Your family story, finally in one place.
Build a beautiful, limitless family tree - parents, children, spouses, divorces, remarriages, step-kids, all of it. Invite relatives to fill in what you don't know.
Six ways to see your tree
One tree, six layouts. Switch views to spot patterns, share with relatives, or just enjoy how it looks. Every view stays in sync - add someone once, see them everywhere.
The default. Pan and zoom across every generation. Click anyone to add parents, partners, kids - or trace lineage end-to-end.
Classic ahnentafel. Pick a focal person and see their direct ancestors fan out - parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, four or five generations back.
Top-down org-chart. Pick a great-grandparent and watch every line below - children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren - laid out in a clean cascade.
Radial. You at the center, ancestors fanning outward in concentric rings. The most beautiful way to print, frame, or share with the family.
Horizontal year axis, every person a bar from birth to death. Group by generation or surname. See instantly which ancestors lived through which eras.
Flat sortable table. Filter by living, deceased, "no parents in tree" - perfect for spotting gaps, finding orphans, or scanning by surname.
A real tree spans grandparents to grandchildren. FamilyTreeIQ scales from 5 people to 500 - same canvas, same layout, same view.
Limitless tree
Add parents, children, cousins, in-laws, and beyond. The canvas grows with you - pan and zoom across every generation.
Invite your family
Send your aunts, uncles, and cousins a link. They can fill in gaps you don't know - birthdays, places, stories. Every detail counts.
Real relationships
Divorces, remarriages, step-children, adoptions, unmarried co-parents - every family is different, and the tree handles it.
Every change tracked
See who added what and when. Disagree with an edit? The full history is one click away.
Trace any lineage
Click a person - instantly highlight every ancestor and descendant. See exactly how everyone connects.
Discuss as you build
Comment thread for the whole family. Sort out conflicting stories, share photos and memories, settle "wait, who married who?"
How it works
Add yourself
Start with what you know - your name, your parents, your kids. Takes 30 seconds.
Build out
Click "+ parent" or "+ child" on any card. The tree expands automatically. No drag-and-drop, no fiddling.
Invite the rest
Email your relatives a link. Once they sign up, they can edit alongside you. Your tree grows together.
What families are saying
"We finally captured my grandmother's stories before she passed. Without this, that whole branch of the family would've been lost."
"My cousin in Greece added 40 names from her side that I'd never have found. We're already three times bigger than my paper version."
"It handled our messy divorce-and-remarriage situation without me having to fight the software. First time anything has."
How we compare
Genealogy has a few big names. Here's where each one fits - and where FamilyTreeIQ is different.
Ancestry.com
For digging through records
- Massive census, marriage, and immigration databases
- Optional DNA testing add-on
- Best when you're chasing ancestors you don't know
- Tree shape is built around their record system
- Subscription required for most useful features
Best for: research from historical records
FamilyTreeIQ
For the family conversation
- Built around inviting relatives to add what they know
- Native support for divorce, remarriage, adoption, half-siblings, unmarried co-parents
- Private by default - you control exactly who sees your tree
- Modern, clean interface designed for clarity at any size
- Every change tracked - who edited what, and when
- Comments thread per tree so the family discusses as you build
Best for: building a private, collaborative family tree that preserves stories, sources, photos, and relationships in one place.
23andMe
For DNA insights
- Genetic ancestry breakdown by region
- Find DNA matches you didn't know about
- Optional health-related genetic info
- Limited tree-building features
- DNA data lives with the company
Best for: genetic discovery and ethnic background
| Feature | FamilyTreeIQ | Ancestry | MyHeritage | FamilySearch | 23andMe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Built around inviting your family to edit together | Yes | Limited | Limited | Shared world tree (anyone can edit) | No |
| Private by default - only invited people see the tree | Yes | Public-leaning | Public-leaning | Shared / public | DNA shared with company |
| Native support for divorce, remarriage, blended families | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | N/A |
| Modern, clean interface designed for clarity | Yes | Dated, complex | Modern but cluttered | Functional | DNA-focused UI |
| Per-tree comments thread for the family | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Activity log - see who changed what, when | Per-field diff | Limited | Limited | Yes | N/A |
| Massive historical records database | Use external sources | Yes (largest paid) | Yes (strong EU) | Yes (largest free) | No |
| DNA testing | No | Yes (add-on) | Yes (add-on) | No | Yes (primary) |
| No advertising or upsells in your tree | Yes | Lots of upsells | Lots of upsells | Yes | Health-product nudges |
| GEDCOM import / export (your data isn't trapped) | Yes - both | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
Built for real families
Before grandma forgets
Older relatives have stories nobody else knows. Capture them now - names, places, dates, the way she met grandpa. You won't get a second chance.
For the cousin reunion
Show up to the next family gathering with the actual tree. Settle who's related to whom and how. A great conversation starter.
For your kids
Give your children - and their children - the family map you wish you'd had. Heirlooms, photos, stories, all linked to people.
