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Terms of Service

Effective and last updated: September 4, 2026

Please read these Terms carefully. By creating an account, checking the agreement box, accessing an API, or using TurboTree, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use TurboTree.

1. Agreement and eligibility

These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) are an agreement between you and TurboTree (“TurboTree,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), governing your use of turbotree.org, its subdomains, APIs, software, and related services (collectively, the “Service”). If you use the Service for an organization or another person, you represent that you have authority to bind them to these Terms. You must be at least 13 years old. If you are not legally able to enter a binding contract where you live, a parent or legal guardian must agree for you and supervise your use.

2. What TurboTree provides

TurboTree provides tools for organizing, researching, citing, mapping, and sharing genealogical information. Features may include AI-assisted research, user-controlled agents, third-party links, document storage, APIs, and public or private family projects. The Service is a research and organization tool, not a professional genealogist, archival authority, legal service, or guarantor of family relationships or historical facts.

3. Your account and API keys

You must provide accurate account information, keep passwords, API keys, and share links secure, and promptly notify us of suspected unauthorized access. You are responsible for activity performed through your account, credentials, agents, and project links. Do not publish an API key or give it to a person or service you do not trust. We may reclaim misleading or abusive usernames and may limit, suspend, or terminate accounts to protect the Service or enforce these Terms.

4. Third-party services, archives, and automated access

The Service can help you locate, link to, or work with records from FamilySearch, archives, libraries, government repositories, search providers, LLM providers, and other third parties. Those services are independent from TurboTree and are governed by their own terms, licenses, robots policies, API restrictions, acceptable-use rules, rate limits, and AI or machine-learning policies.

You are solely responsible for determining and obeying every third-party rule that applies to your access and use. This includes restrictions on bots, scraping, downloading, bulk access, automated queries, reproduction, redistribution, and submitting content to an AI or LLM. TurboTree’s technical ability to follow a link, call an API, or operate through an agent is not permission from the third party. You must use authorized access methods, respect rate limits and access controls, and stop automated access when a provider prohibits or withdraws permission for it. You may not use TurboTree to evade logins, paywalls, CAPTCHAs, technical controls, or access restrictions.

5. AI and research accuracy

AI systems and automated tools can hallucinate, mistranscribe handwriting, mistranslate text, merge different people, omit context, invent citations, misread dates or places, and make other serious mistakes. Search indexes and historical records can also be incomplete or wrong. TurboTree may provide citations, confidence labels, original-image links, change logs, review queues, and correction tools to help you evaluate results, but those tools do not make a result accurate.

You are responsible for reviewing and verifying all research and output before relying on it, publishing it, or adding it to a family tree. Whenever reasonably possible, inspect the original record image, provenance, and surrounding context. TurboTree does not warrant the accuracy, completeness, authenticity, legality, or fitness of any AI output, transcription, translation, search result, record, citation, relationship, date, or other information available through the Service.

6. Copyright, trademarks, and other rights

Records being old, publicly viewable, or discoverable through TurboTree does not necessarily make record images, database entries, transcriptions, photographs, archive descriptions, or trademarks free to copy or republish. You are solely responsible for complying with copyright, trademark, database-right, publicity-right, contractual, and other laws and restrictions applicable to material you access, download, upload, reproduce, analyze, or share.

You represent that you own or have all permissions necessary for content you submit to the Service and for the way you direct TurboTree or an agent to use it. Do not use the Service to infringe or misappropriate anyone’s rights, remove rights notices, imply sponsorship, or misuse a name or logo. If a source permits personal research but restricts publication, commercial use, automated processing, or AI use, you must honor that restriction.

7. Your content and license to operate the Service

You retain ownership of content you submit, subject to any rights others already hold. You grant TurboTree a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, format, transmit, display, and create technical derivatives of that content only as reasonably necessary to operate, secure, back up, improve, and provide the Service according to your settings. This license ends when your content is deleted from active systems, except for reasonable backup retention, legal obligations, and content shared or exported by others before deletion.

You are responsible for your content, research conclusions, project settings, exports, and disclosures. We may remove or restrict content that we reasonably believe violates law, third-party rights, these Terms, or the safety of the Service.

