How Your Report Is Made & Disclaimer

This page explains how a report from FamilyCrests is produced: which parts of it come from real public records, which parts our system builds, and what the report does not claim.

It is written to be read before you buy. You do not have to buy anything to read it, and it says the same thing before and after a sale.

1. What a Heritage Volume actually is

A Heritage Volume is a book about a surname.

It gathers what is generally recorded about a name: how common it is in the United States, where it appears in the printed record, which documented people have carried it, and what places and periods are connected with it. It presents that alongside a reconstructed portrait of the name's origins, movement and heraldic identity.

It is a volume about a name and the world that name moved through. It is not a case file about you.

It is sold as a one-time purchase, in three levels — The Record, The Chronicle and The Archive. They differ in length, not in method: everything on this page applies to all three. The price and the length of each one are shown on the product page before you buy.

We would rather you understand what the volume is before you pay for it than discover it afterwards.

2. How it is produced: one system, the same answer every time

Your report is generated by software we built.

The system is deterministic. In plain words: give it the same surname and it gives back the same volume every time. The same origin percentages, the same crest, the same chapters. Two strangers on opposite sides of the country who share a surname receive the same volume.

That is by design, and it has consequences worth stating plainly.

• Nothing in your report is about your particular family. The system knows your surname. It does not know your grandmother, your county or your line.
• No human reviews your order. Nobody opens an archive on your behalf. Nobody checks whether the story fits your family.
• Delivery takes minutes, because there is no queue and nobody working through a list. The volume is assembled and sent.

We name archives in the report because that is where the underlying reference material comes from. Naming an archive is not a claim that we searched it on your behalf.

3. What comes from real public records

Four kinds of material in your report are drawn from genuine public sources. Where these appear, the report shows the source, and a link where the source offers one.

The U.S. Census Bureau surname file. A public dataset of surnames recorded in the United States, including how many people carry a name and where it ranks nationally. When your surname is in that file, the count and the rank you see are the recorded figures.

Digitised newspaper pages from Chronicling America (Library of Congress). Public-domain newspaper pages that carry the surname in print. When one is found, the report reproduces the page image — a facsimile, meaning a photographic copy of the original page — with its title, its date, and a link to the page at the Library of Congress. That is a real page of a real newspaper.

Documented people from open reference databases. Individuals recorded with that surname: name, dates, occupation, country, and, where a freely licensed portrait exists, the image. These come from Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, each with a link to its entry.

Surname etymology from open reference data. The linguistic origin and meaning of the name as recorded in open reference sources.

None of this material belongs to us. It is public domain or openly licensed by other people, we reproduce it with its credit, and you can check it independently. We would like you to.

4. What our system builds

The rest of the volume is generated by our system from the surname itself, following consistent internal rules. It is a reconstruction: a coherent, repeatable portrait built around the name. It is not retrieved from any record about your family.

That includes:

• the year the name is given as first appearing;
• the percentage breakdown of regional origins;
• the haplogroup and "genetic echo" material (see section 10);
• the coat of arms image, which is generated by artificial intelligence (see section 9);
• the migration routes, settlement patterns and projections;
• the narrative prose of the chapters, which is written by an AI language model working over the material above. That writing step runs on an outside AI provider's systems. What we handle and who handles it is described in our Privacy Policy.

Read those parts for what they are: an interpretation, held to the same shape every time the name is entered.

5. Record or reconstruction, side by side

6. When a surname is not in the public sources

This is the section to read twice.

Not every surname appears in the public record. The U.S. Census Bureau file lists only names that occur often enough to meet its reporting threshold, so rarer surnames are simply absent from it. A great many newspaper pages have been digitised, but plenty of surnames appear on none of them.

When that happens, our system fills the section in rather than leaving it empty. Where a census figure would be, our system produces a figure. Where a press section would be, our system produces a press section. Every customer receives a complete volume.

