Make a genealogy in minutes
A genealogy here takes an account and a few minutes. The Start a genealogy wizard asks one thing at a time, in four steps: an account, the genealogy's place and surname, its founder, and your family.
1Open Start a genealogy
On the home page, press Start a genealogy. Every page of the wizard shows which step you are on at the top. If you leave half way, press Start a genealogy again and it carries on where you stopped.
2Make an account
Fill in a display name, your email and a password (8 characters or more), tick that you agree to the terms and the privacy policy, and press Next. The display name is what your relatives see on the site: your own name, or something like "Deming of the third branch".
If you already have an account, use the log-in link below the form; you come back to the wizard once you are in.
3The genealogy
Give the surname, then pick the ancestral place level by level down to the county or district. The township, village, former place name and hall name are optional.
The genealogy code below is made as you type. It is part of the genealogy's web address and never changes once the genealogy exists, so if a village's spelling is wrong, correct it here. A name is suggested from the place and surname; keep it or write your own. Then press Create a genealogy.
4The founder
The founder is the earliest ancestor in this genealogy, and his generation is already filled in as 1. Give his name and sex; courtesy, art and honorary names are folded away underneath if you know them. Press Next.
Everyone else is added below him later, a generation at a time: Add a child on a person's page, and the generation counts itself.
5Your family
A new genealogy already has a family code, and both boxes are ticked: Allow access to the names and details by code and Allow additions and corrections by code. You can change the code to something your family will remember (4 to 16 letters or digits) and press Save.
The invitation below already holds the genealogy's name, its link and the code. Press Copy the invitation and paste it into your family's group chat, and your relatives can start helping. How that works is in Build it together as a family.
6Done
Your genealogy is ready. Next you might add the founder's children, write an introduction, or choose who can see it. Anyone with its address can open it now; to be listed in this site's directory it needs the site's approval.
Good to know
- Names are hidden from the public by default. Only the genealogy's administrators, approved family members and people who entered the family code can see them; even if you later show names to the public, the recent generations stay hidden, so living relatives can be entered safely.
- The genealogy code cannot change; the name and the ancestral place can be changed later under Genealogy settings.
- Each account can make a limited number of genealogies; the page says how many you have left.