Every name, every place, everything held.

One place where a family keeps itself: the people, the photographs, the stories, the deeds, and the ground they came from.

Start your House See how it works

A painting of a great tree in blossom, its branches full of people of every culture and generation, with families gathered beneath it.

Five generations: From the oldest name anyone remembers down to the newest child.
Twelve houses: Every surname a marriage brings in grows its own branch.
Four homelands: The Caribbean, the States, Britain, Canada, mapped and joined.
One record: Everyone edits the same archive. Every addition is signed.

A family’s record usually lives in one person’s memory. When that person goes, the names go with them.

The House exists so it doesn’t. Built for the people who hold the knowledge: large type, no jargon, and nothing that needs explaining twice.

The same family, seen four ways.

Family tree

A proper descent chart. Couples joined, children descending from their actual parents, not from a marriage that was never there.
Generations

One row per generation, everybody visible. The quickest way to see who belongs to whose era.
Constellation

The whole shape of the family at once, with your own house picked out in gold.
Map

Where everyone is, where they came from, and the lines that still join them across oceans.

It records families as they actually are.

Most family trees assume one marriage, two parents, one surname, one country. Real families are not that. The House was built from a real one.

Children before marriage, and outside it

A child descends from their own two parents, whether or not those parents were ever a couple. The chart says what happened.
Half-siblings, named as such

Three children, three fathers, one mother: each set reads clearly, and the app says which parent they share.
The names people actually use

Government name, maiden name, every spelling, and what the family calls her. All of it searchable.
Any language, any script

Two surnames in Spanish and Portuguese, particles kept whole, Arabic and Chinese names rendered properly.
Two families, one tree

Your wife’s family grows their own side. Scroll across and the branches meet where the marriage is.

More than names and dates.

Photographs

Tag who is in them, place them in a decade when nobody wrote a date, and browse by time or by place.
Stories

Type an @ and the people in the story are linked to it. It then appears on each of their pages.
Documents

Certificates, letters, deeds and titles: uploaded, or simply recorded as existing and held by someone.
Heirlooms

The object, who holds it now, who it came from, where it lives, and the story behind it.
Recipes

Whose it is, how it is made, and when: Christmas, Sunday, the funeral after.
The estate

Property, policies, advisors, and plainly where the will is and who to call. Locked, and only to those named.

Moore Town to Atlanta to London.

Families scatter. The map draws where everyone was born, where they live, and every place they’ve lived in between, with lines joining relatives across cities, so you can see at a glance which countries still hold family.

Layers for who lives where, who was born where, and where photographs were taken.
A person’s whole path drawn as a line, from birthplace to now.
Tap a city to open its people and its photographs as a small archive of their own.

An embroidered map of the North Atlantic, with gold threads stitched from Jamaica up to Atlanta and Toronto and across the ocean to London, and a tiny house at each place. — Out of many, one people

A private club, not a public tree.

Nothing is published, nothing is searchable from outside, and nothing is sold. The family holds its own record.

Some things you record without handing over. Say the deed exists and who holds it — that is often the whole job.

On the estate registry

Private, item by item

One switch on anything, and a list of exactly who may see it.
Described, not shown

Those without permission see that a document exists and what it is, never the file itself.
A record of who looked

A quiet line on the item: seen by Marcus and Ruth, three times.
See it as they see it

Look through any member’s eyes and check what is hidden before you trust it.

Easy enough for the eldest, worth it for the youngest.

Sign in by phone

Six numbers by text, and no password to forget: the way WhatsApp already works.
Large type throughout

Nothing small, nothing faint, and buttons big enough to hit first time.
A family code

Read it down the phone to a relative, with no links to mistype.
Find anyone

One search across people, stories, places and photographs, by nickname as much as by name.

Questions families ask.

Each answer shows the screen it describes, filled in with an example family.

How do I get into our family’s House?

Open the link your family sent you. Type your email, tap Email me a code, and type in the six numbers that arrive. There’s no password to remember, and Continue with Google works too.

The sign-in screen: a box for your email, the Email me a code button, and Continue with Google at the bottom.

Should I start a House of my own?

Only if nobody in your family has one yet, so everyone adds to the same tree. Ask your relatives for their link or family code first. With a code, type it under Family code and tap Join this family. If nobody has a House, tap Start a House for my family.

The screen for someone who hasn’t joined a House yet: a Family code box and the Join this family button, with Start a House for my family below.

How do I find myself in the tree?

Once you’ve joined, type the first letters of your name under Find yourself in the family and tap your card. Not there yet? Tap Not in there yet? and add yourself beside a relative. Picked the wrong card? Tap Members, then Change my card.

Find yourself in the family, with “Hartw” typed in the Your name box and three people from the family listed below it.

How do I add someone?

Tap + at the top of the screen, then A person. Type their name, choose how they’re related to someone already in the tree, and tap Save. To fix a name or a date later, tap the person, then Edit.

Adding a person: Nia typed as the first name and Hartwell as the last, and below them, This person is the Child of Marcus Hartwell.

What are the names along the top?

Each one is a house: a family line. You belong to your parents’ houses, so your own comes first, then the families closest to you. All houses shows everyone, and the checklist button at the end of the row shows several houses together.

The top of the app: The House, the search and + buttons, and a row of house names beneath them, with the checklist button at the end.

How do I see more of the tree?

Pinch with two fingers, or tap Whole tree in the bottom corner. Slide with one finger to move around. − and + zoom out and in, and Back to me brings your own card back to the middle.

Part of the family tree zoomed out a step, with Whole tree, minus and plus in the bottom corner and Back to me in the bar below.

How do I invite a relative?

Tap Members at the bottom of the screen. Tap Share to send the link in WhatsApp or a text message, or read them the family code over the phone.

Invite the family: the family code in large letters, Copy the code, the invite link, and the Copy the link and Share buttons.

Who can see our family?

Only the people who have joined your House, and every one of them is listed under Members. Nothing is public or searchable from outside. Another family sees one of your houses only if you connect it with theirs.

The Members list: four people who have joined, how each one signs in, and when each was last here.

A relative started their own House. Can we connect?

Yes, one family line at a time. An owner or admin taps Members, then Connected houses, and makes a connect code for the house you share. Your relative types it under Have a connect code? and asks to connect. Then you tick anyone who is the same person in both trees and tap Connect the houses. To join the two trees, open their house, tap the person who links your families, and tap Link to your tree. Nobody is added twice.