What happens to your 23andMe DNA data in a bankruptcy?
The financial challenges facing consumer genomics pioneer 23andMe have turned one of the world’s largest genetic databases into a high-stakes case study for how law, technology, and human identity collide.
While the company's 2023 credential‑stuffing breach exposed genetic and ancestry information for about 6.9 million users, subsequent corporate restructuring, the resignation of its board of directors, and ongoing delisting risks have raised urgent questions about what happens to sensitive genetic profiles if a consumer DNA company faces Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Under U.S. bankruptcy rules, consumer data—including genetic information and stored biological samples—can be treated as a liquidatable asset in a court‑supervised restructuring or sale. This reality has revealed troubling gaps in consent, showing that DNA records can be treated as property under corporate distress despite the limits of existing privacy laws.
For anyone who has tested with 23andMe, this situation matters not only for understanding where their DNA data stands today, but also for thinking more broadly about how to preserve family history and sensitive information in ways that are secure, contextual, and aligned with their values.
Privacy‑first legacy platforms such as MyHeirloom offer a way to bring memories, documents, and relationships together without turning genetic identity into a commercial asset that may be traded in a financial crisis.
Introduction
In little more than a decade, direct‑to‑consumer DNA testing moved from niche curiosity to mainstream pastime. Millions of people mailed saliva samples to companies like 23andMe to discover ancestry, explore genetic health risks, and connect with relatives around the world.
Those services promised both scientific insight and an engaging narrative about who we are. Yet the same databases that enabled those stories also concentrated extraordinarily sensitive data—genomes linked to names, birth dates, photos, and family networks—inside commercial infrastructures governed by privacy policies and corporate risk.
This setup differs significantly from traditional healthcare protections such as HIPAA. The turning point for public awareness came in 2023, when a credential‑stuffing attack compromised about 14,000 23andMe accounts and exposed ancestry profiles and personal details for roughly 6.9 million users through the DNA Relatives and Family Tree features.
Stolen data appeared for sale in dark‑web markets, containing information about ethnicity, health predispositions, and family connections. This breach triggered investigations, class-action litigation, and eventually a settlement, but it also highlighted how quickly genetic insights can be stripped of context and exposed.
Now, as financial analysts and privacy advocates discuss the risk of bankruptcy or a corporate sale of the platform, the legal treatment of consumer databases in Chapter 11 has become a central concern. Under U.S. bankruptcy rules, a debtor’s assets can be transferred "free and clear" of many prior obligations.
This means that a buyer of 23andMe's assets could potentially acquire the genetic database under modified privacy terms. State attorneys general, consumer advocacy groups, and legal experts have argued that DNA is "immutable and everlasting" and that its mass transfer without renewed consent raises unique ethical concerns.
This article unpacks what all of this means for an individual who once tested with 23andMe. It explains where your DNA data likely resides now, what rights you still have to control or delete it, and how the threat of bankruptcy exposes deeper structural issues around genetic privacy, consent, and digital legacy.
Then, it broadens the lens to consider how you might want to preserve family memories, health information, and ancestry stories in the future. Here, platforms like MyHeirloom offer a complementary path: they help you create a secure, contextual Legacy Room for your stories, relationships, recipes, and documents, without aggregating raw genetic data into a single commercial asset.
The 23andMe breach and financial uncertainty: What is at stake?
The 2023 credential‑stuffing attack and data exposure
The 23andMe incident did not begin with a classic hack of the company’s internal infrastructure. Instead, attackers used a technique known as credential stuffing, in which login details stolen from other breached services are tried against a target site to identify accounts that reused the same email and password combinations.
Starting around April 2023 and continuing for several months, a threat actor systematically fed previously compromised usernames and passwords into 23andMe’s login interface until matches were found. Once they gained access to about 14,000 individual accounts—less than 0.1 percent of the customer base—they could see all of the data those users had chosen to store.
The direct compromise of those accounts would have been serious on its own. For many users, the exposed information included detailed ancestry composition, ethnicity estimates, haplogroup assignments, carrier status, wellness reports, and even raw genotype data representing hundreds of thousands of genetic markers.
Alongside that genomic information, accounts often held self‑reported health conditions, names, birth years, profile photos, and self‑described locations. These files also contained information about grandparents’ birthplaces and extended family trees, which could reveal sensitive health insights, family patterns, and geographic origins.
