About the Family Gift Registry

What is it?

The Family Gift Registry is a place where families and friends can come together, make wish lists, and anonymously claim items on each other's lists.

It's a website to make all gift giving holidays much easier so less time can be spent worrying about what to give loved ones and more time can just be spent giving and enjoying the occasion.

What's different about this registry site?

  • Not linked to any stores
    When adding items to your wish list you are only limited by your imagination. Add an old fashioned hyperlink if you found the specific thing online or describe something else entirely... Maybe a thing or two money can't buy.

  • No ads
    See any advertisements here? Nope. Don't count on ever seeing any, either.

  • No sponsors
    No business entity is associated with this site. None of your information ever leaves this site. Only the other members of your families can see it.

  • No spam
    The Family Gift Registry will send you one email every year, usually sometime in November, reminding you it exists in case you forgot about it (many people only use this site for the end-of-year holidays). If even that is too much email, you can opt out of it without closing your account.

  • No fees
    Free to sign up, free to use.

  • Lots of flexibility
    Create and join as many families as you like. Create and control wish lists for your kids and pets. Organize a secret santa game. There are plenty of features here to let you do all kinds of things. If a feature doesn't exist or can be made better, request it!

Who runs this site and how is it paid for?

My name is Chris and I started the Family Gift Registry in 2005 when it was clear that the people in my family loved giving each other gifts for Christmas but sometimes had no clue what to give (or gifts were duplicated). It started as a personal side project and has remained that way as it has grown. At this writing (November 2018) we have over 5,700 users and more than 1,700 families.

I don't make money on this site. As detailed above, there is no revenue stream. People ask if this site will ever have ads or cost money to sign up, but the answer is always no. That would squeeze the life right out of it!

If you would like to contribute some funds to help cover operational costs, you can do so here. Thank you!

Privacy Policy

This website will not, under any circumstances whatsoever, give out or sell your information (including name and email address) to anyone. Ever.

This website will only send you emails when you ask for them, with the exception of the once-every-November email reminding you this site exists and you have an account, which you can opt out of at any time.

At most, only members of your family or families will ever have access to the information you post to this website. Any information provided to this website, including your name and email address, will not appear publicly in any way.

Your information is strictly confidential. It is backed up to multiple secure locations. As programmer of this website I (Chris) have access to it and may use it to help debug a problem you report to me. Otherwise all development and testing is done with made up data.

Your information will only ever be provided to law enforcement with a valid subpoena.

Lots of features!

Optimized for Mobile
Built to look clean and run fast on any device, from your phone to your tablet to your computer.
Private Wish List
Create and keep a personal wish list that can be only be seen by your families.
Private Profile
Help your family members with tools to privately share your clothing sizes, birthday, general prefrences and pointers, etc.
Private and Secure
Your data is only visible to your families. HTTPS all the time.
Multiple Families
Join or create as many families as you like. No limits.
Anonymous Claims
Claim gifts on other's wish lists. See which gifts have been claimed but not by whom to avoid duplicate presents. Set gifts to allow for any number of claims.
Shopping List
See all of your claimed items organized by recipient.
Budget
Track what you plan to spend on your shopping list.
Printable Lists
All lists can be viewed in a printer-friendly format.
Personal and Family Comments
Post comments on someone else's gift list. Make them public to the whole family (except the list owner) or private to only you. Put your name on it or keep it anonymous.
Child Wish Lists
Create and manage unlimited separate lists for your kids or your cats right inside your account. Kid grows up? Enter their email address at any time to let them take control.
Invite New Family Members
Inviting people to join your family is as easy as typing their email address. Invite many people at once.
Family Management Tools
Manage who's active, who can organize secret santa, and who else can help you manage.
Secret Santa
Organize a secret santa game within your family to keep holiday spending down.
Poke Inactive Users
Uncle Steve hasn't updated his list all year? Give him a poke to send an anonymous reminder email.

How do I contact you?

You can contact me (Chris) at the following address: chris at familygiftregistry dot net. All suggestions and comments are welcome!