family.ancestry

Private family trees for your family. What you'd use Ancestry for, without the subscription, and without your family's history becoming someone else's product. Open source (MIT).

https://family.ancestry, a name on the Moshpit network. The desktop app, the CLI and the MCP server reach it by themselves; a browser needs one setting.

• Trees you build together: editors add and fix, viewers look. Invite by email or by link: paste a whole list (a To: line, a spreadsheet column, Aunt Rose <rose@example.com>), 20 at a time, 500 on the Family plan.

• Join the family as yourself. Right after you add someone, the page quietly offers to invite them; they join as that person and keep their own profile up to date, even as a viewer. A pasted name that matches someone in the tree invites them as that person; everyone else picks themselves ("Which one is you?") or adds themselves when they join, then adds a photo. A profile is only ever claimed by the email address the invite went to: signing in with an emailed link is the proof.

• Local: businesses recommended by people you know. Your family, neighbors and friends say who they use (the plumber, the dentist, the bakery) and why; you see the picks of your connections and tree-mates, ranked by how many vouch for a place and how close they are to you. No strangers' reviews, nothing paid to the top. See Local.

• Network (add-on, free for everyone): family, friends, neighbors and business contacts with every detail you keep (emails, phones, addresses, birthdays, links, notes), vCard import/export, and a private Inbox. See Network.

• People with dates, places, notes and stories, photos, and a life timeline.

• Every kind of family. Partners (married, partners, or boyfriend / girlfriend) plus children (birth, adopted, step, foster), the GEDCOM way. Add a brother or sister directly: full (even when nobody knows the parents), half through a chosen parent, adopted, foster, or step through a step-parent. Add a grandparent when the parent between is unknown (an "Unknown" parent holds the place). And bonds that are not descent: raised by, guardian, godparent, caregiver, chosen family, neighbor, so grandparents who raised you are both. All of it round-trips through GEDCOM (PEDI, ASSO/RELA).

• Pets (Family plan): the dogs, cats and horses that were family too, with owners, photos and stories. They never appear as anyone's parent or child, nor in GEDCOM.

• Pedigree (3–6 generations, Ahnentafel numbers) and descendant charts.

• "How are we related?" in words: first cousin once removed, mother-in-law, half-sister, stepbrother, adoptive mother, grandfather (by adoption). Only a marriage makes an in-law: a daughter's boyfriend is daughter's boyfriend.

• Sources and citations, so you know where every fact came from.

• GEDCOM 5.5.1 import and export. Bring your tree from Ancestry, FamilySearch, MyHeritage, Gramps or RootsMagic, and take it with you. Exports can hide living people.

• Family photo album, free: every photo in the tree on one page (/t/:tree/photos), and albums ("Christmas 1985") that any verified member adds to, viewers included. Pick a whole batch at once; the page sends them one by one and shrinks anything over 8 MB. Tag who is in a photo and it shows on their page too.

• Family businesses, free: "Ettinger Plumbing" as its own entry, with its founders, owners, partners, investors and employees (titles and years), founded/closed dates, place, website, notes and photos. On each person's page and in search; never in a pedigree or descendant chart. GEDCOM carries them as a custom _BUS record.

• Sign in with an emailed link (which is also sign-up) or a passkey. No passwords.

Every surface

CLI

ancestry login                       # browser sign-in (auth code + PKCE); or --token fa_...
ancestry import ~/Downloads/tree.ged # into a new tree, which becomes your default
ancestry people ettinger             # search
ancestry show "Johann Ettinger"
ancestry add --given Lily --surname Ettinger --born 2015 --living --child-of "Robert Ettinger"
ancestry add --given Sam --sibling-of Lily --sibling half --via Robert
ancestry add --given Rose --grandparent-of Lily --raised   # parents unknown: an "Unknown" parent goes between
ancestry bond Lily godparent "Aunt Karen"
ancestry pet Lily Rex --species Dog       # Family plan
ancestry plan                             # ancestry plan buy --chain USDC_POL
ancestry claim "Lily Ettinger"            # this is me
ancestry business add "Ettinger Plumbing" --category Plumbing --founded 1952 --place Sacramento --founder Karl
ancestry business role "Ettinger Plumbing" Robert owner --title "Master plumber" --from 1971 --to 1990
ancestry businesses plumbing              # ancestry business "Ettinger Plumbing" shows its people
ancestry business link "Ettinger Plumbing" "Ettinger office"   # to one of your contacts (or --create)
ancestry search ettinger                  # people and businesses
ancestry upload ~/Pictures/xmas85/*.jpg --album "Christmas 1985" --of Rose
ancestry albums                           # ancestry photos --album "Christmas 1985"
ancestry local plumber                    # who the people you know use
ancestry local add "Joe's Plumbing" --category Plumber --town Sacramento --note "Came on a Sunday"
ancestry pedigree Robert -g 4
ancestry descendants Johann
ancestry relate Robert Anna          # Anna Ettinger is Robert Ettinger's aunt.
ancestry export --privacy -o family.ged
ancestry invite rose@example.com --as "Rose Ettinger"   # she joins as Rose, keeps her own profile
ancestry invite a@example.com b@example.com --role editor --note "Help with Grandpa's side"
ancestry invite --file family-emails.txt  # any pasted list; --file - reads stdin
ancestry contact add --name "Dr. Patel" --circle business --relationship "our dentist" --phone "555 0142"
ancestry contact add --name "Pat Lee" --email pat@example.com --circle friends --connect   # add a friend + ask to connect
ancestry contact add --person "Kurt Rademacher" --email kurt@example.com --connect     # someone in your tree, into your network
ancestry contacts import ~/phone.vcf --circle family
ancestry connect "Aunt Rose"         # one email; if she says yes, you can message
ancestry inbox
ancestry message "Aunt Rose" "Are you coming Sunday?"

