Heraldry Studies Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 14, 2026

This Privacy Policy describes how Heraldry Studies ("we", "us" or "our") collects, uses and discloses your personal information when you visit our websites, use our surname search tools, make a purchase, or otherwise communicate with us. It covers heraldrystudies.com, findyourcrest.com, the search tools at search.heraldrystudies.com and maps.heraldrystudies.com, our store at heraldicshield.myshopify.com, and our emails and customer care (together, the "Services").

Heraldry Studies is operated by HERALDRY LLC. Fill in the registered company name and address here before publishing; both are required under US state privacy laws and the GDPR.

"You" and "your" means you as a user of the Services, whether you are a visitor, a person who runs a surname search, a customer, or another individual whose information we have collected.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. By using the Services you agree to the collection, use and disclosure of your information as described here. If you do not agree, please do not use the Services.

Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or for operational, legal or regulatory reasons. We will post the revised version on the Site, update the "Last updated" date, and take any other steps required by law.

What we collect

The information we collect depends on how you interact with us.

Information you give us directly

• Surname search details: the family name and, if you provide it, the country of origin you enter into our search tools. See "How the surname search works" below.
• Order details: your name, billing and shipping address, email address, phone number, the products you order, and the personalization you request (family name, country of origin, ring size, frame choice and similar).
• Customer care: anything you include when you email us, reply to our emails, or send us photos of an order.
• Account details, if you create a customer account: username, password and security questions.
• Reviews and messages you choose to send us or post.

You may choose not to provide some of this information, but that may prevent you from using parts of the Services, for example we cannot make a personalized piece without a family name.

Information we collect automatically

When you use the Services we collect certain usage data through cookies, pixels and similar technologies: device and browser information, IP address, approximate location derived from it, pages viewed, actions taken on a page, referring pages, and how you interact with our emails and advertisements.

Information from third parties

• Shopify, which hosts our store and processes orders and checkout.
• Our payment processors (for example Shopify Payments, Stripe or PayPal), which collect your payment card or account details to process your payment. We never see or store your full card number.
• Advertising and analytics partners such as Meta and Google, which may collect information about your visit through pixels and similar tools.
• Email service providers such as Klaviyo, which record whether you open or click our emails.

We treat information from third parties in accordance with this Privacy Policy. We are not responsible for the accuracy of that information or for the practices of those third parties.

How the surname search works

Our surname search tools are automated. When you enter a family name and an optional country of origin:

• We send those two details to our own servers, hosted on Google Cloud (Firebase), where they are used to prepare your results.
• To generate the summary, we use artificial intelligence models provided by Google together with our indexed collection of historic and geographic references. The family name and country are shared with Google for that purpose. We do not send your email address, IP address or any other identifying information to the AI provider.
• We store the generated result, keyed by family name and country, so that later searches for the same name are faster and consistent. We also keep a log of each search (the name and country entered, the time, the page the search came from and basic browser information) to operate, secure and improve the tool.
• If you continue to a product page, the result is carried in the page address or your browser's session storage so the page can be personalized. It is not tied to you personally unless you place an order.
• Results are estimates for commemorative purposes. See our Disclaimer and Terms and Conditions for what the results are and are not.

You are not required to provide an email address to run a search.

How we use your information

• Providing the Services and fulfilling orders. To run your search, prepare your results, process your payment, create your personalized artwork, jewellery, maps or reports, arrange production and shipping, send order and shipping notifications, handle returns and refunds, and provide customer care. This is necessary to perform our contract with you.
• Personalization. To personalize the pages, emails and products you see with the family name and origin you gave us.
• Marketing. To send you marketing emails and, where permitted, text messages, and to show you advertisements for our products on other websites and platforms. This is in our legitimate interests or, where required by law, based on your consent. You can opt out at any time as described under "Your choices".
• Improving the Services. To understand how the Services are used, fix problems, test changes and improve our search tools, artwork and products. This is in our legitimate interests.
• Security and fraud prevention. To detect, investigate and prevent fraudulent, illegal or harmful activity, and to protect our rights and those of our customers.
• Legal obligations. To comply with applicable laws, respond to lawful requests, enforce our terms and policies, and defend legal claims.

