Terms of Service

1. About us

The Indian Archive is an independent service helping Hindu families living overseas understand and complete their family traditions in India after a bereavement. The current public service has one price, shown to the customer in their selected or detected currency, and includes preparing the family information, identifying the appropriate priestly route and coordinating rites or observances advised by the relevant Hindu priest, with family-register work where relevant. The hereditary priest or record-holding family remains the custodian of any register. The priest who holds the family Bahi and the priest who performs the rites may be the same person or two different people. Indian Archive does not independently prescribe religious rites; the priest determines what is appropriate within the family's Hindu tradition. Historic products and research orders remain governed by the terms agreed when they were purchased. You can contact us at namaste@indianarchive.com.

We are not a government service and are not affiliated with the Government of India or any government body. We do not transport, receive or handle ashes, and the ashes do not need to travel to India for either service.

The service is operated by Archive Heritage Group Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 17322145.

Registered office: Archive Heritage Group Ltd, Office 4, Acorn Business Centre, Ablewell Street, Walsall, WS1 2EG, United Kingdom.

2. Using the service

Customers begin with their loved one's details, create or sign in to an account to save progress, provide family and ancestral information, pronunciation recordings, what has already happened, participation preferences and supporting documents, then review everything before payment. A case is opened only after payment succeeds; there is no package or centre selection in this journey.

3. Accounts

Customers must provide accurate account information, keep login details secure, and tell us if they suspect unauthorised access.

4. Customer information and permissions

Customers are responsible for making sure the information, documents, photographs, audio and family details they provide are accurate to the best of their knowledge and are provided with appropriate permission. Customers grant us permission to use the provided information solely to deliver and support the service.

5. Nature of the managed service

The service is managed bereavement coordination and may include best-efforts heritage research where family-register work is relevant. It may involve India-based researchers, priests and purohits, record holders, field workers, translators and reviewers. Outcomes depend on the availability of records, the quality of customer information, local access, cooperation of record holders, centre or region, language, the condition of documents, and field circumstances.

6. No guarantee of register discovery or supporting material

We do not guarantee that a family record, register entry, lineage, person, event or specific archive will be found. Some records may be missing, inaccessible, damaged, incomplete, unavailable, inconsistent or not locatable.

7. Not official verification

Any findings are provided for heritage, family-history and personal archive purposes. They are not legal, civil, immigration, probate, tax, caste or community, religious-status or government verification documents.

8. Assessment, quote and payment

Sign-in is required so the customer’s information and progress can be stored securely. The current public service price is shown in the customer’s selected or detected currency, and the authoritative charged amount and currency are shown by Stripe. A case is opened only after payment has been confirmed. The price includes the traditional offering or dakshina to the priest or register-holding family, our coordination, researcher and local representative fees, translation of source material where such material is supplied as part of the completed case, and delivery of any supporting material the custodian permits. The agreed service price covers the normal Hindu priest, traditional custodian, ritual-material, local-attendance and coordination costs for the agreed Hindu rites and related work Indian Archive arranges. Photographs, video, audio and copies of register pages are not standard deliverables and are not guaranteed; where the underlying material is not supplied, no translation of it can be promised.

9. Refunds and cancellations

Our full refund position is set out on the Refunds page, which is the authoritative wording. In summary: before coordination or field work begins, a paid service may be cancelled for a full refund of the service fee. Asking us to start coordination is a request for the service to begin immediately. Once work has begun, costs may already have been committed—including researcher, priest or record-holder, field, translation, administrative or payment-processing costs—and the service fee is non-refundable except where required by law or where we are unable to provide the service.

Historical orders

Historical products are no longer available through the current public journey. Existing historical orders remain governed by the terms agreed when they were purchased.

For historical Family History Research orders, the core research or search fee is non-refundable once research has begun. Where a Family History Research order includes the £100 register entry/update component, that component is conditional: if the relevant entry or update work cannot be carried out or cannot be completed, the applicable £100 is refunded or, with the customer’s approval, applied towards an additional approved centre search. An earlier historical family entry not being located does not by itself mean entry or update work cannot be carried out, since a new family entry may be established in the appropriate existing register where the custodian confirms that is proper. If no matching historical record is found, the customer still receives a written account of the work completed.

Statutory consumer rights that cannot be excluded are unaffected.

10. Customer uploads

Customers must not upload unlawful, abusive, false, malicious, infringing or harmful content. Customers must not upload documents they are not authorised to share.

11. Family tree and archive output

Family tree entries, translations, summaries and archive documents are prepared from customer-provided information and available findings. They may contain uncertainties, spelling variations, transliteration choices, translation notes or unresolved conflicts.

12. Corrections and review requests

Customers can ask us to review possible mistakes. We may correct errors where reasonably supported by available information. Some disagreements may reflect conflicting source material or incomplete records.

13. Referral codes

Referral codes may provide discounts if valid at checkout. Referral availability, discount amount, expiry, eligibility and currency restrictions may vary. Referral codes cannot be guaranteed or applied after payment unless the system or policy allows it.

14. Acceptable use

Customers must not misuse the website, attempt unauthorised access, interfere with systems, scrape data, impersonate others, upload malware, harass staff or researchers, or use the service for unlawful purposes.

15. Intellectual property

The website, design, branding, text and generated archive presentation belong to The Indian Archive or its licensors. Customers retain rights in materials they upload, but grant us permission to use them to provide the service. Customers may use delivered archive material for personal and family purposes.

16. Service availability

We aim to keep the website available but cannot guarantee uninterrupted or error-free access. Maintenance, technical issues, third-party services and field conditions may affect availability.

17. Third-party services

The service may rely on payment providers, hosting providers, authentication services, email services, analytics, storage, translators, researchers and other service providers. Their availability and terms may also apply.

18. Limitation of liability

We are not liable for losses caused by inaccurate customer information, unavailable records, third-party delays, local field conditions, or events outside our reasonable control. Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded by law.

19. Privacy

Our handling of personal information is described in our Privacy Policy.

20. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. The latest version will be available on this page.

21. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales, unless mandatory consumer protection laws in the customer’s country require otherwise. Customers may have local consumer rights that cannot be excluded.

22. Contact

For questions about these terms, contact namaste@indianarchive.com.