Terms of Service

Effective date: 2026-09-14

1. Acceptance of these terms

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are a contract between you and Lizzian LLC (“Lizzian”, “we”, “us”), the operator of DNADojo at https://dnadojo.com (the “Service”). By accessing or using the Service you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

If you use the Service on behalf of an organisation, you represent that you are authorised to accept these Terms for that organisation, and “you” includes it.

You must be at least 16 years old, or the minimum age at which you can consent to online services in your country if that age is higher, to use the Service.

2. What the service is

DNADojo is a set of free, browser-based tools and reference articles for genetic genealogy: interpreting shared-centimorgan figures, understanding relationship probabilities, and inspecting your own raw DNA export file on your own device.

There are no accounts. Every calculation described as running in your browser runs in your browser. We do not receive, store or process your genetic data — see the Privacy Policy and the privacy architecture for detail.

The Service is an information and research aid. It produces estimates and possibilities. It does not produce conclusions, certificates, verdicts or determinations of fact, and nothing it outputs should be treated as one.

3. Not medical or health advice

The Service is not a medical device, not a clinical laboratory service, and not a health care provider. It has not been reviewed or cleared by any medical regulator. Nothing on this site is medical advice, and no doctor–patient or clinician–patient relationship is created by using it.

If you have a question about your health or a genetic condition, consult a qualified clinician or a certified genetic counsellor. Never delay or disregard professional medical advice because of something you read or calculated here.

4. Not legal, forensic or parentage evidence

Output from the Service must not be used as evidence, or as the basis for a decision, in any of the following contexts:

legal proceedings of any kind, including inheritance, probate, custody or child support;
parentage, paternity or maternity determination;
immigration, citizenship or visa applications;
criminal investigation, forensic identification, or investigative genetic genealogy;
insurance underwriting, employment, credit, housing or any other decision about a person;
identification of an individual who has not consented to being identified.

Those contexts require accredited testing performed under a documented chain of custody. A browser-based estimate is not a substitute, and we do not provide one.

5. Accuracy, estimates and provisional data

Genetic relationship inference is probabilistic. A single shared-centimorgan value is consistent with many different relationships, and the ranges overlap heavily beyond close family. The Service reports ranges and candidate relationships precisely because a single answer would be misleading.

The relationship dataset currently shipped with the Service is labelled provisional. It is generated by pedigree and recombination simulation against a published genetic map, using a stated crossover model, rather than measured from a large panel of genotyped relatives. Its methodology and known divergences from published tables are documented on the Data, sources and limits page. Treat the numbers as indicative and verify important conclusions against multiple independent sources.

We make no representation that the Service is error-free, that any estimate is correct, or that any figure will remain unchanged. Data, models and labels may be revised as the dataset is improved, and a revision may change the answer you previously received.

6. Unexpected discoveries

Genetic genealogy regularly reveals information that people were not looking for: misattributed parentage, unknown siblings, donor conception, undisclosed adoption, or that a documented family story is not biologically true. These discoveries can be distressing, and they affect relatives who never chose to take a test.

You use the Service with that possibility in mind and at your own emotional and personal risk. We cannot control, predict or undo what you find. If you are working through a discovery of this kind, consider speaking with a genetic counsellor or a search-and-reunion support organisation before contacting relatives.

7. Your files and other people’s data

You are responsible for the files you open with the Service and for having the right to use them. By using the Local DNA Explorer you confirm that the file is your own genetic data, or that you have the informed consent of the person it belongs to, or that you are otherwise legally entitled to handle it — for example as the parent or legal guardian of a minor.

Because the file is read on your device and never transmitted to us, we have no ability to verify this, to review the file, or to remove it. That responsibility is entirely yours.

Your genetic data also describes your biological relatives. Before sharing results, screenshots or conclusions that identify another living person, consider whether that person has agreed.

8. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

use the Service for any unlawful purpose, or in any way that infringes another person’s rights;
use the Service to identify, locate, profile, surveil or contact a person against their wishes;
upload, open or process another person’s genetic data without a lawful basis and their consent;
attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Service, its hosting, or any related system;
interfere with the Service, introduce malicious code, or impose an unreasonable load on it;
scrape, harvest or systematically copy the Service’s content or datasets except as section 9 allows;
remove, obscure or alter any attribution, licence, version or provisional-status notice;
present output from the Service as a professional, clinical, forensic or certified result;
resell the Service, or offer it as your own service, without our written permission.

We may restrict or block access to the Service if we reasonably believe it is being used in breach of this section.

9. Intellectual property

The Service — including its text, articles, illustrations, diagrams, layout, source code and datasets — is owned by Lizzian LLC or its licensors and is protected by copyright and other laws. Except as stated below, no rights are granted to you beyond using the Service as intended.