We are telling you this in plain language, because you cannot always work it out from the page:

Any figure or section produced this way is a reconstruction by our system. It is internally consistent, and it is repeatable for that surname, but it is not a number read off a record. It appears in the same place, and in the same style, as a figure that was.

This is a decision about how the product works. We chose completeness: we would rather hand you a finished volume than a book with holes in it. It is not an accident, and we would rather describe it precisely than let you find out on your own.

How to tell which is which. Where the volume shows you a source and a link, the material comes from that source, and you can open it and check. Where it shows no source, treat the content as our system's reconstruction. We do not promise that every reconstructed passage carries a label saying so.

So if a particular figure in your volume matters to you, write to customer@myheritagestories.com, quote it, and we will tell you whether it came from a record or from our system. That offer is real, it applies to free reports as well as paid ones, and it has no time limit.

And if this section changes your mind about the product after you have already paid, that is what the refund window is for. See section 13.

7. Free reports: Coat of Arms and Origins

Not everything on this site is sold. Two of our reports are free: Coat of Arms and Origins. You enter a surname and an email address, and the system gives you a report without any purchase at all.

Everything on this page applies to them, without exception:

• the same system builds them, and no one researches your family;
• the same surname always produces the same free report;
• the same split between real public record and reconstruction applies, including the filling described in section 6;
• the crest you see is the same artificial-intelligence artwork described in section 9;
• they are not proof of ancestry, not a grant of arms and not a DNA test, exactly as set out in section 11.

Two things are different, and both follow from the price.

There is nothing to refund, because nothing was paid. If a free report is not what you hoped for, you have lost nothing but the minutes it took, and you are welcome to write and tell us so.

You gave us an email address, and we use it. We use it to deliver what you asked for, and we may also send you marketing emails about our products. Every one of those emails carries an unsubscribe link, and you can also ask us to stop by writing to customer@myheritagestories.com. What we do with your information, and how to make us stop, is set out in our Privacy Policy and on our Your Privacy Choices page.

8. The Crossing

The Crossing is a separate report about migration routes and the crossing itself. It is sold in the same three levels.

It runs on a different system from the Heritage Volume, built on the same principles: real public reference material where it exists, deterministic reconstruction elsewhere, and the same surname always producing the same result. Everything on this page applies to it.

The reports are independent of one another. Content from one is never carried into another.

9. About the coat of arms

The crest in your volume is an original image, generated by artificial intelligence inside our system and associated with your surname. The same surname always yields the same crest, and the image draws on a heraldic visual vocabulary.

It is an artistic interpretation. To be explicit:

• It is not a grant of arms and confers no right to arms.
• It is not registered with, issued by, or recognised by any heraldic authority, college of arms, chief herald or government body in any country.
• It does not establish that you or your ancestors were ever entitled to bear arms.
• In several countries, arms belong to individuals, not to surnames. Nothing here overrides that.

It is a piece of artwork made for a name. That is the claim, and it is the whole claim. The same artwork is what appears on our printed and manufactured products.

10. About the genetic content: there is no DNA test

Some parts of the volume discuss haplogroups — broad, ancient ancestry groupings used in population studies — and what we call the genetic echo of a name's regions.

No DNA is involved at any point. We never collect, request, receive, sequence, store or analyse genetic material or genetic data. There is no kit, no swab, no sample, no lab.

That content is population-level: it describes patterns associated with regions and periods, not with you. It says nothing about your ancestry, your health, your carrier status or your risk of anything.

It must not be used to inform any medical decision. If you have questions about your health or your genetics, speak with a physician or a licensed genetic counsellor.

11. What this report is not

Stated once, clearly, so there is no room for misunderstanding.

