Frequently Asked Questions

Three differences. Paid obituaries appear in newspaper archives that paywall search and rarely preserve photos or media; we are built for permanent public access, free at the base tier, with every memorial pinned on a public IPFS gateway with a verifiable content identifier. Genealogy platforms like Ancestry.com and FamilySearch focus on records, dates, and family trees; we focus on stories — the songs, sayings, and small details that turn a name into a person. And our Operating Principles forbid us from selling personal data or running advertising on the public archive — most commercial genealogy platforms make their money exactly that way.

Yes. The African American heritage is full of ancestors whose names were stolen, buried, or never recorded — people enslaved under given names, families ruptured by the Middle Passage, lives erased from archives. We accept submissions for these ancestors when you can write a meaningful remembrance: a place, a time, a connection, the closest detail you have. The story can take the form "the woman who raised my great-grandmother in [place]" with whatever you do know. Email info@honoredancestors.com if you would like guidance before submitting.

With honesty and editorial care. Operating Principle 2 — Truth told plainly — means we do not sanitize what really happened. A story that includes slavery, abuse, addiction, or violence can be told in a way that honors the person being remembered without exploiting the pain. Our editorial team will work with you on framing if you are unsure. We will not publish content whose primary purpose is to defame, ridicule, or attack any person, living or deceased.

You must be at least 18 years old (per our Terms) and have the right to share what you submit. That generally means a family member, close associate, or community member with the family's blessing. The Heritage Submission Authority Pledge spells out the standard.

A real life, told plainly. A specific detail — a song, a meal, a saying — often carries more weight than a long biography. The free Memorial tier supports stories up to 1,500 words; Legacy and Family tiers have no word limit.

Most submissions are reviewed within 5 business days — the same response window as our takedown policy. Complex submissions, those requiring family verification, or stories that prompt editorial questions may take longer. Every submission is read by a human — we do not use automated approval (Operating Principle 6). You will receive an email when your story is published.

Yes. Free Memorial includes one portrait. Legacy supports up to 20 photos plus audio and video. To add to an already-published memorial, email info@honoredancestors.com — we will handle it without a new submission.

We publish stories without photos. Many ancestors — especially those born before 1900 — have no surviving photograph. The story itself is the memorial. The dignity of the remembrance does not depend on whether a photograph exists.

Absolutely. Call 1-443-233-8521 or visit /request-advisor.html — a real person will help you over the phone or by email. No form needed.

A human on our editorial team reads every submission. Operating Principle 6 separates assistance from authorship: AI tools may help us draft, transcribe, or de-duplicate, but humans make every editorial decision. We may write back with a small note before publishing if anything needs clarification.

Rarely. Story Submission Terms Section 7 documents the categories we will not publish: pieces that defame or attack a person; submissions disclosing intimate medical, financial, or sexual information about a living person without consent; content with unredacted SSNs, full dates of birth of living people, or financial account numbers; political campaigning; advertising; or content that is clearly fabricated. We aim to write back with guidance rather than reject silently.

Two specific commitments. First, every approved memorial is pinned on IPFS — the InterPlanetary File System — with a public Content Identifier (CID) anyone can verify on any IPFS gateway. We pin from a self-hosted node we operate. This is Operating Principle 4: we only make permanence claims we can prove. Second, the operating LLC (Abilities Finance, LLC) is set up as a steward, not an owner, and an advisory circle is being recruited so the archive's continuity does not rest on a single steward.

Every featured memorial — including free-tier memorials — is pinned on IPFS with a public Content Identifier (CID) that anyone can independently verify on any public IPFS gateway, today and decades from now. We pin from our own self-hosted node, not a third-party service that could shut down. This is Operating Principle 4. Every memorial page has a ⛓ Permanence proof section near the bottom showing the memorial CID, portrait CID, and our hosting peer ID — click any CID to open it on the dweb.link gateway and verify independently.

Operating Principle 8 is Outlive the founder. Every system, every key, every relationship is built so the archive continues if any single person steps away. The recovery runbook is the contract between us and the future. Backups exist independently of the live website, and the IPFS pinning means even the live site going down does not erase the memorials.

You do. Story Submission Terms Section 3: you retain all copyright and other ownership rights in your submission. The license you grant us (Section 4) is for hosting, formatting, and displaying — not for selling, syndicating, or licensing to third parties for commercial profit. If we ever pursue a commercial use case (such as a printed book of remembrances), we will seek your separate, explicit permission first.

