Privacy

This is a family history site, not a business. It collects as little as it can, sells nothing and shows no advertising. This page explains exactly what happens when you visit, sign the guest book or send us something. Last updated 18 October 2026.

In short

No cookies, no trackingThe site sets no cookies and runs no analytics, advertising or social-media scripts.

No accountsThere is nothing to sign up for and no password to give us.

Uploads stay privatePhotos and papers you upload go only to Ben and are never published without your agreement.

Living relatives protectedNo photos, full birth dates or personal documents of living people are published.

When you visit

Visitor counter. The home page shows how many visits the archive has had. To count them, your browser sends a short signal to our server. Your internet (IP) address is turned into an anonymous one-way code on arrival and the address itself is not stored. The code only tells us whether a visit is new, so a page reload does not count twice.
Your browser. A small flag is kept in your browser's session storage so the counter is not triggered on every page. It disappears when you close the tab. Nothing is stored that follows you from site to site.
Hosting. The site is hosted on Amazon Web Services. Like any web host, its servers may keep standard technical logs (address, browser type, page requested) for security and reliability. We do not use these logs to identify visitors.

The guest book and uploads

Notes. When you sign the Guest Book we keep the name, place and message you type. Approved notes are shown publicly on the guest book wall, so please do not include anything you would not want others to read. Some notes are held for a quick review before they appear.
Spam protection. To stop floods of spam, the same anonymous code described above is kept for a few hours, and a fingerprint of each message is kept for 30 days to catch duplicates. Both delete themselves automatically.
Files. Photos and documents you upload are stored in a private, locked storage area that only Ben can open. They are never shown on the site unless you have agreed. When a note or upload arrives, Ben receives an email about it.
Email. If you write to us, your address is used only to reply to you. We never add anyone to a mailing list without asking.

Other services

Map. The Map page loads map tiles from OpenStreetMap and its map software from the cdnjs library service. As with any website, those services see your internet address when your browser fetches from them.
Videos. Embedded videos use YouTube's privacy-enhanced mode, which does not set cookies until you press play.
Links out. Many items link to the archives that hold the originals, such as Yad Vashem, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, FamilySearch and Find a Grave. Those sites have their own privacy policies.

Living relatives

Because this archive is public, living people are handled very differently from those who have passed away:

No photographs of living people are shown.
Birth years only, never full birth dates.
Living relatives appear as “Private” with a family name, with no biography, documents or birthplace. The exceptions are Ben, Brooke and their parents and grandparents, and a few relatives whose stories are already public in museum archives.
No personal documents of the living (certificates, passports, applications, addresses or phone numbers) are ever published, and their first names are hidden inside the biographies of their parents and grandparents.

If you are a living relative and would like your name, photo or story to appear, we would be glad to add it with your consent. Parents can decide for their minor children.

Corrections and removal

If anything here is about you or your family and you would like it corrected, changed or removed, email doc@drbensoffer.com and it will be taken care of promptly, no questions asked. This includes guest book notes you wrote, files you uploaded and anything said about a parent or grandparent. Please tell us which page or person it concerns.

The same goes for records about the deceased: descendants who would prefer a document or photograph not be shown can ask for it to be taken down.

Children

The archive is meant for family of every age, but it does not knowingly collect information from children. Parents who find a note or upload from their child can ask for it to be removed.

Changes to this page

If the way the site handles information changes, this page will be updated and the date at the top will change with it.