What made the incident truly large‑scale, however, was 23andMe’s DNA Relatives feature, an opt‑in social layer that allowed users to discover and connect with genetic matches. When people enabled DNA Relatives, they agreed to share portions of their profile with other users who appeared as genetic relatives.
Once attackers controlled 14,000 accounts with DNA Relatives enabled, they could scrape the profiles of matches connected to those accounts, even though those matched users’ own logins had not been compromised. This scraping extended to family tree views, displaying relationships, surnames, and locations for relatives of the directly breached users.
Through this network effect, the attackers ultimately extracted data relating to approximately 6.9 million individuals, nearly half of 23andMe’s user base at the time. About 5.5 million of these were DNA Relatives profiles connected to the initially compromised accounts, and another 1.4 million came from family tree profiles viewed via the same access.
The scraped data varied by user, depending on how much they had chosen to share, but could include ancestry composition, display names, profile photos, and genealogical details. 23andMe disclosed the breach publicly in October 2023, after evidence of the stolen data began circulating.
Regulators and security experts emphasized that the incident demonstrated a critical vulnerability: if a platform allows extensive cross‑profile sharing, compromised accounts can expose data far beyond the directly hacked users. The breach also underscored the unique risk profile of genetic databases.
Unlike passwords, DNA cannot be changed after a breach; unlike credit‑card numbers, genomes connect to relatives, descendants, and ancestral communities. This difference is one reason that state attorneys general describe genetic data as "immutable and everlasting," and why advocacy groups frame its protection as an enduring priority.
Financial distress and the reality of bankruptcy rules
By late 2024, 23andMe’s financial situation had grown increasingly complex, marked by a falling stock price, the resignation of its entire independent board of directors, and public discussions about restructuring. When a company faces significant financial distress, Chapter 11 bankruptcy becomes a realistic path for reorganization.
Chapter 11 is designed to allow a business to restructure its debts and sell its assets to satisfy creditors while continuing some level of operations. Under U.S. bankruptcy law, a debtor’s assets include intangible property such as proprietary software, trademarks, and consumer databases.
In the case of 23andMe, this means its vast database of genetic information, health profiles, and stored physical biological samples could be treated as commercial assets in a court‑supervised restructuring or liquidation. If a bankruptcy court permits the sale of a company’s assets, the transaction typically occurs "free and clear" of existing liabilities.
As the financial troubles of the company unfolded, consumer advocacy groups voiced concern that typical customers had never fully understood that their DNA records could be sold. Standard terms of service and privacy policies often allow for the transfer of personal information in the event of a merger, acquisition, or bankruptcy.
If a consumer database is offered for sale in bankruptcy, the court typically appoints a Consumer Privacy Ombudsman (CPO) to review the transaction. The CPO's role is to evaluate whether the proposed transfer violates the company's own privacy policies or applicable consumer-protection laws, and to recommend safeguards to the judge.
While a Consumer Privacy Ombudsman can recommend restrictions, the bankruptcy court ultimately retains the authority to approve the sale to maximize value. This priority often clashes with the long-term privacy interests of consumers.
Treating DNA as a bankruptcy asset: A structural shift
The vulnerability of 23andMe's database highlights a profound structural shift: consent‑bound genetic records, originally collected under the promise of personal discovery and medical research, can be converted into liquidatable assets in a corporate restructuring.
In this context, human-rights and digital-privacy scholars argue, prior consents that governed how DNA could be used begin to look more like optional terms than enduring guarantees. Unlike other forms of personal data, genomes cannot be truly anonymized once linked to identities and family trees, carrying permanent implications for relatives.
Under current legal frameworks, the database is treated primarily as intellectual property and corporate assets. If a company with a massive genetic archive collapses, there is no automatic federal mechanism to permanently protect or delete that archive, leaving the data subject to the strategic interests of potential buyers.
Store your most cherished memories and heritage safely on Heirloom.
Preserve our memoriesTypical customers rarely read privacy policy updates, particularly if they have not logged into their accounts for several years. For millions of customers who opened accounts during the early days of direct-to-consumer testing, the terms of service may have been updated dozens of times to account for corporate restructuring and potential bankruptcy.
These structural realities show that storing genetic information in commercial platforms is not just a matter of immediate cybersecurity. It is also about how law conceptualizes ownership and control over data about our bodies and families. This uncertainty is prompting many individuals to reevaluate their digital legacy, looking for alternative models.