8. Living people, sensitive information, and sharing

Genealogical projects may contain personal, sensitive, disputed, or harmful information, especially about living people. You must have a lawful and appropriate basis to collect, upload, process, or disclose personal information. Use particular care with minors, adoptees, parentage, health information, addresses, contact details, government identifiers, genetic information, allegations, and information that could enable harassment, discrimination, identity theft, or physical harm.

You control whether a project is public or private and whether you create share links. Public projects and anyone holding an active share link may be able to view or copy the information made available to them. Do not treat a share link as a substitute for careful privacy judgment. Obtain any consent required by law, avoid publishing unnecessary information about living people, and promptly correct or remove information when appropriate.

9. AI providers, agents, and costs

If you connect an LLM, AI agent, browser tool, storage provider, or other external service, information may be sent to that provider under its terms and privacy practices. You decide which services and credentials to connect and are responsible for configuring them safely. You are also responsible for provider charges, usage limits, taxes, and consequences of actions taken by an agent using your credentials. Review proposed agent actions and use appropriately limited keys and permissions.

10. Acceptable use

You may not use the Service to:

11. TurboTree intellectual property

The Service’s software, design, branding, and operator-provided content are owned by or licensed to TurboTree and are protected by applicable law. Subject to these Terms, we give you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the Service for its intended purpose. No right to use the TurboTree name, logos, or marks is granted except to identify the Service accurately. Any open-source components remain governed by their applicable licenses.

12. Third-party content and services

We do not control or endorse third-party services, records, websites, AI models, or content merely because the Service links to or interoperates with them. They may change, become unavailable, lose data, charge fees, or produce harmful or inaccurate material. Your dealings with third parties are between you and them, and TurboTree is not responsible for their acts, omissions, terms, security, availability, or content.

13. Service changes, availability, and termination

We may add, remove, limit, or change features and may suspend the Service for maintenance, security, legal, or operational reasons. We do not promise uninterrupted availability or permanent storage. Keep independent backups of important records and exports. You may stop using the Service at any time. We may suspend or terminate access if you violate these Terms, create risk or legal exposure, or materially harm the Service or others. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination—including ownership, licenses needed for retained backups, disclaimers, limits of liability, and dispute terms—will survive.

14. Disclaimers

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE.” TURBOTREE DISCLAIMS ALL EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, AUTHENTICITY, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, SECURITY, AVAILABILITY, AND THAT DATA WILL NOT BE LOST. WE DO NOT WARRANT AI OUTPUT, GENEALOGICAL CONCLUSIONS, THIRD-PARTY RECORDS, LINKS, OR SERVICES. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW CERTAIN DISCLAIMERS, SO SOME OF THESE DISCLAIMERS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

15. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, TURBOTREE AND ITS AFFILIATES, PERSONNEL, CONTRACTORS, AND AGENTS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, GOODWILL, RESEARCH TIME, OR OPPORTUNITIES, ARISING FROM OR RELATED TO THE SERVICE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US FOR THE SERVICE DURING THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM OR (B) US$100. THESE LIMITS DO NOT APPLY WHERE LIABILITY CANNOT LAWFULLY BE LIMITED.

16. Indemnity

To the extent permitted by law, you will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless TurboTree and its affiliates, personnel, contractors, and agents from claims, damages, losses, liabilities, and reasonable legal fees arising from your content, your agents or credentials, your violation of these Terms, your violation of third-party terms or rights, or your unlawful or harmful use of the Service. This does not require you to indemnify a party for its own unlawful conduct where prohibited by law.

17. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. We will post the revised version with a new effective date and, when changes are material, provide reasonable notice or require renewed assent. Changes apply prospectively from their effective date. If you do not agree to revised Terms, you must stop using the Service.

18. Governing law and general terms

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute that is not required by law to be heard elsewhere must be brought in the state or federal courts located in New York, and each party consents to their jurisdiction and venue. These Terms are the entire agreement about the Service and supersede prior statements on that subject. If a provision is unenforceable, it will be limited to the minimum extent necessary and the remaining provisions remain effective. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them in connection with a reorganization, merger, acquisition, or sale of the Service. Headings are for convenience only.

19. Contact

Questions, legal notices, and reports of copyright or other rights concerns may be sent to legal@turbotree.org. Please identify the material or account at issue and provide enough detail for us to investigate.