Honesty
We'd rather tell you a link is shaky than quietly hope you don't notice. These are the rules we hold ourselves to.
We never pretend to be sure
Every link between two people is rated on the same four-rung ladder — the same one you see on How it works and in every report:
- Proved. A record names both people, and it's been read.
- Documented. Real records back it up.
- Index only. A name-and-date match in an index; no record read yet.
- Family story. Passed down, or copied from another tree; no record found so far.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, so that's the one we show you. And a result of “No connection found” is not the same as “not related” — it means nobody has found the paper trail yet, not that one doesn't exist.
The number, if you want it
The word — Confirmed, Probably, Maybe, Unlikely, or No connection found — is the headline, because a raw percentage doesn't mean much on its own. But the arithmetic behind it is never hidden: it's a chance, built by multiplying the strength of every link in the chain together, so one weak link pulls the whole number down. Every result page has a “Show the arithmetic” detail — most show the percentage behind the number, along with how many generations the chain covers and how many links sit on each rung of the ladder above, for anyone who wants to check our work. A result inside your own family's tree shows the weakest link and a tally instead, since the compiled family tree underneath can't yet be scored as confidently as a read record.
Show the arithmetic (example)
A result might read “62% · 4 generations · estimate — uncalibrated”: a 62% chance the connection is real, across four generations, using our current estimate rather than one checked against real records yet (see “calibrated” vs. “estimate” below each result). Underneath that, a small tally shows exactly how many links in the chain were Proved, Documented, Index only, or Family story — the same four rungs as the ladder above.
Living people stay private
A living person's details — birthday, address, anything personal — are shown only inside their own family's signed-in site, and only if that family chooses to show them. On this public site a living person never appears by name or date, only as “a living relative.” The one name a family may choose to show outside its site is its reference person's — the owner picks that person and agrees to it. Any relative can ask for their details to be removed from their family's site, and we do it by hand.
Research and Help are answered by a machine first
When you ask us to chase down a record (how it works), an AI agent does the looking, reading only the sources we allow it to, and cites every record it uses by URL. A finding that carries a citable URL and a clear rung of evidence is added to your family's tree automatically; anything less certain waits for your family's owner to decide. On the Help page, the first answer you see comes from an AI too — it can only talk, never change your tree, and it escalates to a person whenever it is unsure.
Your tree stays yours
When you check a tree file on Bring Your Cousins, we read it to build your report and then throw it away — nothing is stored. Anything you put in your family's site you can download again as a standard family-tree file from your Account page. We don't sell or share family data.
You see the price first
Joining and browsing are free. When something costs money — asking us to chase down a record — you see the estimate before it starts and are only ever charged what it actually used. We don't collect card details until there's something to buy.
Questions
Something here doesn't sound right, or you want a detail removed? Tell us — a real person reads every message.