Asked plainly, answered plainly.

By the house’s own hand. Public submission has closed — every memorial is researched, written, verified against sources, and editorially reviewed by our team, then bestowed freely. No family is ever charged for a memorial; inclusion is an honor, never a purchase. If you believe a name belongs in the Archive, write to us — we welcome the word.

Paid obituaries sit behind newspaper paywalls; genealogy platforms trade in records and, often, your data. We are a curated archive of stories — the songs, sayings, and small details that turn a name into a person — publicly readable, kept with a verifiable public proof, and our Guiding Principles forbid selling personal data or running advertising on the archive.

Honored Ancestors began in African American and Pan-African heritage and now opens to all humanity — for Alkebulan is the cradle of humankind, and these are, in the deepest sense, everyone’s ancestors. The founding heart remains; the doors stand open to every lineage, held to one standard of dignity.

With honesty and editorial care. Guiding Principle 2 — truth told plainly — means we do not sanitize what happened. A life that includes slavery, abuse, or violence is told in a way that honors the person without exploiting the pain, and nothing is published whose purpose is to defame or attack any person, living or deceased.

Yes. Many ancestors’ names were stolen, buried, or never recorded. The house honors these lives too — “the woman who raised my great-grandmother in [place]” with whatever is known. If such a life belongs in the Archive, tell us what you hold.

The Living Legacy journal is free on your own device — words without limit, photographs, voice, film, 250MB of keeping. Carrying a moment beyond your device is what costs: a Seal is $1 a moment (bought in $10 Rolls), paid once, pinned across IPFS and Filecoin, held for the life of the archive. The Keeper is $50 a year: 20GB named to you — a lifetime of moments — with 100 moments sealed each year — held for the life of the archive — and the Family Web. The heirloom Muhuri is in production. Memorials in the Great Archive are separate — free, bestowed by the house.

You pay only for permanence beyond your device. Free keeping is genuinely yours — but a phone is lost, a laptop dies. A sealed moment lives beyond your device, with a public proof your grandchildren can verify without us. One dollar, once, per moment — with a 7-day refund window on purchases.

Walking any tree shared with you is free, always. Growing a tree of your own — lighting leaves, placing memorials, weaving kin — belongs to those who have taken up a Roll of seals or the Keeper membership. Viewing, exporting, and removing your own records are never gated.

Two provable commitments. Every memorial and sealed moment carries a public proof anyone can verify — check one yourself. Sealed moments are additionally kept in a second, independent keeping, funded once at sealing. Guiding Principle 4: we only make permanence claims we can prove.

Guiding Principle 8 is outlive the founder. Backups exist independently of the live website, and the site going dark does not erase the memorials — their public proofs keep working without us.

You retain all rights in what you give us (Terms, Section 3); our license covers hosting and display, never resale. And no — we do not train AI on your content, nor sell or share it for that purpose. The only third parties the platform talks to are Stripe (payments) and Let’s Encrypt (HTTPS).

Always. Every memorial is publicly readable at its URL, and its public proof is itself a permanent, verifiable record independent of our website. Your Living Legacy exports from your own device at any time — keeping is never held hostage. For anything else, email us.

Yes. Email info@honoredancestors.net with the page address — the full process is on the Takedown & Corrections page. Good-faith requests are answered within 5 business days, most faster. Documented next of kin always carry weight: Guiding Principle 3 is family wins.

Never. Email, IP, browser data, and private notes are never published. We run no third-party tracking, advertising, or analytics cookies (Privacy Policy; Guiding Principle 5).

Honored Ancestors is operated by Abilities Finance, LLC, a Wyoming limited liability company serving as the platform’s legal steward; the founder is Czar J. Kijana. One operation, two names. More at /founder.

info@honoredancestors.net, or by phone: 1-443-233-8521. A person reads every message. The Contact page lists every channel.