You may quote short excerpts of our articles for review, comment, teaching or news reporting with clear attribution and a link to the source page. You may not republish a page in substantial part, or use our content to train a machine-learning model, without our written permission.

Where a dataset or figure on the Service is published under a stated open licence, that licence governs your use of that item and takes precedence over this section for that item. Third-party data incorporated into the Service — including any published genetic map — remains subject to its own licence, which is identified on the sources page.

If you believe material on the Service infringes your copyright, write to [email protected] identifying the material, your rights in it, and your contact details, and we will investigate promptly.

10. Third-party names and trademarks

DNADojo is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by or connected to any consumer DNA testing company, and no such company has reviewed or approved its content.

Company and product names referenced on this site — including but not limited to 23andMe, AncestryDNA, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA and GEDmatch — are trademarks of their respective owners. They are used only nominatively, to describe file formats and to help you find instructions relevant to the service you actually used. Use of a name does not imply any relationship between that company and us.

11. Free service, future paid features

The Service is currently provided free of charge, and no payment details are collected. Any page describing a paid tier describes a planned offering, not a current one; prices and features shown there are indicative and are not an offer capable of acceptance.

If we later introduce paid features, they will have their own terms covering pricing, billing, renewal, refunds and cancellation, presented to you before any payment is taken. Those terms will supplement these Terms for those features.

12. Availability and changes to the service

We may change, suspend, limit or discontinue the Service or any part of it at any time, with or without notice. We may also update datasets, correct errors, and change how results are presented. We do not guarantee that the Service will be available, uninterrupted, or compatible with your browser or device.

We may amend these Terms. When we do, we will update the effective date at the top of this page, and for material changes we will note the change prominently on the Service for a reasonable period. Continued use after a change takes effect means you accept the amended Terms. If you do not accept them, stop using the Service.

13. Disclaimer of warranties

The Service, its content, and all datasets and estimates it produces are provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranty of any kind, whether express, implied or statutory. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all implied warranties, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, quiet enjoyment and non-infringement.

Without limiting that: we do not warrant that any relationship estimate is correct, that the provisional dataset reflects any particular population, that the Service will detect or correctly identify the format or reference build of any file, that it will operate without interruption or error, or that any defect will be corrected.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties. Where that is the case, the exclusions above apply only to the extent permitted, and nothing in these Terms limits the non-excludable rights of a consumer under the law of their country of residence.

14. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, neither Lizzian LLC nor its members, officers, employees or contractors will be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill, opportunity, or for emotional distress or damage to family or personal relationships, arising out of or relating to your use of or inability to use the Service — even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Our total aggregate liability to you for all claims relating to the Service will not exceed the greater of (a) the total amount you paid us for the Service in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) US$100.

These limits apply to every theory of liability — contract, tort (including negligence), statute or otherwise — and survive any failure of an essential purpose of a limited remedy.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or any non-excludable statutory liability. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of incidental or consequential damages; where that is the case, the above applies to the maximum extent permitted there.

15. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Lizzian LLC and its members, officers, employees and contractors from any claim, demand, loss, liability or expense (including reasonable legal fees) brought by a third party and arising out of your breach of these Terms, your misuse of the Service, your processing of another person’s genetic data without a lawful basis, or your use of output from the Service in a context prohibited by section 4.

16. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Colorado, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.

Talk to us first. Before starting any formal proceeding, please email [email protected] with a description of the problem and what you would like us to do. We will try in good faith to resolve it within 30 days. Most issues can be settled this way.

If that does not resolve the dispute, you and we agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in Colorado for any dispute arising out of these Terms or the Service, and each party waives any objection to venue there.

If you are a consumer resident in the European Union, the United Kingdom, or another jurisdiction whose law gives you the right to bring proceedings in your local courts or to the protection of your local mandatory consumer law, this section does not remove that right.

17. General terms

Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, are the entire agreement between you and us about the Service and replace any earlier understanding.
Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, it is modified to the minimum extent necessary to be enforceable, or severed, and the rest remains in force.
No waiver. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.
Assignment. You may not assign these Terms. We may assign them to an affiliate or in connection with a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, on notice.
No third-party beneficiaries. These Terms create no rights for anyone other than you and us.
Survival. Sections 3–5, 7, 9, 13–16 and this section survive any termination of your use of the Service.
Force majeure. We are not liable for a failure to perform caused by an event beyond our reasonable control.
Headings. Headings are for convenience and do not affect interpretation.

18. Contact

Lizzian LLC
1942 Broadway St., Ste 314C, Boulder, CO 80302, United States
[email protected]

Formal service of process: Northwest Registered Agent LLC, 1500 N Grant St, Ste N, Denver, CO 80203, United States.