Broker profile
FamilySearch
A free, non-profit genealogy service operated by FamilySearch International, a non-profit affiliated with and supported by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It holds the largest genealogical record collection in the world: billions of indexed historical records plus a user-contributed shared Family Tree. Founded as the Genealogical Society of Utah in 1894 and led by Stephen T. Rockwood since 2015. It doesn't sell consumer data.
FamilySearch overview
At a glance
Redact's exposure rating
- Data published
- Editorial estimate
- Re-listing frequency
- Editorial estimate
- Complaint record
- Mixed
- Opt-out friction
- Moderate
- Operator opacity
- Fully disclosed
- Prior data incidents
- None documented
Our editorial assessment from public sources as of May 27, 2026, and our own opt-out testing as of May 27, 2026. Each dimension is scored 1 to 4, higher means more exposure, and the overall gauge is their average, unless a confirmed breach holds it higher. It is an opinion, not a finding about the company's conduct or legal compliance. Dimensions marked "Editorial estimate" are estimated from the kind of service offered rather than observed on this site. How we score
What each dimension means
- Data published: how much and how sensitive the personal data they put out.
- Re-listing frequency: how quickly you reappear after opting out.
- Complaint record: the volume and pattern of complaints across BBB, Trustpilot, and Sitejabber. No listing, or a listing with no reviews, counts against the broker.
- Opt-out friction: how hard the removal process is to complete.
- Operator opacity: how hidden the operating company and its principals are.
- Prior data incidents: history of breaches or leaks of the data they hold.
- Category
Genealogy · historical records
- Operating entity
- Founded
Nov 13, 1894
- CEO
Stephen T. Rockwood
- Headquarters
Salt Lake City, UT
- Affiliated with
- Structure
Non-profit · free · volunteer-driven
- FCRA covered?
Doesn't present itself as a CRA
Background
Background
FamilySearch's product is free public access to the largest genealogical record collection in the world. The data includes billions of indexed historical records (census, vital records, immigration, military, parish, probate), the user-contributed shared Family Tree, and a Memories archive of photos, documents, and stories. Access is free for everyone, and users don't need to be LDS members.
- Founded
November 13, 1894
- Renamed
FamilySearch International
- Cost
Free
- Records
Billions of indexed historical records globally
- Physical access
Family History Library + ~5,000 centers
- Partners
Ancestry · MyHeritage · FindMyPast · Geneanet
The Genealogical Society of Utah was founded on November 13, 1894 by Wilford Woodruff, the fourth President of the LDS Church. The Society grew into the world's largest collector of genealogical microfilm (the Granite Mountain Records Vault in Little Cottonwood Canyon outside Salt Lake City has stored microfilm and digital copies of vital records from ~100 countries since 1965). The consumer-facing website launched as FamilySearch.org in 1999 and the modern shared Family Tree platform launched in the early 2010s.
Today the site is operated by FamilySearch International, a Utah nonprofit corporation affiliated with and supported by the Church. The organization runs the Family History Library in Salt Lake City (the world's largest genealogical library), about 5,000 Family History Centers worldwide (most located in LDS meetinghouses, open to the public), the RootsTech annual conference, and partnerships with for-profit genealogy sites that exchange data and search interoperability. Stephen T. Rockwood became President and CEO on October 1, 2015, replacing Dennis Brimhall.
FamilySearch is a different kind of "data broker" than the people-search brokers in this directory. It's a non-profit genealogy service, not a for-profit data company. It doesn't sell consumer data, doesn't run targeted advertising, and doesn't monetize the records. The consumer-privacy concerns are nonetheless real:
- Voluntary family-tree contributions can expose information about your living relatives that you (the person being added) didn't consent to share
- Partnerships with for-profit sites (Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast, Geneanet) extend the reach of FamilySearch's data into commercial channels
- The opt-out path is centralized through the Church's Data Privacy Office rather than self-service on the website
Closest analog in this directory: Ancestry, the for-profit consumer genealogy service that runs DNA testing alongside family-tree records. FamilySearch is functionally the non-profit, free counterpart; FamilySearch and Ancestry have a long-running data partnership and overlap heavily in record coverage. FamilyTreeNow is also in the directory but operates as a free public-records people-search site under a "genealogy" framing rather than a true genealogy service.