For tracing roots
Working through DNA results or census records? Plot what you find as you go. The tree organizes the chaos.
Guides to get you started
How to Start Your Family Tree
A step-by-step guide for absolute beginners. What to write down first, who to talk to, what records you'll need.
25 Questions to Ask Your Relatives
The interview questions that pull out the stories nobody thought to write down.
Adoptions, Step-Parents, and Half-Siblings
How to map the families that don't fit the traditional shape - without losing accuracy.
Free Genealogy Resources
Where to find census records, immigration manifests, and birth certificates without paying a dime.
Common questions
Who can see my tree?
Only you and the people you explicitly invite. Trees are private by default - no public listings, no search engines indexing your family.
Can my whole family edit at the same time?
Today, yes - invited collaborators can add and edit people. Real-time multi-user editing (where everyone sees changes as they happen) is on the roadmap.
What happens to weird family situations?
Divorces, remarriages, step-kids, adopted children, unmarried co-parents - the tree handles all of it. Every relationship is its own record, so you can mark a marriage as ended, a child as adopted, a co-parent as unmarried, and so on.
Can I add sources?
Source management is an important part of serious genealogy and is on our roadmap. Today, FamilyTreeIQ is focused on helping families collaborate, map relationships, preserve stories, and organize what relatives know. We're building toward stronger support for citations, records, documents, and confidence around facts over time.
Can I import or export GEDCOM?
Yes - both. Export your tree to a .ged file from the Export section in the tree menu, or import a GEDCOM from Ancestry, MyHeritage, FamilySearch, RootsMagic, or anywhere else at /trees/import. Imports always create a brand-new tree (we don't try to merge into an existing one - that's where data corruption usually starts). Photos and citations aren't included in import/export yet; everything else round-trips.
Does it work on my phone?
Yes - the tree pans and zooms on touch screens. Building works best on a tablet or laptop, but viewing and adding people works fine on a phone.
Your family's story is in safe hands
FamilyTreeIQ is built and operated by MKN Web Solutions - the same team behind production platforms in healthcare, property management, and church administration. The same security and infrastructure standards we hold for those systems apply to your tree.
Encrypted everywhere
TLS 1.2+ for every request in transit. Database storage encrypted at rest. Passwords hashed with modern bcrypt - never stored in plain text.
Private by default
Trees are visible only to you and the people you explicitly invite. No public listings. No share links. No search-engine indexing. Access is gated by login, and you control exactly who can see or edit.
No open-source dependencies
Every line of FamilyTreeIQ - front-end, back-end, infrastructure tooling - is built in-house at MKN. No third-party libraries means no transitive vulnerabilities, no surprise license changes, and a known-good code path end to end.
Hosted on AWS - and only AWS
Application servers run on dedicated Amazon Web Services EC2 instances in the U.S. Backups go to AWS S3 Glacier, encrypted. No third-party SaaS, analytics, or processing services ever see your tree - a complete data silo from end to end.
shield The complete picture
- Where it runs
- Dedicated AWS EC2 instances in U.S. regions, operated directly by MKN. Not a shared host, not a serverless platform we're a tenant on, not a managed PHP service. We control the OS, the runtime, the patch cadence, and the network.
- Where backups go
- AWS S3 Glacier, encrypted at rest with server-side AES-256. Backups are restore-only - used to bring the service back after a failure, never for analysis, dataset building, or any other purpose.
- What touches your data outside our servers
- Nothing. No third-party analytics. No tracking pixels. No CDN that proxies your tree content. No external "AI assistant," recommendation engine, or genealogy enrichment service. Transactional email (verification, invitations) is the only outbound integration, and it carries the message - never your tree content.
- Database isolation
- Your tree, people, and relationships live in a MongoDB database we operate ourselves on the same infrastructure. No multi-tenant cloud database; no shared cluster with unrelated services.
- Encryption
- TLS 1.2+ required for every connection (HTTP requests are 301-redirected to HTTPS). Disk encryption at rest. Passwords hashed with modern bcrypt - we never see your password, and we cannot recover it for you.
- Code lineage
- Every line of FamilyTreeIQ is written in-house at MKN. Zero open-source library dependencies in the application code. No transitive supply-chain risk, no surprise license shifts, no abandoned-package fire drills.
- Audit trail
- Every change to a person, relationship, or tree setting is recorded in an append-only activity log with the actor, timestamp, and per-field diff. Visible to you in the tree drawer; immutable from the application layer.
- Account access
- Sessions tracked per device with IP and user-agent stamping. The site-owner support tools log every "access account" action in the database for after-the-fact review.
"One of the biggest reasons I built this is because older relatives often carry stories no one else knows: names, places, dates, memories, heirlooms, photos, and the story of how "grandma met grandpa". FamilyTreeIQ makes it easier to capture those details now, while we still can."
Start your family tree today
Takes 30 seconds to add yourself. Invite your family from there.
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