Where your 23andMe DNA data stands today
Current database custody and the potential for transition
At present, 23andMe continues to operate, and customer DNA data and samples remain under the custody of the company. In public statements and communications, the company has maintained that it continues to operate in the ordinary course and that customer data remains subject to its strict privacy protections and security measures.
However, because the company’s future corporate structure remains in transition—with ongoing efforts by management to privatize, restructure, or secure additional funding—the database remains in a state of potential vulnerability. If a transaction or corporate sale occurs, control of the database would shift to a new legal entity with its own long-term priorities.
While any prospective buyer or restructured entity is legally bound by consumer protection laws and the company's current privacy policies at the time of transfer, privacy policies can be updated over time. A new corporate owner would bring its own long-term strategy and commercial priorities.
Your consents regarding research participation, sample storage, and data sharing remain active unless you choose to change them. However, because the overarching control of the platform is subject to ongoing financial and strategic shifts, many regulators and privacy experts encourage consumers to actively manage their data.
What "data stays in place" actually means
When companies discuss data security during corporate transitions, they often reassure users that "data stays in place," meaning that genetic files and physical samples are not immediately copied or physically relocated to new servers. This assurance is intended to soothe fears about sudden data leaks or unauthorized sharing.
Yet "staying in place" can be misleading if interpreted as a guarantee of long-term privacy. From a technical perspective, the physical servers and freezers may remain in the same locations, but from a legal and operational perspective, control changes hands.
A new custodian acquires the legal rights to manage the database, access user profiles, and potentially update the terms of service to allow new commercial uses of the data. Most consumer privacy policies, including 23andMe's, explicitly state that personal information may be accessed, sold, or transferred as part of a bankruptcy, merger, or acquisition.
This stands in sharp contrast to healthcare data held by traditional medical providers, which is governed by strict federal HIPAA regulations that restrict commercial use and transfer regardless of corporate transactions. Therefore, database continuity does not mean permanence; it means that any future changes in data usage will be determined by the strategic goals and legal constraints of the entity in control.
Ongoing consumer rights to delete data and destroy samples
One of the most important aspects of the current situation is that consumers still retain the absolute right to delete their data and destroy their biological samples. State attorneys general and consumer advocacy groups have actively issued public alerts reminding residents that they have the power to direct 23andMe to delete their genetic data.
The process of deleting your 23andMe data involves several specific steps:
While 23andMe notes that it will delete the majority of personal information upon account closure, the company is legally required to retain certain minimal data to comply with regulatory standards, such as laboratory quality-control documentation under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA).
As financial uncertainty continues, a significant number of users have chosen to exercise their deletion rights. For individuals interested in family history and heritage, deleting this data can feel like a loss. However, it can also be a prompt to transition your family legacy to a secure, dedicated space.
Legal, ethical, and human rights implications
Consent gaps and the vulnerability of privacy policies
The discussion surrounding 23andMe highlights a significant gap between formal legal terms of service and what a reasonable customer actually understands when they sign up. After reviewing typical privacy statements, digital-rights advocates have noted that the terms of service are often designed to maximize corporate flexibility, allowing companies to revise privacy terms and transfer assets in the event of insolvency.
Most consumers sign up for DNA testing during periods of high-profile marketing campaigns, focusing on the excitement of personal discovery and the promise of privacy. The fine print, which includes warnings about potential asset transfers in bankruptcy, is rarely read or understood by average users.
When these policies are updated over the course of several years, users who do not log in regularly remain entirely unaware of how the ground rules of their data stewardship have changed. This vulnerability illustrates how quickly the contract between a consumer and a data custodian can shift under financial pressure.
It underscores the importance of actively managing your digital footprint and considering the structural realities of the platforms you use. It also highlights the value of alternative preservation models that are structurally designed for long-term user ownership.
Genetic data as uniquely sensitive and relational
Much of the legal and ethical debate around consumer DNA databases turns on the unique nature of genetic data itself. Genomes are immutable, everlasting, and relational. Unlike a password or credit card number, genetic data cannot be reset or changed after an exposure or transfer. It remains tied to an individual's identity and health profile for their entire life.
Furthermore, genetic data is inherently relational. A single DNA profile contains biological clues about parents, siblings, children, and extended relatives, many of whom have never consented to genetic testing or data collection.
If an individual's genetic profile is breached or sold, the implications can extend to their family members, potentially revealing inherited health risks or sensitive genealogical connections without their knowledge or consent. When genetic data is combined with names, photos, birth years, and geographic locations, its sensitivity increases exponentially.
