Terms and Conditions

These Terms & Conditions explain our conditions for you using the Midlands Historical Data website.

You must agree to the Terms & Conditions if you use the website. If you do not agree with our Terms & Conditions or Privacy Policy, you must not use the website.

Our Privacy Policy forms part of the Terms & Conditions, and is simple – with the exception of our credit card processor, we never share your personal information with any other organisation. Our credit and debit card payments are processed on our behalf by WorldPay, and we pass on your name and address to them as part of the payment authorisation process. WorldPay are part of the international banking settlement system, and have the resources and competence to safeguard your personal and credit card data.

In addition, with one exception we do not leave Cookies in your browser. We do use Cookies to identify you during a session, but once the session has finished the Cookie does not persist. The one exception to this is when you check the Remember Me box at Log in - this leaves a Cookie in your browser which enables us to identify you, but the Cookie has no other function.

1. What you can use the service for: You can only use the website for your own personal non-commercial use, e.g., to conduct your own historical research. We are also happy for you to help out other people with their historical research by telling them about information available on the website and how and where it can be found. However, you must not provide them with copies of any of the records (either an original image or the information on the results page), even if you provide them for free.

2. Use a Research package to carry out research for others: If you want to use the website for commercial purposes, you must buy a Research package. If you use your subscription to carry out research for other people (even for free), we reserve the right to stop you using the website and cancel your subscription without refund.

3. Getting access to pages: In order to use the search mechanism on the website and view pages you will need to buy either Pay-per-view credits or a subscription. You have to register with us and be logged in to buy credits or a subscription. A contract between us begins when we send you a confirmation email after receiving your order and have accepted your payment.

4. Prices: Prices for Pay-per-view credits, subscription, image licences and research packages are explained on the prices page.

5. Pay-per-view credits: You can buy Pay-per-view credits from us - these get used up when you make searches or view page images at a rate of one page view credit each time you view a page (and for each set of results for the electoral roll). Credits are only valid for a fixed time limit (180 days) and will expire if you don’t use them in time - this is made clear on the payment page when you buy them. Each Pay-per-view credit entitles you to one page image view or one set of search results..

6. Fair usage: We have a fair usage limit for subscribers but we have set it at a high level (you can view 5000 pages each calendar month if you are a subscriber). In the unlikely event that you get close to the limit, we will send you an email to warn you. If you do manage to reach the limit, we reserve the right to ask you to wait for the next calendar month to start (when your monthly limit is automatically reset).

Fair usage also applies to downloads of complete books. Once you have paid for a download, you will have six months to download your book. However, we limit the number of times to 5 times that you can download a complete book from our web site. If for some reason you need to download a book more times than this, then please contact us explaining why this is necessary.

7. Cancellation and your right to a refund: If you buy a subscription or Pay-per-view credits, you can contact us and cancel within seven days of receipt of our confirmation email and we will happily give you a refund if the service does not meet your expectations.  However, if you have used more than 10% of your Pay-per-view credits, for Pay-per-view credit purchases we will only refund the unused portion of your Pay-per-view credits.

8. Intellectual property rights (including copyright) in the page images we provide: The copyright of the images on this web-site is owned by Ancestry and Midlands Historical Data. You can use the content on the website for private and non-commercial purposes only. You cannot use the records to create your own work (for example a database of records, an article, blog post or book), copy or reproduce the records, or share or publish them unless you have our permission in writing. The website and services provided on it belong to Midlands Historical Data, and again, you must not copy or use them without our permission. Please get in touch if you want to use the information and images on this web-site for anything apart from your own historical research.

9. Changes to the website: We reserve the right to make changes to the website, including the pages and search mechanisms that we offer, without notice; however, we would not survive very long if we suddenly took things away that you have paid for without offering you a decent replacement. We may also change prices, make special offers to groups or individuals.

10. Offering a good service: We always try to make sure the website is fast, accurate and performs well: however, we cannot promise that it will always work as expected. If the website does fail, we will not be liable for any losses you might suffer.

11. Things beyond our control: Sometimes things happen that disrupt your service, which we have no reasonable control over. Examples are fires, floods, strikes and workmen putting shovels through our internet connection cable. Obviously, as we can't control or plan for these things, we cannot be liable for any losses that they cause you.

12. Customer support and complaints: We really believe in Customer Support and always aim to fix problems where we can: quickly, and in a friendly way. If you have a question, suggestion or complaint, please contact Customer Support first and we'll do our best to sort it out.

13. Corporate users: These Terms & Conditions also apply if you are using a Corporate account. Special Terms & Conditions also apply for Corporate accounts which are provided when you buy these services from us. If any provisions in these online Terms & Conditions and the special Corporate account Terms conflict, the latter will take precedence.

14. When we might stop you using the website: We have no wish to stop people using the website - quite the contrary. However, if you break these Terms & Conditions we reserve the right to stop you using the website. If you persistently offer lookups to other people and provide them with records, or use a personal subscription for professional purposes, we also reserve the right to stop your access. In all these cases you will have no right to a refund.

15. Liability: The only warranties or promises we give are set out in this document. We cannot accept liability for any indirect or consequential losses, loss of data or any use of content you suffer from using the website, although we never limit liability for personal injury or death caused by our negligence or fraud. For any other loss you suffer that is caused by us, we limit the liability we have to you to the total money you spent on the website in the 12 calendar months before you make a claim against us. Your statutory rights are not affected.

16. Assignment: These Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy are personal to you, and you are not allowed to transfer your rights under this agreement to anyone else. Amongst other things, that means that you may not share pages for which you have made a payment on this web-site, except as provided under the separate licence for images.

17. Severance: The law is constantly changing, so if any part of these Terms & Conditions or Privacy Policy no longer applies or is no longer legally enforceable, then that part will be severed from the rest of the agreement: the rest will continue to apply.

18. The law: These Terms & Conditions are made under English law, and any arguments about them (heaven forbid) will only be heard in English courts.

19. Changes to these Terms and Conditions: Any changes we make to our rights under these Terms and Conditions will be made in writing.

20. Contact us: We hope that's clear and fair. If it isn't or you have another question that isn't covered, please contact us.