Legal Notice
Name of Company
Compass & Covenant Genealogy
Founder
Susan Crookes
Business Address
Office 53C
Unimix House
Abbey Road
London
NW10 7TR
Contact details
07342 190871
Regulatory Authority
Application currently live for Associate of AGRA
Genealogy and the Law
In the United Kingdom, professional and amateur genealogical research is governed by several key legal frameworks that protect privacy, regulate access to public records, and manage intellectual property:
Data Protection and GDPR: The Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR strictly regulate the processing of personal data relating to living individuals. When compiling family histories, publishing trees online, or handling client data, researchers must ensure they do not inadvertently expose sensitive personal details of living relatives without explicit consent.
The 100-Year Rule: To protect individual privacy, certain historical public records are closed to the public for a statutory period. Most notably, the decennial census returns for England, Wales, and Scotland are legally sealed for 100 years before they can be released to archives and commercial genealogy platforms.
Access to Statutory Registers: While birth, marriage, and death certificates from the General Register Office (GRO) are public records, access is managed through the purchase of certified copies rather than open digital browsing of the modern indices, balancing public transparency with fraud prevention.
Crown Copyright: Many foundational historical records, including census transcriptions, military service records, and probate indices, are subject to Crown Copyright. Utilising, reproducing, or publishing large extracts of these documents often requires specific licensing or adherence to fair dealing guidelines.
Image & Media Credits
The visual content featured across the Compass and Covenant Genealogy website is compiled from a variety of authorised sources, including:
Personal Archives: Original photography from the owner’s private collection.
Local Landscape Imagery: Regional photography of The Savill Garden and Virginia Water taken from their website.
Digital & AI Artistry: Conceptual illustrations generated using Google Gemini.
Graphic Elements: Curated royalty-free vector assets and design graphics.
Platform Media: Stock photography and templates provided by our website hosting platform IONOS.
Protected heritage. Guaranteed privacy
Information Governance & Data Security
At Compass & Covenant Genealogy, we treat your family history with the highest level of professional confidentiality and care. The journey to discovering your ancestry often involves handling sensitive records, vital certificates, and genetic data; we believe that protecting this information is just as important as the research itself.
To ensure your personal data remains completely secure, our operations are built on a strict "Privacy by Design" framework:
Zero-Cloud Storage for Research: Unlike standard online services, your active research files, family trees, and raw data are managed using dedicated, offline desktop software (Legacy 10 and vTiger CRM). This keeps your history entirely safe from external digital vulnerabilities.
Absolute Control Over Genetic Privacy: For clients undergoing DNA analysis or origin mapping, we maintain a strict data destruction protocol. Once your final report is delivered and confirmed, all raw genomic files (.txt or .zip) are permanently purged from our local systems, leaving no digital footprint.
Statutory UK Compliance: We operate in full compliance with the UK Data Protection Act and are officially registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO: 00014624110).
Professional Standards: Our rigorous administrative workflows and audit trails strictly adhere to the professional Codes of Practice and Ethics set forth by the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (AGRA).
Your past belongs to you. We are simply here to uncover it safely, ethically, and securely.