Privacy Policy

Last updated: 25 June 2026

Find My Clan turns an Irish surname into a heritage report built from public historical records. This policy explains what personal data we process, why, and the rights you have. It covers the Find My Clan website and the report you can purchase from it.

Who is responsible for your data

The data controller is the owner and operator of Find My Clan. For any privacy question or to exercise your rights, contact [email protected].

What we collect

We deliberately collect as little as possible. There are no user accounts and no login.

• The surname you search. Entered to generate a preview and report. It is not tied to your identity.
• Checkout details, via Stripe. When you buy a report, our payment processor Stripe collects your email address and card details. We never see or store your card number — Stripe handles payment. We retain a purchase record containing your email, the surname purchased, the amount, Stripe reference identifiers, and the purchase/expiry timestamps, so we can deliver your report and keep accounting records.
• Basic technical data. Standard server logs (such as IP address and request metadata) used to operate the service securely and prevent abuse.

How we use it, and our legal bases

• To deliver the report you paid for, which opens immediately when you return from checkout; Stripe emails your payment receipt — performance of a contract.
• To keep purchase and tax/accounting records — legal obligation and legitimate interests.
• To secure the service and prevent fraud or abuse — legitimate interests.

We do not use your email for marketing, we do not sell your data, and we do not show third-party advertising.

The heritage data itself

The county rankings, maps, and narrative in a report are derived from public historical sources — principally the 1901, 1911, and 1926 Census of Ireland (National Archives of Ireland), CSO/OSi boundary data, OpenStreetMap-derived townland and ward data, Gaois surname scholarship, National Library of Ireland parish-register coverage, and Logainm placenames. These concern people recorded over a century ago and are historical records, not personal data about you. Sources and their licences are listed in our source manifest.

Who we share it with

We use a small number of processors to run the service: Stripe for payments and our hosting provider for serving the site and storing purchase records. They process data on our behalf under their own terms. We disclose data otherwise only where legally required.

How long we keep it

Unlock links and access tokens are short-lived and expire. Purchase records are retained as long as needed for the service and to meet accounting and legal obligations, then deleted or anonymised. You can ask us to delete your data sooner (see your rights).

Your rights

If you are in the EU/EEA or UK, you have the right to access, correct, erase, restrict, or port your personal data, and to object to certain processing. To exercise any of these, email [email protected]. You also have the right to complain to your data-protection authority — in Ireland, the Data Protection Commission (dataprotection.ie).

Cookies

We use only strictly necessary cookies — for example, a private-preview access cookie and security cookies needed for the site and checkout to work. We do not use advertising or third-party tracking cookies. Find My Clan also keeps privacy-minimal daily totals for broad page views and key product actions, such as surname searches, previews, checkout starts, reports opened, and certificate downloads. These counters do not store the searched surname, full URL, IP address, cookies, or a user identifier.

International transfers

Some processors (such as Stripe) may process data outside your country. Where that happens, it is done under appropriate safeguards such as standard contractual clauses.

Changes

We may update this policy; we will revise the “last updated” date above when we do.

See also our Terms of Service and Refund Policy.