Treating this kind of relational information as a liquidatable commercial asset undermines the foundational principles of consent. For this reason, legal scholars have called for a fundamental reevaluation of genetic data laws, arguing that genomes should be treated as bodily material or medical records rather than corporate property.
Limitations of current U.S. privacy and bankruptcy law
The threat of a corporate sale of a genetic database exposes critical limitations in current U.S. privacy and bankruptcy law. A common misconception among consumers is that genetic testing companies are bound by HIPAA, the primary federal law governing medical privacy. In reality, HIPAA generally applies only to covered healthcare entities, such as doctors, hospitals, and health insurance providers.
Direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies are not covered entities under HIPAA, meaning their data handling is governed primarily by their own privacy policies and a patchwork of state-level statutes. While some states have enacted robust genetic privacy laws—such as California’s Genetic Information Privacy Act (GIPA)—these protections remain inconsistent across the country.
In states without dedicated genetic privacy statutes, consumers must rely on general, often weak, consumer-protection laws. Furthermore, federal bankruptcy law traditionally focuses on maximizing the value of a debtor's estate for creditors. It lacks specific, built-in provisions that treat genetic databases differently from other intangible business assets.
While a court-appointed Consumer Privacy Ombudsman can recommend safeguards, bankruptcy courts still operate under a mandate to resolve debts, which can clash with the long-term privacy interests of consumers. For individuals concerned about their digital legacy, this legal landscape suggests several practical strategies:
What this means for your personal legacy and digital life
The risks of relying solely on genetic testing platforms for family history
The ongoing uncertainty surrounding 23andMe offers a cautionary tale about using single-purpose genetic platforms as the primary repository for your family history and personal legacy. While these services excel at generating structured biological data—such as relative matches, haplogroups, and ancestry percentages—they are not designed to be long-term, holistic custodians of your family’s stories, values, and traditions.
Over time, accounts on genetic platforms often become home to a disorganized collection of personal data: photos, self-reported health narratives, notes about deceased relatives, and geographic details. The risk is that this archive is embedded in a commercial structure whose primary financial obligation is to shareholders and creditors, not to your descendants.
If the company undergoes a financial crisis, restructuring, or acquisition, your family’s digital traces can become vulnerable to data breaches, ownership shifts, and policy changes. Another risk is the loss of context. Genetic databases present heritage as flat, quantitative estimates.
They cannot capture the rich narratives of lived experiences, the relationships of care that are not biological (such as adoptive ties, stepfamilies, and chosen kin), or the cultural traditions that truly define a family's identity across generations. If you want to preserve a legacy that feels whole, you need a space that integrates genetic and non-genetic dimensions in a secure, story-driven environment.
Common mistakes when people store their family history and DNA
The potential vulnerability of consumer DNA databases highlights several common mistakes people make when preserving their family legacy:
A more thoughtful approach to genetic and family information
Create a digital legacy that your children and grandchildren will be proud of.
Create a family legacyA more thoughtful approach involves separating your raw, highly sensitive genetic data from the meaningful narratives, relationships, and documents that define your family. Raw DNA data is unusually sensitive and structurally exposed to legal and financial dynamics beyond your control. If you feel uneasy about leaving your genetic information in a commercial database indefinitely, exercising your right to permanently delete your 23andMe account is a sensible step.
However, you can still preserve the insights and discoveries gained from that experience. You can download your reports as PDFs and store them in a secure, user-controlled legacy environment, surrounded by your own explanations.
You can write about the story of discovering a new branch of your family tree, map your ancestral regions, and record how these discoveries shaped your family conversations. This is where MyHeirloom is uniquely valuable. MyHeirloom is not a genetic testing service and does not analyze or store raw DNA.
Instead, it provides a secure, privacy-first Legacy Room where you can organize your life story, family tree, relationships, and sensitive documents under your direct control. Within MyHeirloom, you can use:
By choosing to separate your genetic testing decisions from your legacy preservation decisions, you retain control. You can choose whether to keep or delete your DNA files from commercial testing platforms while ensuring that the stories, documents, and memories that matter most are permanently organized and protected.
How MyHeirloom helps you build a safer, more meaningful legacy
Turning scattered traces into a Legacy Room
The ongoing discussions around 23andMe's financial challenges show how vulnerable family records can be when they are scattered across single-purpose commercial platforms. MyHeirloom addresses this fragmentation by allowing you to gather your life story, family connections, media, and sensitive information into a single, organized Legacy Room.
