Terms of Use

GenDatabase.com, its content and online services ("the Service") are provided to you subject to these terms and conditions of use. By accessing or using this Service, you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions and are deemed to have read, understood and agreed to them. If you do not agree with one or more of these terms, you are not permitted to access or use the Service.

GenDatabase.com ("us", the service provider) reserves the right, in our sole discretion, to modify or update these terms at any time, and such modifications supersede and replace any previous terms. Your continued use of the Service means you accept the amended terms. If you do not agree to any modification, you must immediately stop using the Service.

These terms become effective when you access the website and constitute a binding agreement between us and yourself, which will always prevail. The current version of these terms governs our respective rights and obligations each time you access the website.

You agree to comply with our terms, and additionally any other requirement or restriction GenDatabase may impose on you or your member account. Once a restriction or requirement is ordered by GenDatabase, this becomes permanent and non-negotionable. If you do not agree with any restriction or requirement, your account will be suspended with immediate effect and no further services or assistance will be offered to you by GenDatabase.

The Service comprises both a free service accessible to all users and a paid member service accessible to paid-up subscribers. By accessing or using the GenDatabase.com website, applications, or software provided in connection with the free or paid service, you signify that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms of Use, whether or not you are a subscriber. If you do not agree with any provision contained in these Terms of Use, please do not use this website.

In order to protect our clients and members from unexpected expenses, GenDatabase does not make use of Automatic Membership Renewals. Once a subscription expires, your account will no longer have access to any member records. Our members can decide when they wish to renew their subscriptions in future.

The moment a user subscribes to any GenDatabase subscription, our system automatically purchases credits from third-party verification services to enable the user to verify and access records in real-time. Due to this, GenDatabase cannot provide any refunds once a payment was made.

In certain instances, GenDatabase may consider a refund to a user, once our external services providers agree to it. However, refunds will be based on all system usage by the member and every record accessed. Members will be charged a normal verification fee per record accessed by our external services provider. These fees will be subtracted from the payment. The balance will be repaid to the client and subscription cancelled. A standard cancellation fee will also be applied to this to cover all administrative costs to our payment provider.

When registering as a member, you alone are responsible for the safekeeping of your GenDatabase.com access information. Your membership subscription allows a single user access to GenDatabase.com, and your access information may not be shared with third parties. Our systems have measures in place to detect and prevent the sharing of account information; detected sharing will result in the blocking of your account and suspension of your GenDatabase.com membership.

To keep and maintain your access to GenDatabase.com, you are required to purchase or renew a member subscription. Member subscriptions provide access to all public as well as member content on GenDatabase.com.

Although GenDatabase.com offers unlimited access to our member services, this access is subject to our Reasonable Use Policy. Reasonable use amounts to the average use across all GenDatabase.com members, currently an average of 150 records accessed per day. Some users may be affected by this restriction, which may require such users to wait a trailing 24-hour period before access to records are available again, once these limits are reached.

This service may not be suitable for users sharing volume information with third-parties or businesses conducting volume verification for third parties. Such users may be required to make use of our individual verification report purchases due to the large volume required.

If our systems detect unreasonable usage, your account will be blocked from accessing records for the remainder of that day. In the event of a serious breach of this policy, we reserve the sole right to suspend your membership and access to GenDatabase.com entirely.

By searching for and accessing any data contained on GenDatabase.com, you confirm that you are accessing the information for legal purposes. Any illegal access to or use of information on our systems is expressly prohibited and will lead to the suspension of your member account.

GenDatabase does not provide any access to any physical documents related to Genealogy Research. GenDatabase do provide access to real-time verified records and old transcribed records from sources like the Masters Office, Government Gazettes, National Archives and other online sources only. In order to gain access to any physical documents, users will need to order these documents directly from their respective sources. Alternative, users may users make use of our Document Ordering services related to the various National Archives offices in South Africa.

Due to various privacy restrictions in terms of the PAIA Act, GenDatabase does not have access to verified information on certain records for people who passed away within the past 20 years. In order to obtain more up-to-date information, you may need to make use of officially registered Verification providers, such as credit bureaus.

GenDatabase offers a Document Ordering service to all visitors and members. Our Document Ordering service is based on two services:

8.1 Verified Profile Order

Our Verified Profile Order is available to all visitors who do not wish to sign up for a GenDatabase subscription. Visitors can order individual verified profile reports which are downloadable in PDF format immediately after successful payment.

This service is also available to members who have are limited by our Fair Use Policy limits. Members can simply log out of their member accounts and purchase these reports through our Document Ordering section.

8.2 National Archives

To both members and visitors, GenDatabase also offers a new service where we make use of the services of private researchers to visit various National Archives offices and film the content of files on behalf of our clients.

Please note that GenDatabase does not sell or provide access to any document. This service fee is exclusively for our researchers’ expenses in travelling to the Archives, filming the content of files, preparing the images and handling the handover to our clients.