Data Published
Data types
Indexed historical records: census, birth, marriage, death, immigration, naturalization, military, draft, probate, land, parish, and church records (billions of entries globally)
Shared Family Tree: user-contributed family-relationship data on deceased individuals (visible to all users) and living individuals (private to the entering user)
Memories: photos, documents, audio recordings, and stories uploaded by users about ancestors or themselves
Account data for registered users: name, email, location, account-activity history
Granite Mountain Records Vault: digitized microfilm archive (~100 countries' vital records since 1965)
RootsTech conference content: speaker sessions, attendee registration data
Search and usage analytics tied to logged-in accounts
Data exchanged with partner sites: Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast, Geneanet, American Ancestors, Filae
How the data is sourced: A mix of (a) government records (census, vital records, court records) digitized under license with the source jurisdictions, (b) religious institution archives (parish records, synagogue records, etc.) contributed by partner organizations, (c) volunteer-indexed records (FamilySearch uses thousands of volunteer indexers worldwide to transcribe scanned images), (d) user-contributed Family Tree data uploaded by registered users, and (e) data received through partnerships with for-profit genealogy sites in exchange for reciprocal data sharing. Users don't pay for the service; FamilySearch is supported by the LDS Church.
The privacy split between living and deceased people. FamilySearch treats living and deceased people differently. Deceased individuals in the shared Family Tree are visible to all users and editable by anyone with an account. This is the design choice that enables collaborative genealogy but also drives common complaints about strangers altering tree entries. Living individuals are visible only to the user who entered them; they're kept in a "private space" and can't be searched or seen by other users. The line between living and deceased is set by date of birth and recorded death; ambiguous cases default to "living" / private.
Data exchanged with for-profit partners. Through partnerships with Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast, Geneanet, and others, FamilySearch shares some record collections with paid subscribers of those sites. Conversely, FamilySearch members can search the partner sites' records through FamilySearch. So user-contributed Family Tree data on deceased individuals (which is public on FamilySearch) is reachable inside paid commercial databases without the user choosing to publish it on those platforms.
Contact
Contacts & links
- Operating entity
FamilySearch International (a Utah nonprofit corporation)
- Headquarters
50 E. North Temple Street Salt Lake City, UT 84150
- LDS Data Privacy Office (FCRA, CCPA, DSR requests)
- Data Privacy Office mailing address
Data Privacy Office 50 E. North Temple Street Salt Lake City, UT 84150-0005
- Privacy settings in Family Tree
- Remove living person from historical records
- Global Privacy Notice
- Family History Library (Salt Lake City)
35 N. West Temple Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84150 World's largest genealogical library; public access free
- General website
Network
Data partners
FamilySearch is affiliated with and supported by the LDS Church but also runs an extensive data-exchange relationship with the major for-profit genealogy sites. That means user-contributed and indexed records flow between FamilySearch and the commercial sites in both directions.
Cross-category comparison: within this directory, the closest commercial analog is Ancestry, the for-profit consumer genealogy service that also runs DNA testing. FamilySearch and Ancestry partner extensively and share records bidirectionally. The other genealogy-adjacent broker in this directory is FamilyTreeNow, which markets a "genealogy" framing but is functionally a free public-records people-search site. That's a different shape from FamilySearch's true non-profit genealogy mission. Across categories, FamilySearch has no direct analog among the people-search brokers (Whitepages, BeenVerified, etc.). Those operate consumer-search businesses on public-records data; FamilySearch is collaboratively curated genealogical data.
Data exchange runs both ways with commercial partners
A privacy or deletion request submitted to FamilySearch covers FamilySearch's holdings only. It doesn't automatically propagate to Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast, Geneanet, or other partner sites that may have separately ingested records sourced through these partnerships. If your data appears on a partner site you'll need to submit a separate request there. Likewise, opting out at Ancestry doesn't remove your data from FamilySearch.
Reputation
Trust signals
FamilySearch's reputation splits in two. Long-time genealogists praise the free access to record collections and the Memories archive; newer users frequently complain about the open-edit shared Family Tree where anyone can alter ancestor data without evidence. The BBB rating reflects a non-response pattern on a small number of complaints rather than systemic complaint volume.
What reviewers and complainants say, from the sources above. Redact hasn't verified these complaints.