--json on any command prints JSON. ANCESTRY_URL points every client at another server (your own, or http://127.0.0.1:8792).

MCP tools

list_trees, search_people, get_person, add_person, update_person, link_relative (parent, partner, child, sibling, grandparent), add_bond, add_pet, family_plan, search_businesses, get_business, add_business, update_business, add_business_role, remove_business_role, link_business_contact, list_albums, list_photos, create_album, add_photo, update_photo, local_recommendations, recommend_business, add_event, pedigree, descendants, relationship, export_gedcom, import_gedcom, invite_to_tree, tree_members, and for the network list_contacts, get_contact, add_contact, add_person_to_network, update_contact, connect_contact, inbox, read_conversation, send_message. The assistant acts as you: it sees the trees you see, and changes only the ones you can edit.

API

Related MCP server: FamilySearch MCP Server

Family plan

One payment per tree, once, for good: $49 (FAMILY_PLAN_USD), in crypto through CoinPay. It covers the whole family: pets, pasting up to 500 invites at a time, and no daily invitation limit for anyone in the tree (a 2,000/day ceiling only stops runaway scripts). Everything else stays free. Trees owned by an ADMIN_EMAILS account are on the plan without paying.

The server needs COINPAY_API_KEY, COINPAY_BUSINESS_ID and COINPAY_WEBHOOK_SECRET, with the business's webhook pointed at /webhooks/coinpay. A payment is written down before the buyer leaves; the signed webhook settles it, and only a payment we started can mark a tree paid. COINPAY_CHAINS limits checkout to chains the business holds wallets for.

Businesses

src/business.ts. A business is its own table, not a person, so no bloodline walk (pedigree, descendants, relationships, siblings) can reach one, and it is free on every tree. Roles: founder, owner, partner, investor, officer, manager, employee, apprentice, other, each with an optional title, years and note; one person can hold several. A member may link a business to one of their own Network contacts; contacts stay private, so each member sees only their own link.

In GEDCOM a business is a custom 0 @B1@ _BUS record (NAME, TYPE, _FOUNDED/_CLOSED with DATE, PLAC, WWW, NOTE, and _ROLE @I..@ with TYPE, TITL, _FROM, _TO, NOTE) that other programs skip. Each role is also an OCCU on the person ("Founder, Ettinger Plumbing", DATE FROM .. TO ..) marked 2 _BUS @B1@, so other programs still show it; our import skips a marked OCCU and rebuilds the role from _BUS, so a round trip never doubles anything. A privacy export keeps the business and leaves out what living people did.

Photo album

src/album.ts. Photos stay in the one SQLite file (media, now with album_id and uploaded_by); albums is a table of its own. Verified member = any member of the tree (owner, editor, viewer) who signed in with their own email; a pit.world-only account has a placeholder @pit.invalid address, so it can look but not add until it signs in with an email. The uploader and the tree's editors may caption, retag, move or delete a photo; whoever started an album and the editors may rename or delete it (photos stay). Files are judged by their bytes (JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, AVIF), 8 MB each, 500 a day per person.

family.tree is ours too: any request whose Host is in ANCESTRY_REDIRECT_HOSTS (default family.tree on the official site) gets a 301 to the same path on family.ancestry, or on family.ancestry.pit.world when it came through the relay.

Local

src/local.ts. A recommendation snapshots the business (name, category, town, phone, website, a line on why) when you share it; your contacts themselves stay private. You see your own picks and those of everyone you are connected with or share a tree with, grouped by phone, then website, then name and town. Score = sum of how close each recommender is to you: family and neighbors 3, friends and tree-mates 2, other connections 1 (your own circle for them decides). Blocks hide both ways.

Ads

Pages carry one crawlproof unit: a fluid text link in the footer everywhere, and a 300×250 on Local and Network. It is a cross-origin frame (/api/ads/frame), so the CSP gains one frame-src and nothing else: no ad script, no cookie. CRAWLPROOF_AD_SLOT sets the slot; off removes the units.

Network

An add-on with its own tables and routes (src/network*.ts), included free with every account. Anything we ever charge for is covered by a Profullstack Power Key.

It is for people who know each other, and the rules are in the code, not just the copy:

• Contacts are private to whoever saved them. No public profiles, no follower counts, no "people you may know", no directory to browse.

• You can message someone only if you both said yes to connecting, or you share a tree. One person at a time; there is no broadcast.

• Joining a tree from someone's invite connects you with them, as family.

• Every living person's page has Add to my network (circle, email, and "email them to connect" in one step); after that it says In my network. The Add form on /network has the same "email them to connect" box, so adding a friend and inviting them is one step.

• Either side can block; a block ends the conversation both ways and is never revealed.

• Per sender: 40 invitations (tree or connect) a day (no limit for a family on the Family plan), 120 messages an hour. A new message emails the recipient once per unread run, not once per message.

Running it

bun install
bun src/server.ts            # http://127.0.0.1:8792, data in ~/.local/share/family-ancestry

Production is dev2: /opt/family.ancestry, bin/install.sh (OpenInstall) runs it as the systemd unit family-ancestry; secrets in /root/.local/share/family-ancestry/app.env from the vault profullstack/family-ancestry--prod. Every merge to main deploys.

nginx serves family.ancestry on 80 and 443 (no redirect; see the seo.rank notes on why Moshpit names serve both) and proxies to 8792. The certificate is signed by the Moshpit registry and renewed by moshpit-renew-riotcoder.timer, because the name belongs to the riotcoder account and its certificates live in /etc/ssl/moshpit-riotcoder.

License

MIT