Family Tree Cookbook

How this site treats your information

Last updated November 11, 2026

The Family Tree Cookbook is a private website for one family. Matthew Myers runs it. It isn't a business, and nothing here is sold or used for advertising.

Who can see the book

Only people Matthew has approved. Anyone can see the front page, with the cover and the sign-in box, and the About page. The recipes, Sandy's drawings and the family trees are shown only after you sign in and Matthew lets you in.

The family trees include the names and birth years of living relatives. Everyone Matthew approves can see them, so he only approves family and close friends. The site also asks search engines not to list it.

What we collect

Access costs a one-time payment, taken by Stripe. Your card details go to Stripe and never reach this site or Matthew. We're told only that your payment went through, along with your name and email from the payment.

• When you sign in: your name and email address, from your Google account or the email you type in. We use them so Matthew knows who is asking to join and who sent what. We never see your Google password.
• What you send in: recipes, family tree additions and corrections, along with your name and the date. Once Matthew approves one, it appears in the book for everyone who can read it.
• A sign-in cookie. The site keeps a small cookie so it knows you're signed in. It expires after about an hour and is renewed while you use the site. We don't use advertising or tracking cookies, and there's no analytics.

Who else handles it

The site runs on services from two companies, which handle your information only to run the site:

• Google (Firebase) handles sign-in and stores the accounts, submissions and additions to the book.
• Cloudflare serves the website and checks that you're signed in. Like any web host, it sees your IP address when you visit.
• Stripe takes payments. It has its own privacy policy, at stripe.com/privacy.
• Google Fonts supplies the typefaces, so your browser contacts Google when a page loads.

What we don't do

• We don't sell or share your information, and we don't send marketing email.
• The only email the site sends is the sign-in link you ask for.

Fixing or removing something

If you want a name, a date or a whole entry changed or taken off the family tree, ask Matthew, or use Something wrong on the tree? on the Add to the book page. If you want your own account removed, ask Matthew and he'll delete it, along with anything you sent in if you want that gone too.

Corrections to the scanned original are made carefully, so please be patient with those.

Changes to this page

If this changes, the date at the top will change with it.