Open-edit Family Tree: any registered user can alter ancestor records on deceased relatives, often without source documentation
Ancestors with verifiable evidence being deleted or merged incorrectly by other users
Slow / unhelpful customer service responses on tree-correction requests
Privacy requests routed through the Church's Data Privacy Office taking longer than expected
Confusion about how FamilySearch data flows into partner sites (Ancestry, MyHeritage, etc.) for paid-subscriber search
Common complaint themes:
Litigation
Litigation history
No confirmed FTC enforcement action, state Attorney General consent decree, CCPA / CPRA enforcement, or named consumer class action against FamilySearch International as of the date at the foot of this page. Civil litigation against FamilySearch is rare because the service is free, the legal entity is a church-affiliated non-profit (which carries certain First Amendment and religious-organization protections), and the data practices on living people are conservative by design.
Related and contextual matters:
- No state Delete Act enforcement against FamilySearch under California's data-broker framework. Whether FamilySearch meets the CA data-broker definition is unsettled. The "direct relationship" exemption (CCPA / CPRA) arguably covers registered users for their own data, while non-user data (relatives added to trees) sits in a gray zone.
FAQ
Q & A
Is FamilySearch a data broker?
Yes, in the sense that FamilySearch aggregates and republishes the largest genealogical record collection in the world, but it differs structurally from the for-profit people-search brokers in this directory. FamilySearch is a free, non-profit service operated by FamilySearch International, a non-profit affiliated with and supported by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS Church). It doesn't sell consumer data. The privacy concerns are different. Voluntary family-tree contributions can expose information about your living relatives, and partnerships with for-profit sites (Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast, Geneanet) extend the reach of that data.
Who operates FamilySearch?
FamilySearch is operated by FamilySearch International, a non-profit affiliated with and supported by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS Church). It's headquartered at 50 E. North Temple Street, Salt Lake City, Utah 84150. Stephen T. Rockwood has been President and CEO since October 1, 2015. The organization was founded November 13, 1894 as the Genealogical Society of Utah by Wilford Woodruff, the fourth President of the LDS Church; it celebrated its 130-year anniversary in November 2024.
What information does FamilySearch collect?
FamilySearch holds billions of indexed historical records (census, vital records, immigration, military, church records), the user-contributed shared Family Tree, the Memories collection (photos, documents, stories uploaded by users), and account data for registered users. The Family Tree includes data on living people only visible to the user who entered it; deceased people are visible to all users by default. Records are also exchanged with partner sites (Ancestry, MyHeritage, FindMyPast, Geneanet, American Ancestors). The Family History Library in Salt Lake City plus ~5,000 Family History Centers worldwide also provide physical and microfilm access.
Can I remove myself from FamilySearch?
Partially. Information about living people in the Family Tree is private by design. Only the user who entered it can see or modify it, so most living-person data isn't publicly exposed. For indexed historical records that incorrectly include a living person (yourself or someone you legally represent), you can request the record be made inaccessible by emailing DataPrivacyOfficer@ChurchofJesusChrist.org or mailing the Data Privacy Office at 50 E. North Temple Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84150-0005. FamilySearch doesn't provide a self-service removal flow on the website itself. All privacy requests go through the Church's central Data Privacy Office. See our FamilySearch removal guide for step-by-step instructions.
How long does FamilySearch take to process a removal?
FamilySearch doesn't publish a turnaround for privacy requests, and no statutory clock clearly applies: California's CCPA / CPRA exempts nonprofits unless a for-profit controls them and shares their branding and data, and FamilySearch International is a non-profit affiliated with the Church, so the 45-day deadline that binds commercial brokers can't be assumed here. Requests routed through the Church's Data Privacy Office are processed centrally for all Church organizations, not just FamilySearch. Allow at least four to eight weeks and follow up by email if you don't receive an acknowledgement.
Is FamilySearch covered by FCRA?
FamilySearch doesn't present itself as a consumer reporting agency. Its records are genealogical and historical rather than consumer reports, and most concern deceased individuals. The relevant framework is the Church's own Global Privacy Notice; state privacy laws such as CCPA / CPRA generally exempt nonprofits, so they may not reach FamilySearch at all.
Take yourself off data broker sites
Redact scans data broker sites from your device. The free scan shows which of your details are exposed but hides which broker lists you; Premium and Ultimate show where each listing is. They also submit removals for most brokers Redact covers and hand you the opt-out link for the rest, then re-scan on a schedule and file again if you reappear. Coverage varies by broker.
The page provides general information, not legal advice. Redact is not affiliated with or endorsed by FamilySearch or any other company named here. Spotted an error, or represent this company? Email support@redact.dev.