Our promises
Last updated 31 October 2026
This page describes the standards we hold ourselves to. It is not a warranty or a contract.
Every promise below comes from the working rules every one of our books is made under, written here in plain words.
A family's story is not a small thing to place in someone else's hands. These are the standards every book from the Press is held to, whichever edition you choose.
1. We never make things up
We don't invent anything: no date, name, place, quotation, conversation, feeling or motive. If the weather, a gesture or what someone said is in your book, it's because a record or a family member told us. If no record survives, the book says so. "No record has been found" is an honest sentence, and we'll use it rather than guess.
2. Real people, real particulars
A list of dates isn't a family history. We write your family's story the way a good biographer would: the farm, the trade, the street, the sum paid, the church where they married. We use the details the records actually give, so the people in your book read as themselves and not as generic "immigrants" or "pioneers." We add no sentimental filler, and we never tell you how to feel.
3. You can see where every fact comes from
Every fact in your book has a note, and every note points to a numbered source, so you or your grandchildren can follow it back to the record itself. Many of those records are reproduced in the book. Where a key conclusion takes some reasoning, the book explains it in a few plain paragraphs.
Online family trees, search results and "hints" (including Ancestry.com trees) are welcome. We use them as leads to check, not as proof. If we only saw an index and not the original page, we say so.
4. We tell you how sure we are
Not everything in a family history is equally certain, and your book is honest about that. A plain statement means the records establish it. "Probably" or "the evidence points to" means it's likely but not proven. "Is not known" means it's still open. We never make something sound more certain than the evidence allows, and that includes captions and charts. When records disagree on something that matters, we tell you.
5. We protect living people
Family trees almost always include people who are still alive. In your book, a living person is named only with their consent, and that consent has to cover exactly what appears and who will read it. Without it, we describe them without a name ("a living granddaughter") or leave them out. Children who are living today never appear. The fact that something is already public online doesn't count as consent.
If we come across something sensitive, such as a surprise about parentage, we tell you privately first, explain what we found and how sure we are, and you help decide how it's handled.
6. You read it before it's final
You always know where your book stands. Your project page shows one simple status:
Received · Need something from you · Researching · Writing · In review · Ready for you · Delivered (and, if something pauses, On hold, with the reason and what will get it moving)
When the book is ready for you, you get a reading draft to share with your family. Tell us about a wrong name, a missing memory or a story Grandma always told differently. Your corrections, new photographs and permissions are worked into the book before anything is called final.
7. A book worth handing down
No draft goes to your family until it has passed a separate review against these standards: sources, certainty, privacy, clean pages and good writing. If it doesn't pass, we fix it and review it again. You'll never find our working notes, "to-do" flags or half-finished pages in a book we send you.
Pictures are printed honestly. We never sharpen, "enhance" or regenerate an old photograph or record to make it look better than it is. When the only surviving copy is poor, we print it at a size it can bear, add a transcription, or say it's the only copy. We only print an image we have the right to print.
Your finished book comes as a clean PDF to keep and share, and as a printed book if you order one.
8. We're honest about gaps, and we only ask when it matters
Some records were lost, never kept, or simply can't be found. When that happens, we tell you what we looked for and what we didn't find. A gap stays a gap.
If you or your family can settle a question, we'll ask a few specific questions at once instead of a steady trickle. We'll tell you why each one matters and what we've already searched. "I don't know" is always a fine answer, and the book will say plainly what is known and what isn't. If your book has a fixed budget and it runs out with questions still open, the book says so, and nothing gets called "proven" just because time or money ran out.
9. We give credit and describe our work honestly
If your book relies on another researcher's published or shared work, we credit them. We won't claim a professional credential or certification we don't hold, and we won't say a check happened unless it did.
10. We look after your information
- We never sell your information or your family's.
- We never ask for your Ancestry.com password (or any other password), and you should never send it to us. Sharing a tree link, a viewer invite or an export file is always optional.
- Everything we hand over, not just the book, is checked against the same privacy rules. (More in our Privacy statement.)
What we don't promise
We would rather say so at the outset:
- Perfect completeness. Nobody can find every record. Some lines go quiet, and we'll show you where.
- Instant delivery. Real research and careful writing take time. Your project page always shows where things stand.
- Rewriting all of genealogy. We research the people and branches your book is about. We won't correct every online tree, settle every family argument, or trace every line back to the beginning of time.
- A story the records don't support. If a family legend can't be confirmed, we'll tell it as the family's story and say what the records do and don't show. We won't present it as fact.
Questions?
If anything here is unclear, or you feel we have fallen short of it, write to us directly: hello@orcasislandpress.com