Privacy Policy   (effective January 1, 2024)

Galizien German Descendants (GGD) collects data from all members as part of their subscription to our services.  GGD is a society that started by sharing information among members about their Galizien ancestors. Thus, before 2023, every member had access to contact information for all other members and all other members could access your contact information.  However, with the advent of privacy concerns, we have changed how we conduct our society.

Your Rights

You have the right of access, of rectification and erasure, of restriction of processing, of withdrawal of consent and of objection. If you believe that the processing of your personal data is in violation of data protection legislation or that your data protection rights have been infringed in any other way, please contact us at  and at

Storage of Personal Data

The following data is stored and processed electronically in the course of registration for GGD:
• Last name
• First name
• Street address (if provided)
• Postal code and city
• State/Province
• Country
• Email address
• Password (not visible to any member of GGD)
• Your method of payment
• Date and time of registration

The following data is stored whenever you use this website or email us:
• Date and time and IP address of each access
• The email you sent which includes information about your email account.

This data is processed to
• Ensure that you are actually one of our members
• Constantly improve the  services of GGD
• Send notifications of newsletter updates or of membership end dates (note 1)
• Send special event or customised information (note 1)
• Answer any email questions you have.

We now do not share this information with GGD paid members, with any other organization, or with anyone else.  The only information on our online member/submitter list is the GGD assigned code (e.g. K025), the last year of paid membership, the country, and any notes about that code, e.g. relationship to other members (if provided) or if the member is deceased.
To remain true to our original mandate of members sharing information with other members, we have a contact protocol.  If a paid member (member A) wants information about a given GGD member/submitter code (member B), the GGD secretary or her delegate will send member B an email stating what member A is asking about, A's contact information, and any other information member A gave in the request.  In this way, nobody outside of the GGD administrative staff can see your contact information unless you approve.

Email Policy

NOTE 1:
We have only one online selectable option when it comes to your privacy:
May GGD email you about upcoming newsletters, expiry of your membership, about someone trying to contact you, and up to 6 emails a year informing you of information of interest to members?

If you answer NO, you will not receive any routine emails from GGD such as quarterly reminders about a new newsletter, end of year reminder about renewing your subscription, or special event notices.

We also collect family surnames of families that you are researching and the villages where they lived.  This information is posted on our Submitter List but only with your GGD code visible.  This allows other members to contact GGD asking whether you are interested in communicating with the surname/village submitter.

Gedcom Submitters

Some members may wish to supply family history Gedcom files to us to host on our website.  Such (usually large) collections of people's names together with locations and dates of birth, death, and marriage are hosted on a database on our website.  That website is only viewable by other GGD members.  In our guidelines on how to submit such Gedcoms, we ask that you do not include any information about living people.  We do review the information you sent us and try to catch any living people that may have slipped through, but it is the responsibility of the submitter, not of GGD.  If anybody finds information in such Gedcoms that should not be there, please contact our Membership Secretary at the email above.

If you want to know what information our records contain about you or want it removed from the GGD database, please email our Membership Secretary.  All concerns and questions may be directed to the Membership Secretary at .

Galizien German Descendants