We do not sell your personal information for money. We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information to infer characteristics about you. We do not make decisions with legal or similarly significant effects about you using automated processing.

Cookies and tracking

We use cookies, pixels and similar technologies to operate the Services, remember your preferences, measure how the Services are used, and show and measure advertising. Our store runs on Shopify; information about the cookies Shopify uses is at https://www.shopify.com/legal/cookies. We also use the Meta Pixel and Google tools on our sites.

Some of this activity may be considered "sharing" or "targeted advertising" under certain US state laws. You can opt out as described under "Your choices". Most browsers accept cookies by default; you can set your browser to remove or reject them, although some parts of the Services may then not work correctly.

How we disclose your information

We disclose personal information to third parties for the purposes described above, including:

• Service providers who act on our behalf: Shopify (store hosting and checkout), payment processors, Google Cloud and Firebase (hosting and the surname search), Google (AI models used to generate search results), Netlify (hosting of our search tools), Klaviyo (email), production and printing partners and shipping carriers who receive your name, address and the personalization needed to make and deliver your order, and providers of customer support, analytics and IT services.
• Advertising partners such as Meta and Google, to advertise to you and measure our advertising.
• At your direction or with your consent, for example when you ask us to ship to someone else.
• Within our corporate group and with our affiliates, in our legitimate interest in running the business.
• In connection with a business transaction such as a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, and to comply with the law, including responding to subpoenas and similar requests, enforcing our terms, and protecting the rights, property and safety of Heraldry Studies, our customers and others.

In the past 12 months we have disclosed the following categories of personal information for the purposes above: identifiers (name, contact details, order and account information); commercial information (orders, searches, shopping and customer care information); and internet or network activity (usage data). Recipients were service providers, advertising partners and affiliates as described above.

Your choices

• Marketing emails. Use the unsubscribe link in any marketing email. We may still send you transactional emails about your orders or searches.
• Text messages. Reply STOP to any message.
• Cookies and targeted advertising. Adjust your browser settings, use the cookie controls shown on our sites where available, and use the opt out tools offered by Meta and Google. Where our sites offer a "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information" link or honour the Global Privacy Control signal, we will treat those as opt out requests.
• Search results. You can ask us to delete the search log entries associated with a family name you entered by contacting us.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to: access the personal information we hold about you; request that we correct or delete it; receive a copy in a portable format; restrict or object to certain processing; withdraw consent where we rely on it; opt out of targeted advertising, the sale of personal information, or profiling; and appeal a decision we make about your request.

These rights are not absolute and may be limited by law. To exercise them, email us using the contact details below. We may need to verify your identity, for example by confirming your email address or order details, before responding. You may use an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf; we will require proof of authorization and may need to verify your identity directly. We will respond within the time required by applicable law, and we will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you may lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

Data retention

We keep personal information for as long as needed for the purposes described above: order and payment records for as long as required by tax and accounting law; customer care correspondence for as long as needed to resolve your request and defend claims; marketing data until you unsubscribe or we have no ongoing relationship with you; and search logs for up to 24 months unless you ask us to delete them sooner. Generated search results are stored by family name and country, not by person.

Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information, and our payment providers handle card data under their own security standards. No system is completely secure, and information sent over the internet may not be secure in transit, so please do not send us sensitive information through unsecured channels.

Children

The Services are not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, contact us and we will delete it. We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of anyone under 16.

International transfers

We operate internationally and your information may be stored and processed outside the country where you live, including in the United States and in the countries where our service providers operate. Where we transfer information out of the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, we rely on approved safeguards such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or an adequacy decision.

Third party websites

Our Services may link to websites we do not control. Their privacy practices are their own; please review them before providing information.

Contact us

Questions about this Privacy Policy, or requests to exercise your rights:

Email: heraldrystudies@findyourcrest.com Business name: Heraldry Studies

We answer within 24 hours, Monday through Friday.