Accessibility Statement

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1. What we are aiming for

We use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA as our target. It is the standard most commonly referenced when judging whether a website can be used by people with disabilities.

We are stating a goal, not a result. This site has not been through an independent audit, and we have not checked every page against every Level AA criterion. Saying "we conform to WCAG 2.1 AA" would be a claim we cannot back up, so we do not make it. This page is our own description of our own site. It is not a certificate and not a legal declaration of conformance.

What follows is the honest version: what we actually do, and what we have not done.

2. What we do

These are deliberate choices. Where we cannot show a measurement, we say so instead of putting a number on it.

Colour and contrast. Our palette is a deep navy, a gold, a cream and a deep red. We pick and review those pairings against the AA contrast levels whenever we choose or change a colour. We have not audited every combination on every page, so we do not claim that every page passes. If text anywhere is hard for you to read, tell us and we will look at that exact screen.

Buttons and links sized for real fingers. Buttons, menu links and form fields are built to be comfortably large on a phone, so they can be hit by someone with a tremor, with limited fine motor control, or with large hands on a small screen. The guidelines do not require a minimum size at the level we aim for. We do it because it is right, not to tick a box. We have not measured every control on every page, so we are describing a practice, not publishing a figure.

We respect your "reduce motion" setting. If you have turned on "Reduce motion" in Windows, macOS, iOS or Android, this site reads that preference and tones its movement down. We soften motion rather than strip the page bare, so the page still makes sense visually. We look at the site with the setting on and with it off.

Text that grows with you. Body text is set in units that scale, with generous line spacing and lines kept short enough to follow easily. If you enlarge text in your browser or in your operating system, our text grows with it. Parts of the buying process run on software written by other companies (see section 3), so we cannot promise how every screen behaves when it is enlarged. If enlarging text breaks a page for you, tell us — that is a defect and we want to know.

No account, no password. Checkout is guest checkout. You never have to create an account, invent a password, or get through a sign-up form to buy. The member portal at /my-reports/ opens from a private link we email you, so a forgotten password is never what stands between you and your report.

Real headings, real buttons, real links. The pages we build ourselves use proper headings, buttons and links, so a screen reader can announce how a page is organised and a keyboard can move through it in a sensible order. Images we add ourselves are given a text description. This is not yet finished across the older pages described below.

3. Where the gaps are

We would rather tell you than let you find out the hard way.

Older pages have not all been rebuilt. This site was moved from an earlier platform, and parts of it — some product pages, some blog posts, some older steps of the buying flow — still carry markup from that period. Heading order, form labels and focus styling have not all been reviewed there. Focus styling is the highlight that shows where you are on the page when you press Tab. Newer pages are built to the practices in section 2. Older ones are brought up whenever we touch them.

Our PDF reports are very likely not fully tagged. Each report is delivered both as a web page and as a PDF. The PDF is produced automatically by our own system, and a PDF made that way very likely does not carry a full tag structure, a reliable reading order, or a description for every image. In plain terms: a screen reader will not read the PDF as cleanly as it reads a web page.

The web version is the more accessible one. If you use assistive technology, we recommend reading your report on the web rather than in the PDF. You reach it from the private link we email you, and it can also be opened from /my-reports/. Download and keep your own copy of the PDF as well; how long we can go on hosting the online version is set out in our Terms of Service. If the web version does not work for you either, write to us and we will send you the text of your report in a plainer form — for example, as plain text in the body of an email.

Scanned newspaper pages are pictures, not text. A report can include a facsimile of a digitised newspaper page held by the Library of Congress. That facsimile is a photograph of an old page, not machine-readable text, so a screen reader cannot read the article out of the image. We show the reference and a link to the source copy, which may carry a machine transcription. Naming an archive is not a claim that we searched it on your behalf — see How Your Report Is Made. If you want to know what a page in your report says, ask us and we will describe it to you.

The imagery is produced by our system. The coat of arms and the other illustrations are generated by our own system: an artistic interpretation tied to a surname, not a grant of arms and not an archive document. We describe them in text where we can, but a written description of a device is never a full substitute for seeing it. If the description is not enough, write to us and we will describe your report's imagery in detail ourselves.

Parts of the site belong to other companies. We do not write their code. The card payment step is handled by Stripe. The shopping cart and checkout run on third-party e-commerce software. Shipment tracking is provided by the company that supplies our tracking. The optional Google Sign-In button is Google's. We cannot guarantee how any of them behave with assistive technology. If one of them blocks you, tell us — see section 4, and we will get you through it another way.

The pop-out cart has not been tested with a screen reader. The cart panel and the "added to cart" panel appear over the page. We have not tested how they announce themselves, or whether keyboard focus lands and returns where it should. Treat that as a known gap, not as a solved problem.

Automated tools only go so far. Our checks so far have been a mix of automated testing and manual review carried out in-house. That is not the same as testing with a range of real people using real assistive technology. We know that.

4. If something stops you, write to us

This is the part that matters most.

If any page, any step of buying, or any part of a report you have bought is unusable for you, email:

customer@myheritagestories.com

Please tell us, as best you can:

• the page or the step where the problem happened — a link is ideal,
• what you were trying to do,
• what happened instead,
• what you are using: screen reader, browser, phone or computer, if you know.

Someone else may write to us on your behalf. We will not ask you to prove or explain a disability. You do not owe us a reason.

What we will do.

• If the barrier is in something you already bought, we will get that content to you another way: plain text in an email, the web version instead of the PDF, or a written description of an image.
• If the barrier is in buying, we will help you place the order by email and send you a secure payment link so you can pay without fighting the page. We will never ask you for your card number in an email. Card payments are handled by Stripe, and we never see or store your card number.
• If we cannot make it usable for you, we would rather refund you than leave you holding something you cannot use. We will not refuse you because time has passed: a barrier is found when it is found, and you had no way to know sooner. The general rules on refunds are on our Refunds & Cancellations page, and that page governs everything else about them.

We read that inbox ourselves, so your message reaches a person directly. We answer within 48 hours. If a fix takes longer than that, we will tell you what we are doing rather than go quiet.

5. How we keep working on this

Accessibility here is ongoing work, not a finished project.

• New pages and new sections are built to the practices in section 2.
• When we rebuild an older page for any reason, we bring its accessibility up at the same time.
• A barrier reported by a customer is treated as a defect, not a suggestion. It is the only signal we get from outside our own screen.
• When we change a colour, we check it against the contrast levels before it goes live. When we change animation, we look at the page with motion reduction on and off.

We do not have a fixed date by which we expect to meet WCAG 2.1 AA across the whole site, and we are not going to publish one we cannot hold to.

6. What this statement covers

This statement covers the website at myheritagestories.com, the reports we deliver from it — the free ones and the ones you buy — and the member portal at /my-reports/. It is written in English and describes the English-language site.

Our physical products — for example the signet ring, the framed crest and the family pack — are made and shipped by other companies. Their packaging, inserts and shipping paperwork are outside our control and outside this statement. If anything about a physical order is unreadable for you, including a label or a tracking email, write to us and we will read it to you or send you the same information in another form. Delivery itself is covered on our Shipping & Delivery page.

This statement was prepared from our own review of the site: a mix of automated testing and manual checking carried out in-house. It has not been reviewed by an outside auditor. We will update it as the site changes, and as we learn about problems we did not know we had.

Every way to reach us is on our Contact page. There is only one: email.

Last updated: August 24, 2026