Website privacy & cookies
No accounts, no ads and no cookies of ours — and analytics only as totals, with your consent where the law requires it.
Last updated September 12, 2026 · This notice covers the nativepast.com website. The Native Past apps for iPhone and Android have their own app privacy policy.
In short
- No accounts, no ads and no cookies of ours, and we never sell your data.
- We count visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which uses no cookies and gives us only totals.
- In the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, analytics runs only if you choose Allow. Elsewhere it runs by default, and anyone can switch it off.
- You can change your choice at any time with Privacy Choices at the bottom of every page.
- What you type into the records search is used to answer your search. It is never part of the analytics.
Who is responsible
nativepast.com is run by Olivia Renee Studio, LLC, in the United States, which is responsible for it (the "controller" under EU and UK data-protection law). You can reach us at [email protected] or through our contact form.
Hosting
The website is hosted and delivered by Cloudflare, Inc. Like any web host, Cloudflare processes technical data about each request, including your IP address, the page requested, the time and your browser's user agent, to deliver the site and protect it from abuse. Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in running a secure, working website (GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)). Cloudflare acts on our behalf under its Data Processing Addendum and keeps this data only for a limited period; see Cloudflare's privacy policy.
Searching the records
When you search, what you type (a name or a number) goes from your browser to nativepast.com, and a small Cloudflare function on the site passes it on to our records server at api.nativepast.com. That server runs on a machine we rent from DigitalOcean, LLC in the United States, and Cloudflare protects it too. Cloudflare and the server use your IP address to deliver the results and to limit abuse. Like most web servers, ours keeps an access log of requests, including what was searched, for about two weeks for security and troubleshooting. We read it only as totals, such as how many searches were run in a week, and never to work out who searched for what. Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in providing the search you ask for and keeping it secure (GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)).
The index itself holds names from historical federal records, from the 1830s to the 1930s, published by the U.S. National Archives. Nothing about visitors is added to it. Each result links to the original document on the National Archives Catalog (catalog.archives.gov), where the Archives' own privacy policy applies. To ask for a correction or the removal of a record in the index, write to [email protected].
Analytics
We use Cloudflare Web Analytics to see how many people visit, which pages they read, where they came from and how quickly pages load. When it runs, a small Cloudflare script reports:
- the page you visited and the site that linked you here, both without anything after a "?" in the address, so your searches are never included;
- page-load timings, such as how long the page took to appear;
- your country and your type of device and browser, which Cloudflare works out from the request.
It sets no cookies, stores nothing in your browser, does not fingerprint your device and does not follow you across other websites or over time. We only ever see totals, never individual visitors.
| Where you are | When analytics runs | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, United Kingdom, Switzerland | Only after you choose Allow. If you decline, or don't choose, the script never loads. | Your consent (GDPR Art. 6(1)(a), and the rules on reading information from your device, such as § 25 TDDDG in Germany) |
| Everywhere else | By default. You can switch it off with Privacy Choices. | Our legitimate interest in understanding and improving the website (GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)) |
To decide which applies, the site asks our server whether your request comes from one of those regions. The list also covers Åland, the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla and the EU's overseas regions (French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, Réunion and Saint Martin), as well as Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man and Gibraltar. The answer is based on the country Cloudflare already determines from your IP address, and nothing about it is stored. If your location can't be determined, we ask for consent.
How long: Cloudflare keeps detailed analytics data for 7 days. After that only a reduced sample (about 10%) is kept, and our dashboard shows at most the last six months.
Changing your mind: choose Privacy Choices at the bottom of any page. Your choice is remembered for about six months, and then we ask again. If you decline after analytics has already started on a page, the page reloads so the script stops at once. Withdrawing consent doesn't affect analytics collected before you withdrew it. A content blocker also stops the script without affecting the site.
Browser storage
We don't set cookies. We use your browser's local storage only for the functional purposes below. This data stays on your device, is never sent to us and isn't used for tracking.
| Key | Purpose | Values |
|---|---|---|
analytics-consent | Remembers your analytics choice for about six months, so we don't ask on every page | granted or
denied, with the date you chose |
tutorial-language | Remembers the language you picked in the app tutorial | A language code, such as de or pt-BR |
tutorial-platform | Remembers whether you view iPhone or Android screenshots in the tutorial | ios or android |
If Cloudflare ever has to check that a visitor isn't a bot, it may set a strictly necessary security cookie for that check. It isn't used for analytics or advertising.
Fonts
The site's fonts (Fraunces and Inter) are served from nativepast.com itself, so your browser doesn't contact Google Fonts or any other font service.
Links to other sites
The App Store and Google Play buttons take you to Apple's or Google's store, where their own privacy policies apply; the links carry no tracking labels. Record links take you to the National Archives Catalog. When you follow a link to another site, your browser tells that site only that you came from nativepast.com, not which page you were on or what you searched for.
Transfers outside your country
Olivia Renee Studio, LLC, Cloudflare, Inc. and DigitalOcean, LLC are based in the United States, so information may be processed there. For data from the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, Cloudflare and DigitalOcean rely on their certifications under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, its UK Extension and the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, with the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses as the fallback.
Your rights
Depending on where you live (for example in the EU, the UK or Switzerland), you can ask to access, correct or delete personal data about you, to restrict or object to its processing, and to receive it in a portable format. Where analytics relies on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time with Privacy Choices. Because analytics gives us only totals and our server logs are kept briefly and never linked to anyone, we usually can't connect any data to you, but we'll help with any request. You also have the right to complain to your local data-protection authority.
Children
nativepast.com is a general-audience educational resource. It is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.
Changes to this notice
If this notice changes, we'll post the new version here and update the date at the top.