Disclaimer

HeirloomMath is an independent educational resource focused on optical scanning mathematics, color-histogram analysis, historical calendar arithmetic, decennial census birth windows, genealogical kinship formulas, and fidelity-first AI restoration and transcription prompting. Please read the following scope boundaries carefully before relying on any calculator or guide:

1. Not legal, probate, title, or financial appraisal advice

Nothing on HeirloomMath—including our explanations of 18th- and 19th-century probate wills, estate inventories (£/s/d), land deed metes-and-bounds measurements (Acres, Roods, and Perches), statutory census dates, or kinship degrees—constitutes legal representation, probate or heirship adjudication, real-property title examination, or certified personal-property appraisal. Intestate succession laws, evidentiary standards for vital records, and land-boundary rules vary by state and jurisdiction. If you are involved in a probate proceeding, quiet-title action, or estate tax valuation, consult a licensed probate attorney, professional land surveyor, or accredited appraiser.

2. Educational population genetics, not clinical or legal parentage testing

Our Cousin Chart & Shared Autosomal DNA (cM) Calculator displays theoretical expectations based on Sewall Wright’s Coefficient of Relationship (r), Donnelly-Coop Poisson recombination models, and empirical ranges published by the Shared cM Project v4 for recreational family-history research. Because meiotic recombination is a random stochastic process—and because endogamy or pedigree collapse can inflate shared centiMorgans—these calculators cannot establish legal paternity, maternity, or clinical genetic risk. For medical genetics or court-admissible relationship testing, consult a board-certified genetic counselor or an AABB-accredited relationship testing laboratory.

3. Physical conservation & grave-marker preservation safety

Fragile historic media—including flaking glass-plate negatives, curled nitrate or acetate film strips suffering from vinegar syndrome, sticky-shed magnetic videotapes, and weathering marble or slate gravestones—can be permanently damaged by improper heat, solvents, mechanical rollers, or abrasive scrubbing. Never apply chalk, shaving cream, flour, bleach, or wire brushes to historic gravestones (see National Park Service Preservation Brief 48), and never feed brittle 19th-century mounts or warped slides through a mechanical sheet-fed roller scanner. When an artifact is unique, fragile, or flaking, consult a professional conservator (such as a member of the American Institute for Conservation, AIC).

4. AI restoration & transcription require human verification

Even when constrained by our facial-geometry lock and diplomatic square-bracket uncertainty prompts in the Photo & Slide Digitization Planner and Old Script Transcription Prompt Builder, generative AI models can misread faded ink loops or subtly alter photographic details. Always save your untouched archival master scan separately from any AI-edited derivative, and verify every AI-transcribed name, date, and dollar or sterling amount against the original manuscript or microfilm image.

5. Third-party trademarks & government citations

Product names and agency acronyms mentioned in our educational guides (such as Kodachrome, Kodacolor, Ektachrome, Epson, Plustek, Nikon, Apple ProRes, Adobe Photoshop, ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude, NARA, FADGI, and the Library of Congress) are trademarks or designations of their respective owners or public agencies. HeirloomMath is an independent publication and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any commercial vendor or government agency.