Most of us aren’t legal eagles. Fortunately, we are being alerted to Ancestry’s information grab by Judy G. Russell, “One big change at Ancestry,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 4 Aug 2021).
“In plain English, the rights to use that family photo you posted, that story you wrote and uploaded, that snippet of family history you’ve shared basically now belong to Ancestry. You can continue to use it elsewhere if you wish, since you’re still technically the owner, but you can’t do anything to stop Ancestry from using it any way it wants, forever.”
Did Ancestry give specific warning it was making this change so information could be deleted from their system.? No. Ancestry is acting like the 800lb gorilla on the genealogical block.
Ancestry does something every 2 years to p*ss me off. Right on schedule for this newest grab. How will I ever delete everything on my 17,000 member tree? And how will I get collateral cousins to find me without the “proof”? And for everyone who saved my documents to their tree, all those documents will still be at ancestry since very few tree owners read blogs and fewer do anything about changes in the fine print.