Instead of leaving your ancestry discoveries inside a commercial database that may change ownership, you can curate them intentionally in MyHeirloom. If you decide to delete your 23andMe data, you can build a series of Keepsakes in your Legacy Room about your family's heritage, attaching relevant documents and photos that you have chosen to preserve.
This Legacy Room belongs to you; you control the visibility settings, deciding exactly what is private, what is shared with loved ones, and what is preserved for future generations. If you are ready to begin organizing your family records, starting for free with MyHeirloom provides a practical, user-controlled space to gather your memories and documents, ensuring they are protected from corporate volatility.
Context-rich Keepsakes vs. context-free data dumps
The 2023 23andMe breach showed how easily personal data can be stripped of context when databases are scraped. Raw names, birth years, health markers, and locations are reduced to commodities. A similar loss of context happens in a quieter way when families save thousands of unlabeled photos or documents in generic cloud folders.
MyHeirloom’s Keepsakes are designed to resist this by anchoring every piece of media in a narrative. A Keepsake is a multimedia story that combines text, images, audio, and attachments so that future generations understand the story behind the files.
To help you build these rich narratives, MyHeirloom features Weaver, an AI-assisted memory-reflection guide. Weaver acts as a gentle, interview-style companion, asking thoughtful questions to help you uncover details about your life experiences, values, and family traditions. Weaver is not a legal, medical, or financial advisor; it is a storytelling assistant designed to help you add depth, emotion, and nuance to your Keepsakes.
By building Keepsakes, you ensure that your descendants do not inherit a confusing dump of context-free files. Instead, they encounter a structured, chronological archive on your Life Timeline, allowing them to explore your legacy as a series of meaningful stories.
DocuVault for sensitive documents and instructions
While consumer genetic platforms store test results, they are not built to secure your broader medical records, estate plans, or instructions for loved ones. Storing these materials in standard cloud services can leave them vulnerable to unauthorized access, while keeping them purely offline can make them impossible for family members to locate during an emergency.
MyHeirloom’s DocuVault provides a highly secure, private area within your Legacy Room designed specifically for sensitive files, such as estate documents, medical histories, and digital-account instructions. DocuVault requires a separate password and utilizes time-limited sessions to provide an extra layer of protection.
If you choose to download your genetic reports before deleting your account, you can store these PDFs in DocuVault. You can keep them completely private during your lifetime and use MyHeirloom's visibility settings to designate exactly when and with whom they should be shared.
This is supported by MyHeirloom's Trustee feature. You can designate trusted individuals—such as a partner, adult child, or close friend—to act as Trustees of your account.
In the event of your passing, and following a verification process, your designated Trustees are granted specific permissions to manage your Legacy Room, view authorized DocuVault files, and maintain your family tree. This ensures your digital legacy is preserved and managed according to your exact wishes, rather than being subject to corporate defaults or asset-sale dynamics.
Patron accounts and multi-generational storytelling
Genetic testing often reveals stories that span multiple generations, yet genetic accounts are typically centered on a single individual. MyHeirloom addresses this through Patron accounts.
A Patron account is a secondary Legacy Room that you can create for or about someone else—such as a child, parent, partner, or a deceased relative. It allows you to build a dedicated space for their life story, utilizing Keepsakes, a Life Timeline, My Tribe, and DocuVault.
If a parent or grandparent took a genetic test and wants to delete their data from the commercial platform but still preserve their discoveries, you can create a Patron account to document their heritage, upload their key records, and record their personal stories. Similarly, you can use a Patron account to honor the memory of a deceased relative, ensuring their traditions and achievements are celebrated in a secure, respectful environment.
Patron accounts share the same privacy-first principles as main MyHeirloom accounts, with no automated data aggregation and no commercial sharing. If you are ready to begin capturing your family's multi-generational narrative in a space designed for dignity and privacy, starting for free with MyHeirloom allows you to explore how these features can serve your family.
Conclusion
The security breach and ongoing corporate challenges facing 23andMe have fundamentally changed how people think about consumer genetics and digital legacy. What began as a popular trend for personal discovery has highlighted the vulnerabilities of concentrated, commercial databases.
Under federal bankruptcy rules, genetic profiles and stored biological samples can be treated as liquidatable assets, showing that the long-term stewardship of highly sensitive data remains subject to corporate risk and changing privacy policies.
