Written by Generation Archives, the product this guide describes.
A private family tree you share only with relatives
A family tree you build for your relatives is a different project from a public research tree. You want the names, the photos, and the stories available to the people you choose, and closed to everyone else. Generation Archives starts there: a tree is private until you invite someone or turn on a link.
Private by default
Only you, and people you invite as collaborators, can open a tree. It is not listed in a public search of other families. You decide what to record about living relatives, and you can keep that off the open web. The privacy policy describes what the account stores and who can see a tree you mark public.
Invite relatives to view or edit
Send an invitation by email and give view or edit access. Editors can help fill in people, dates, and memories. Viewers can look without changing the tree. You can remove a collaborator later from tree settings. That is the usual way families work on one archive without emailing photo folders around.
You can also mark a tree public so anyone with the link can view it. Leave that off if the tree is only for the family. A public link is a switch, not the default.
Tag people in family photos
Uploading a shoebox of scans is only half the job. The useful part is knowing who is in the picture after the person who remembers is gone. Tag people in a photo and those faces stay tied to their profiles. The same person can hold memories, notes, and links, so a story sits with the relative it is about instead of in a separate album.
You do not have to pay for this. If a photo already has a public URL, add that link. It uses no storage credit, and you can still tag the people in it. Hosting the file on Generation Archives is optional: $1 per GB per year in prepaid credit, with a little starter credit on new accounts, and no subscription. See pricing and storage for both choices, including what happens if credit runs out.
What stays in the archive
- Several trees under one account, if one family line should stay separate from another.
- Layouts you arrange by hand, plus auto arrange when you want a clean generation view.
- A GEDCOM or GEDZIP import when the people already live in another program, and an export when you want a backup you can open elsewhere.
- A demo you can click through before you sign up. Demo edits stay on that device.
What this is not
Generation Archives does not search historical records and does not offer DNA matching. It will not discover relatives for you. It keeps the tree you and your family write, and the photos and stories you attach to it. If you also want record search, do that research elsewhere and bring the people over with a GEDCOM.
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