GSWC Privacy Policy

The Genealogical Society of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Inc. (“GSWC”), respects your privacy. Any personal information you provide to us will not be released, sold, or rented to any entities or individuals outside of GSWC except as noted below or in other instances where we will inform you in advance and obtain your consent.

The following policies govern our collection, use, sharing, and publication of your personal information. By visiting washtenawgenealogy.org or by submitting information to our journal for publication, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy notice.
 
Membership Data
  1. Membership data includes your name, address, telephone number, email address, membership join date, and codes used to access the Members Only section of our website. 
  2. We ask you to provide membership data when you join and renew your membership, and as changes occur.  We use this information to manage our membership rolls, to communicate with you by postal and electronic mail, and to grant you access to the Members Only section of our website.
  3. With approval from the GSWC Board of Directors, we occasionally provide our membership list to noncommercial genealogical or historical organizations in which we think our members will be interested.
  4. We provide membership data to the company that provides website services to GSWC for website management purposes only. This company is not authorized to use this data for any other purpose. We do not provide our membership list or members’ email addresses to any other outside company or organization.
  5. We publish our online membership list in the Members Only section of our website. The membership list contains your name, address, telephone number, and email address. It is viewable only by GSWC members with access via their unique user ids and private passwords to the Members Only section of our website.
  6. If you do not wish for your personal information to be included in our online membership list, you may…
    1. remove your information from the list by changing your member settings in your online membership profile
    2. notify us by mail or by using the form provided on our “Contact Us” web page​
  7. Note: If you became a member as a gift from another member, we will not publish any of your information in our membership directory until you direct us to do so through any of the above methods.
 
Contact Information
  1. When you submit a query to be published in our journal, Family History Capers, we will include your name and contact information unless you specifically request that an item of personal information, such as email or street address, not be included.
  2. We publish current and back issues of Family History Capers, including queries, in the Members Only section of our website which is viewable only by GSWC members with appropriate access as described above.
  3. We distribute Family History Capers to selected public libraries, both local and national where back issues are available to other genealogists and the public. 
  4. We publish a list of “Members’ Surnames” on our website; only members may add surnames to this list. When you submit an email inquiry about a specific surname, the contact information you provided will be forwarded by email to the GSWC member who created that entry.
 
Credit Card Details
 
You will only be asked for credit card details when you purchase an item in the GSWC online store via PayPal or when join or renew your membership via PayPal. GSWC does not receive or store your credit card information and will never ask you to enter credit card details as a means of verifying your identity or to log in.
 
Cookies
  1. A "cookie" is a small data text file that is placed in your browser and allows GSWC to recognize you each time you visit the website.
  2. Cookies themselves do not contain any personal information and GSWC does not use cookies to collect personal information.
 
 Information Automatically Logged
  1. For purposes of analyzing the traffic we receive at our website, we log your domain name, IP address, and other related information such as page requests, browser type, operating system, and average time spent on our website.
  2. For example, if you are a Gmail user, we retain that there was a visit from a Gmail user, but we do not know your email address. We use this information to monitor and improve our website.
 
 Remember the risks whenever you use the Internet
  1. While we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information that you transmit to GSWC and you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of any passwords or other account information.
  2. In addition, other Internet websites or services that may be accessible through GSWC have separate data and privacy practices independent of us, and therefore we disclaim any responsibility or liability for their policies or actions. Please read the privacy policy of external websites before disclosing any personal information and contact those vendors directly if you have any questions about their privacy policies. 
  3. GSWC is not responsible for the privacy practices or content of external websites to which the GSWC website may link.
 
Contacting the Website
 
If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this website, or your dealings with this website or with the society, you can contact us by mail, email, or through our online form.
 
Genealogical Society of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Inc.
P.O. Box 7155
Ann Arbor, MI 48107-7155