Privacy Policy

What this site is

Grandma's Front Porch is a private family community, not a public commercial service. It's currently accessible to anyone who has the family invite code — there isn't yet an individual account/login system, so this policy describes what happens once someone has that code, not a fully public website.

What we collect

• Family-tree information: names, nicknames, birth/death years, birthplace, location, biography, and relationships to other people — whatever is filled in, which can be as little as a name and how they're related.
• Uploaded photos and who is tagged in them.
• Your name and email when you add someone to the tree, fill in details on a profile, submit an event, or upload a photo — so an administrator can follow up if something needs correcting.
• Your email (and name, if given) if you subscribe to the newsletter.
• For the password-protected admin area (the "Sanctum"): every login attempt is logged with its outcome, IP address, and browser/device information (user agent) — see "Sanctum access logging" below.

How it's used

Solely to run the site: displaying the family tree and photo album, sending the newsletter to people who asked for it, and letting an administrator review event submissions and respond to correction or removal requests. We don't sell or share your information with third parties, and we don't run advertising or third-party analytics on this site — the one limited exception is described in "Our partnership with Stories Worth Keeping" below.

Our partnership with Stories Worth Keeping

Grandma's Front Porch partners with author Renaye Rutherford's Stories Worth Keeping service (renayerutherford.com/services). This site's "more than a story" page links out to Stories Worth Keeping, and Backyard Tales includes (or will include) a link to it as well. If you're referred from one site to the other, or you purchase Stories Worth Keeping after being referred from here, limited information may be shared between the two sites — such as confirming that a referral happened or coordinating an order — solely to support this partnership. Neither site sells or shares your personal information with the other for unrelated marketing purposes.

How your information is protected

Everything on this site is stored with Convex, our database provider. Convex encrypts all customer data at rest with industry-standard 256-bit AES, and encrypts everything in transit (both internally and between your browser and our servers) with TLS/SSH. This protects your information from anyone accessing the underlying servers or intercepting network traffic — it does not mean any individual field is hidden from the site administrator, who can see what's stored the same way this policy describes.

Children and minors

Information or photos of a minor should only be added by a parent or legal guardian. Anyone can ask for a minor's information or photo to be removed at any time — use the Contact Us link in the footer and it will be taken down.

Adding vs. correcting information

Anyone with the invite code can add a new person to the tree or fill in details that are still blank on someone's profile. Once a detail is filled in, it can only be changed by asking the site administrator (use the Contact Us link in the footer) — this is intentional, so established facts aren't casually overwritten. Removing a person from the tree, or a photo from the album, can only be done by the site administrator.

Sanctum access logging

The admin area (the "Sanctum") is protected by a separate password. Every attempt to log into it — successful or not — is recorded with a timestamp, the outcome, the visitor's IP address, and their browser/device information, so the administrator can see who has accessed (or tried to access) that area. This is for security monitoring only. It's a best-effort record — an IP address doesn't always identify a specific person, especially on a shared network.

Cookies

This site uses two session cookies: one that remembers you've entered the family invite code, and one (separate) for the Sanctum admin session. Both are used only to keep you logged in and are never shared with third parties. No advertising or third-party tracking cookies are used.

Requesting a correction, removal, or a copy of your data

To do this, use the Contact Us link in the footer. This includes correcting or removing family-tree information, removing a photo, unsubscribing from the newsletter (also available with one click from any newsletter email), or asking what information we have about you.

Your rights over your information

Regardless of where you live, you can ask at any time (use the Contact Us link in the footer) to: tell you what information this site holds about you, correct it, delete it, or stop using it for a specific purpose (for example, unsubscribing from the newsletter). Requests are handled by a family member acting as administrator, by email, on a best-effort basis — this is a private family site run informally, not a company with a dedicated privacy team or a formal process for verifying legal residency or citizenship before responding.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the site grows. The date at the top will always reflect the most recent update.