No. We do not train AI on your submissions, and we do not sell or share your content with third parties for that purpose. Operating Principle 6 is specific: AI may help us with editorial work — drafting suggestions, transcription, de-duplication — but every published word is reviewed by a human, and submitted memorials are not used as training data for any AI system, internal or external. The only third parties our platform talks to are Stripe (paid tier payments) and Let's Encrypt (HTTPS certificates).

Yes — every memorial, including free-tier, exposes a "Take this memorial with you" download bar at the bottom of its page with two buttons: Download PDF (a printable copy) and Download JSON-LD (the structured-data export, useful for archivists, family record-keepers, and genealogy software). Beyond that, your story remains accessible at its public URL and via its IPFS Content Identifier — the IPFS CID itself is a permanent, verifiable copy of the file that does not depend on our website.

Yes. The full process is on the Takedown & Corrections page. Email info@honoredancestors.com with subject "Takedown or Correction Request" and the URL of the page. We aim to respond to good-faith requests within 5 business days, and most are handled faster. The original submitter and documented next-of-kin family always have removal rights.

Documented next of kin always carry weight in editorial decisions about a memorial — even when the original submitter disagrees. Operating Principle 3: Family wins. We will reach out to the original submitter when reasonable, but the family's wishes about the public memory of their relative will weigh heavily. Heritage Submission Authority Pledge Section 6 reserves our right to remove, edit, or transfer control of any submission to a verified family member.

Never. Your email address, IP address, browser data, and any private notes are never published, regardless of which privacy preference you choose. The story itself, with the honoree's name, is published per your selected preference: public with submitter credit, public submitter anonymous, or review-with-me before publishing. We do not run third-party tracking, advertising, or analytics cookies (Privacy Policy Section 2; Operating Principle 5).

Honored Ancestors is operated by Abilities Finance, LLC, a Wyoming limited liability company that serves as the platform's legal steward. The founder is Czar J. Kijana. The brand and the entity are the same operation under two names. Read more about the founder at /founder.html.

Yes — basic memorials are free, up to 1,500 words with one portrait, hosted on the public archive permanently with the same IPFS pinning the paid tiers receive. Paid tiers add capacity and tools: Legacy ($49 one-time) includes 20 photos, audio and video, no word limit, a custom subdomain (name.honoredancestors.com), a printable PDF certificate, and a 14-day refund window. Family ($99 one-time) adds 5 family-member accounts plus all Legacy features. See /upgrade.html for full details.

Free is genuinely full archival permanence — IPFS-pinned with a public CID, editorial review, public archive page, the same dignity standard that governs every memorial. Legacy adds capacity and presentation tools: up to 20 photos, audio and video, unlimited story length, a custom subdomain, and a printable PDF certificate. The choice between Free and Legacy is about scale and presentation, not whether the archive truly preserves your ancestor — every memorial gets the same permanence commitment. Both Legacy and Family include a 14-day refund window, no questions asked.

Living Legacy is a different product from the memorial tiers above. The memorial tiers (Free / Legacy / Family) are for honoring deceased ancestors. Living Legacy is a subscription product for you, while you're alive — for documenting your own build years for the people who'll inherit them. Two ways to belong: Annual at $50/year (renews yearly, cancel anytime through your Stripe receipt, 14-day refund window) or Eternal Legacy at $499 once (one payment, permanent membership, designate an executor for transfer of access at the end of your life, 14-day refund window). Both include unlimited entries, IPFS pinning per entry, the timeline interface, family-choice succession at death, and all eight Operating Principles applied to your archive. See /living-legacy.html for the full picture.

The current focus is African American heritage — elders, ancestors, and community figures whose lives are part of the long story of Black memory. Operating Principle 1 ("Names first") is universal, and the editorial standard applies the same dignity to any heritage. Expansion to other peoples and cultures is anticipated, but no public timeline is set — we want to make sure the African American archive is solid first.

For questions, family requests, or general correspondence: info@honoredancestors.com. For phone help: 1-443-233-8521. The full Contact page lists every channel.

Browse every memorial at The Archive. As of May 2026 it includes Bayard Rustin, Bessie Coleman, Rosalee Mae Johnson (the sample template), and Septima Poinsette Clark. Each memorial is pinned on our self-hosted IPFS node with a publicly verifiable Content Identifier.