with or without notice.
6. Family trees, invites, claimed pages and heirs
A family tree is shared by its members: any member can add and edit the tree's facts (names, dates, parents, partners). A living person who has claimed their own page decides its content (biography, photos, videos, timeline, letters, links). Pages of people who have not joined, or who have passed away, are looked after by the family members. When families connect their trees, people who appear in both can be merged after both families approve. You accept that other members can see, add to and change shared parts of a tree, and that we cannot settle disagreements between family members; we may, however, act on a credible complaint.
7. Sealed letters and things kept for the future
Sealed letters, heirs and other features meant for the future are offered with care but without guarantee. We will try to deliver a letter on its date, or to an heir, but delivery depends on the service still running, on accounts and email addresses still working, and on information being correct. We do not promise that any content will be kept or delivered for a particular length of time, including “in perpetuity”. Keep your own copies of anything important: you can download your family's archive from your Account page at any time.
8. Plans, limits and payments
Familines is currently offered free of charge, with limits (for example on the number of photos and the length of videos). We may change these limits. If we introduce paid plans, their price, what they include and their terms will be shown to you before you pay, and those terms will apply to them alongside these.
9. Health notes
Health notes, when available, are family memories, not medical records. Nothing on Familines is medical advice. Do not rely on it for diagnosis or treatment; ask a doctor.
10. Availability and changes
We provide Familines “as is” and “as available”. We may change, pause or stop any part of the service, including for maintenance, and we do not promise that it will always be available, error-free, or that content will never be lost. We make regular efforts to protect and back up data, but you should keep your own copies.
11. No warranties
To the fullest extent the law allows, we give no warranties of any kind, express or implied, including about the accuracy of family information, relationship names, imported records, merges, or fitness for a particular purpose.
12. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent the law allows, Familines and the people who run it are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special or consequential loss, or for loss of data, content, memories, letters, profits or goodwill, arising from your use of the service or inability to use it, even if we were told such loss was possible. Where we are liable despite this, our total liability for all claims together is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim and 100 euros. Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded by law, such as for intent or gross negligence where the law does not allow it to be excluded.
13. Your promise to us
You agree to compensate and defend Familines and the people who run it against any claim, loss or cost (including reasonable legal fees) that arises from your content, your use of the service, or your breach of these terms or of anyone's rights.
14. Complaints and removal requests
If you believe something on Familines infringes your rights or concerns you personally, write to hello@familines.com with a link to the page and what you would like us to do. We will look into it and may remove content while we do.
15. Closing your account
You can stop using Familines at any time and ask us to close your account. Shared tree facts that other members also rely on, and content on pages kept by the family, may stay in the tree after you leave; content on your own claimed page will be deleted or, if you have chosen heirs, handled as you chose. We may close accounts as described in section 5, or if an account has been unused for a long time.
16. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms. When the changes are important we will tell you on the site or by email before they take effect. If you keep using Familines after that, you accept the new terms.
17. Law and courts
These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Turkey. The courts and enforcement offices of Istanbul (Çağlayan) have jurisdiction over any dispute, without prejudice to any mandatory consumer rights you have under the law of the country where you live.
18. Everything else
If any part of these terms is found invalid, the rest stays in force. If we do not enforce a right, we do not give it up. You may not transfer your rights under these terms; we may transfer ours to a successor running Familines. These terms, together with the Privacy Notice, are the whole agreement between you and us about Familines.