Privacy notice

Last updated 4 October 2026

This notice explains what personal information the Scadden family website holds, why, who can see it, how long it's kept, and what you can do about it. It's written for UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018).

Who runs the site

The site is run by John Scadden, as a private individual, for the Scadden family. It isn't a business or a charity, and it doesn't make money. To contact him about your information, use the contact page.

What the site holds

• If you're a member: your name, email address and password (stored scrambled, so no one can read it), and anything you choose to add to your profile, such as other names you've had, your town and country, birthday, phone numbers, WhatsApp and Facebook, a photo, how you're connected to the family and a few words about yourself.
• What you share on the site: posts, comments, likes, photos, albums, events and replies to events, family stories with their photos and documents, and any family research you send.
• The family tree: for each person, living or dead, their names, the dates and places they were born and died, and any photo, notes and sources, added by members or brought in from family research files; and, for a member who says so, that an entry is them. Someone can be in the tree without being a member.
• If you were a member of the old site: the details you gave it, brought across so you don't have to start again: your name, email address, country, birthday and your old forum posts.
• If you ask to join or use the contact form: your name, email address and your message.
• To keep the site running safely: a record of sign-ins and of what Admin and the moderators do, emails the site has sent, and error reports when something goes wrong.

The site doesn't track you around the web, doesn't use analytics or advertising, and never sells or passes on your information.

Why it's held

To run a private website for the family: to let members find each other and share news, photos and the family's history, and to send the emails members ask for. The site relies on its legitimate interests in doing that, and on your choices: what you add to your profile, and what you share, is up to you.

Who can see it

• Your profile: your details are private to start with. You choose, detail by detail, what other members can see. Nothing on a profile is ever shown to the public.
• What you share: members can see the posts, photos, events and stories members share. Nothing members share is shown to the public, with one exception: a moderator can make a family story public, with its photos and documents but not its comments, and only if it names no living person, or only people who have agreed to it.
• The family tree: members see the whole tree, but of anyone who may still be alive (born in the last 100 years with no death recorded), only their name, the year they were born and their family. Their full details are seen only by them, the member who added them, and the moderators. The public sees only people who have died. Anyone can make their own entry private, and other members then see "Private" in its place. Members can download the tree, as they see it, as a GEDCOM file.
• The moderators and Admin: family members who look after the site. They can see what's reported, waiting to be checked or hidden, join requests, research sent in, and messages to the site team. Admin can also see members' account details to help with problems.
• Public pages: only the home page, this notice, The name and crest, Family History, Are you a Scadden? and Contact are public, with the family stories made public and the family tree's pages for people who have died. Apart from those, they hold no one's personal details.
• The site's host: the site is hosted by IONOS, which stores the information on the site's behalf and may not use it for anything else.

How long it's kept

• Your account and what you share: for as long as you're a member. If your account is deleted, your profile and contact details go; what you posted can stay, shown as from a "Former member", unless you ask for it to be removed.
• The family tree: kept as the family's history. If a member's account is deleted, their entry is no longer linked to it; if they ask for everything to go, its details are erased and it shows as "Private", still linked to their family. The people they added stay.
• Join requests: 30 days after they're dealt with.
• Contact messages: 90 days.
• Messages to the site team: 90 days after they're dealt with.
• Emails sent and error reports: 90 days.
• Family research you send: until you or Admin remove it.

Members of the old site

If you were a member of the old scadden.net, you may get an email inviting you to join the new site. That's because the family would like to stay in touch with everyone who was part of the old one. If you'd rather not be contacted, the email has a Don't contact me again link: use it and you won't be emailed again, and your old details are deleted.

Your rights

You can ask to see the information the site holds about you, to have it corrected, to have a copy of it, or to have it deleted. You can also object to how it's used. Members can do most of this themselves under My account: correct their details, take a copy with Download my data, and delete their account with Delete my account, choosing whether what they posted goes too. If you're in the family tree but not a member, you can ask for your entry to be corrected, made private or removed. For anything else, use the contact page.

If you're unhappy with how your information has been handled, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at https://ico.org.uk.

Cookies

The site uses only the cookies it needs to work: one that keeps you signed in, and one that protects forms from misuse. There are no analytics or advertising cookies, so there's nothing to agree to.

Age

Members must be 16 or over.

Changes

If this notice changes, the new version will be here, with the date it was last updated.