1. It is not a genealogical investigation. No one traced your family, your line or your ancestors.
2. It is not proof of descent. It does not establish a link between you and any person, family, place or event named in it. That includes the documented individuals shown in the volume, who are people recorded with the same surname and nothing more.
3. It is not support for citizenship, heritage, membership, inheritance or nobility claims, and it should not be submitted as such — to a court, a registry, a consulate, a bank or anyone else.
4. It is not a grant of arms. See section 9.
5. It is not a DNA test or a genetic report about you. See section 10.
6. It is not legal, medical, financial or professional advice of any kind.
7. It is not guaranteed to be accurate about your family, because it was never about your family. Public-record material is reproduced as published, and published records themselves contain errors, variant spellings and gaps.

If what you want is a documented trace of your own ancestors, what you need is a professional genealogist or a records service. That is a different product, and we would rather say so than sell you this one under a false description.

12. What we do stand behind

We are not apologising for this product. Here is what we will defend:

• The public-record material is real and credited. When the volume shows you a digitised newspaper page carrying your name, that page exists, and the link takes you to it at the Library of Congress.
• The reconstruction is consistent and rule-governed, not improvised for each customer. It behaves the same way every time.
• If you ask us where a specific line in your volume came from, we will answer that question.
• The volume is complete and finished: a bound piece of work about a name, delivered in minutes.

That is what you are buying, and we would rather you buy it knowing exactly what it is.

13. Delivery, access and refunds

This page is about how a report is made. Delivery, access and money each have their own page, and those pages carry the detail. If this summary and one of them ever disagree, the page that covers the subject is the one that counts.

Delivery. A digital report arrives within minutes: a page you can read straight away, and a PDF sent to the email address you used at checkout. If it does not arrive, check your spam folder first, then write to us. The full detail is on Shipping & Delivery.

Access. Your report is reachable through a private link that is unique to you. Keep the email, and do not post the link publicly, because anyone who has it can open the report. Some customers also reach their reports through our member portal. Download the PDF and keep your own copy: that file is yours and it does not depend on our website. What we promise about how long online access lasts is in our Terms of Service, and if you ask us to delete your personal information, the hosted access goes with it — see our Privacy Policy.

Refunds. If a digital report is not what you expected, write to customer@myheritagestories.com within 30 days of buying and we will refund it. You do not need a reason. If the page you bought from displayed a longer guarantee than that, the longer promise is the one that applies to your order. The rules, including the ones for physical items, are on Refunds & Cancellations.

No account needed. You buy as a guest. We do not ask you to create an account.

14. The printed and manufactured products

We also sell physical products built around the same artwork — for example the signet ring, the framed crest and the family pack.

Two things to be clear about:

• The artwork on them is the same artistic interpretation described in section 9. Buying a physical item does not make the crest official, registered or granted, and it does not change what the report is.
• They are made to order by outside manufacturers, who receive your name and your shipping address in order to make and send your order. Because more than one manufacturer is involved, an order with several pieces can arrive in separate packages, on separate days, with separate tracking.

Production time, transit time, tracking and customs are set out on Shipping & Delivery. In short: the price includes shipping and delivery to your door, and you are not asked for anything on arrival — if a carrier ever does ask you for an import charge, send it to us and we will cover it. And if a piece is going to take longer than we published, we email you and you can cancel it for a full refund.

Cancelling a physical order, and what happens if a piece arrives damaged, defective or wrong, are set out on Refunds & Cancellations. The 30-day refund described in section 13 is the rule for digital reports; physical items have their own.

15. Questions about this page, or about your own volume

If anything here is unclear, or if you want to know how a specific figure in your own report was produced, write to customer@myheritagestories.com and ask. Quote the line. We will tell you whether it came from a record or from our system.

Email is our only support channel: there is no phone line and no live chat. We answer within 48 hours. Other ways to reach us are listed on our Contact page.

If you use assistive technology and something on this site gets in your way, our Accessibility page explains how to tell us and what we do about it.

This page forms part of our terms of sale. It is the page that governs how our reports are produced and what they do and do not claim. See our Terms of Service for the rest of the agreement, our Privacy Policy for what we do with your information, and our Cookie Policy for cookies, pixels and advertising.

Last updated: August 24, 2026