For individuals who have used 23andMe, these realities demand proactive choices:
Ultimately, the 23andMe case is a reminder that preserving a legacy is different from simply storing files or participating in commercial networks. To build a legacy that is secure, meaningful, and respectful of privacy, we need spaces designed specifically for that purpose.
MyHeirloom provides that space. By gathering your memories into a Legacy Room filled with Keepsakes, a Life Timeline, My Tribe, Family Tree, Cookbook, and DocuVault, you can turn scattered digital traces into an organized, protected, and enduring family home. Explore MyHeirloom today, start for free, and ensure your life story remains under your control for generations to come.
FAQ
1. What happens to my 23andMe DNA data in a bankruptcy?
If a consumer genetics company like 23andMe files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, its database, customer profiles, and stored physical samples can be treated as commercial assets under the jurisdiction of a bankruptcy court. These assets can be sold to a buyer "free and clear" of existing liabilities. While a court-appointed Consumer Privacy Ombudsman would review the sale and recommend safeguards, a buyer could potentially modify the privacy terms over time, subject to state consumer protection laws.
2. Can my 23andMe data be sold or transferred to another company without my consent?
Most consumer privacy policies, including 23andMe’s, contain clauses stating that personal information can be transferred as part of a bankruptcy, merger, acquisition, or restructuring. While state attorneys general and regulators can intervene to protect consumers—and state laws like California's GIPA provide deletion rights—the most reliable way to prevent your data from being included in a future corporate sale is to actively delete your account and request sample destruction.
3. How do I delete my 23andMe DNA data and physical sample?
To delete your data, log into your account, go to Settings, scroll to 23andMe Data, and click "Permanently Delete Data." You must confirm the request via the link sent to your email. To destroy your stored saliva sample, you can update your preferences in the Preferences section or close your account, which automatically triggers a destruction order to the laboratory. If you previously consented to research, you can also withdraw your consent in the Research and Product Consents section.
4. If I delete my 23andMe data, how can I still preserve my family story?
Before initiating the deletion of your 23andMe account, you can download your ancestry reports, health summaries, and raw genetic data files for personal storage. You can then use MyHeirloom to preserve the meaning of those discoveries. By creating Keepsakes about your heritage, placing them on your Life Timeline, and storing key reference PDFs in DocuVault, you can keep your family stories and records organized and accessible without leaving your raw DNA in a commercial database.
5. How is MyHeirloom different from a genetic testing service like 23andMe?
MyHeirloom is a digital legacy and storytelling platform, not a genetic testing service. MyHeirloom does not collect, analyze, or store raw biological data. Instead, it offers a secure, privacy-first Legacy Room where you can organize your stories, family connections, photos, recipes, and important personal documents. Unlike commercial genetic platforms that treat database size as a corporate asset, MyHeirloom is designed to help you maintain direct ownership and control over what you share, with whom, and under what conditions.
6. Can I store genetic test results or health documents in MyHeirloom securely?
Yes. You can store copies of downloaded test reports, health summaries, and other sensitive personal files in MyHeirloom’s DocuVault. DocuVault is a secure area within your Legacy Room that requires a separate password and utilizes time-limited sessions for extra protection. While MyHeirloom is not a medical or legal provider and does not replace formal healthcare or estate planning, it provides a secure, organized environment to store important records and share them with designated Trustees when needed.
7. Is a cloud folder enough for preserving family history?
A standard cloud folder can store raw files, but it lacks the structure, context, and relational mapping needed to build a true family legacy. Without narrative descriptions, dates, and clear links between people and events, future generations may struggle to understand what they find. A dedicated legacy platform like MyHeirloom helps you organize media, stories, and connections into a cohesive, easily navigable Legacy Room.
8. What is the difference between storing files and preserving a legacy?
Storing files is simply retaining data; preserving a legacy is capturing meaning. Legacy preservation involves explaining why a photo matters, how a recipe fits into your traditions, and what a document signifies. It requires narrative, chronology, and personal context—elements that MyHeirloom integrates across its features.
9. How can I record memories related to genetic testing without leaving my DNA in an archive?
You can download your key ancestry and health reports from your genetic testing account, request the permanent deletion of your raw DNA data and physical sample, and then use MyHeirloom to document the experience. You can create a Keepsake about your heritage, attach the downloaded report as a reference PDF, and write about what those discoveries meant to you.
MyHeirloom gives you a dedicated Legacy Room—a private, secure space to collect photos, videos, documents, and stories.
Start now for free