GenDatabase and its researchers do not have any prior access to any National Archives file. We do not know what the content of the file is. It could be a single page, or perhaps even hundreds of pages. We have no way to determine the content until such time our researchers visit the archives and obtain the file.

Due to this, our researchers charge a flat fee rate, irrelevant of the total number of pages in the file.

Payments for the document ordering service is not refundable once file content has been delivered to the client. In the event the file is not available at the archives, complete content missing or researcher unable to fulfil the request, clients will be refunded in full for the order.

It remains the responsibility of every client to ensure that the correct order for files is placed. Clients also need to ensure that the file is not already available online on any other resource. GenDatabase cannot offer any refunds for any incorrect orders or where files are already available online elsewhere. GenDatabase also cannot determine whether any order placed by a client is correct or available online on any other source. This is the sole responsibility of the client.

We cannot provide an exact turnaround time for our Document Ordering service, although, in most cases, this could be completed within a 1-5 working day period. This service is dependent on a number of factors which include operating time of the National Archives, how busy the various offices are, availability of files, limits in regards to how many records a researcher may access per day at the Archives, availability of our researchers, workload on our researchers and more.

GenDatabase.com values the privacy of your information and will protect your personal information in accordance with all relevant laws and regulations, as set out in our Privacy Policy. More information on how we gather, process and work with personal information can be found on that page — please be sure to review it.

GenDatabase.com reserves the right, in our sole discretion, to amend these terms and conditions at any time and without notice. Any such amendments come into effect immediately and automatically. You agree to review these terms whenever you visit the website.

If you do not agree to any of these terms, or any future Terms of Use, do not use or access (or continue to access) the Service.

For the purposes of these terms, "Intellectual Property Rights" means all patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, data and other intellectual property rights as may now exist or hereafter come into existence, and all applications, registrations, renewals and extensions thereof, under the laws of any country, territory or other jurisdiction.

The Service and its materials — including, without limitation, data, software, images, text, graphics, illustrations, logos, patents, trademarks, copyrights and photographs (the "GenDatabase.com Content") — and all related Intellectual Property Rights are the exclusive property of GenDatabase.com.

Except as explicitly provided herein, nothing in these terms shall be deemed to create a licence in or under any such Intellectual Property Rights, and you agree that you will not yourself, or through any parent, subsidiary, affiliate, agent or other third party:

1. modify, use any automated script or program, port, translate, localise, provide access to data on behalf of third parties, or create derivative works of the Service or any documentation relating to it;
2. decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer or attempt to reconstruct, identify or discover any source code, underlying ideas, user interface techniques or algorithms of the Service by any means whatsoever, or disclose any of the foregoing;
3. sell, lease, license, sublicense, copy, market, reproduce, transmit or distribute the Service without the express written consent of GenDatabase.com;
4. encumber or suffer to exist any lien or security interest on any part of the Service; or
5. knowingly take any action that would cause the Service to be placed in the public domain.

Use of the GenDatabase.com Content or materials on the Service for any purpose not expressly permitted by these terms is strictly prohibited.

You understand and acknowledge that you may be exposed to user content that may be inaccurate or out of date, and you agree that GenDatabase.com will not be liable for any damages you incur as a result of such content.

Information found on GenDatabase.com may not be shared online or in print without prior written consent from GenDatabase. GenDatabase reserves the right to close any account in violation with this clause. In order to request approval, all comprehensive requests can be sent to info @ gendatabase.com.

GenDatabase.com does not make any warranties, representations, statements or guarantees (whether express, implied in law or residual) regarding the website and the Service. The website and Service are provided "as is", and we make no warranty or representation that the information and Service advertised on the website are appropriate for use in any jurisdiction.

Use of this site, its content and the Service is at your own risk. GenDatabase.com makes no representations, warranties or conditions about the quality, accuracy, reliability, completeness or timeliness of the site, the content or the Service, and does not assume any responsibility for any errors, omissions or inaccuracies therein.

Neither GenDatabase.com nor its service providers shall be responsible for, and each disclaims all liability for, any loss, liability, damage (whether direct, indirect or consequential) and/or expense of any nature whatsoever which may be suffered by you or any third party as a result of, or which may be attributable directly or indirectly to, your access and use of the website, any information contained on or received via the website, your use of the Service, and/or your reliance on any information offered via the website and Service.

Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, neither GenDatabase.com nor its service providers shall be liable for any loss of business, loss of data and/or loss of profits, any failure and/or unavailability of the website for any reason whatsoever, and/or the failure or delay by any third-party service provider to render any services necessary to ensure the availability of the website.

You hereby indemnify GenDatabase.com and its service providers against any loss, liability, damage (whether direct, indirect or consequential) or expense of any nature whatsoever which may be suffered by you or any third party as a result of, or which may be attributable directly or indirectly to, the aforesaid.

Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, GenDatabase.com shall not be liable to you or any third party for any loss or damage of whatsoever nature in the event that you request that an order or service be stopped or cancelled.

All legal correspondence can only be sent to us in digital format, to info@gendatabase.com or via our contact form.