ABOUT
How this archive is kept.
What this is — and isn’t
IT IS
A volunteer archive of family records, public only where the contributing household allows it.
A way to find out whether the Shaabans in Detroit and the Shaabans in Sidon are one line or two.
Free to browse and free to contribute, permanently.
IT ISN’T
Not a DNA service. A shared surname is a starting point, not a finding.
Not a social network — no feeds, no follower counts, no reason to post daily.
Not one family’s history. Every line has equal standing in the index.
The rules
Privacy, and who is accountable
Your address is used to confirm you, to answer you, and for nothing else. Nothing about a living person is published without their own consent — living people appear on the tree as initials until they claim their record. Data is held in the EU’s legal reach, and the Archivist answers every privacy request personally — you will hear back within the week, and never wait longer than a month for an answer. Full text
Submissions
Send only what you have the right to share. Everything received is numbered, credited to its giver, and remains the property of the household that sent it. Records are additive — you can add to yours at any time, and nothing you send is edited or silently removed. Acceptance into the archive or the tree is the Archivist’s decision, made from the evidence. Full text
Moderation, in the open
Only the Archivist deletes, and never silently: every removal is logged with what was removed and why, and the contributor is told in writing. The tree states only what its sources carry — every fact on it can answer “how do we know?” with a numbered record. The log
Removal, honoured without question
Any household may withdraw what it sent, at any time, for any reason or none. Write to archivist@shaabans.com; the removal is made by hand, acknowledged to you, and noted in the ledger. You keep a copy of everything you sent. How to ask
The Archivist
This registry is kept by one volunteer who does not publish their name. The archive should outlive whoever happens to be keeping it, and no branch should feel it belongs to another.
So trust comes from the rules rather than from a face: every policy is public, moderation decisions are logged, and removal requests are honoured without question.
The work itself is unglamorous — reading registrar’s stamps, chasing the district behind a smudge, asking an aunt to check a name.
