Kinship Trees — More than a tree. A living archive.

The profile is the heart of it

A name becomes a life.

Most family trees are spreadsheets dressed up with names and dates. Kinship Trees is built around the person — every profile is a quiet biography that grows as your family contributes what they remember.

Step One

It starts with a name.

Add anyone — a grandparent, a sibling, a great-aunt you only met once. Just a name and a couple of dates is enough to begin.

Step Two

Then comes the face.

Upload a photo — a wedding portrait, a passport scan, a snapshot from a holiday. Suddenly the profile feels like a person.

Step Three

Then the chapters appear.

Build a life timeline. Births, jobs, moves, milestones, the small moments worth remembering. Each one anchored to a year.

Step Four

And the evidence to match.

Attach the wedding photo, the letter from the army, the recipe in her handwriting, the school report card. The proof that they were here.

Eleanor Foster

Living · Age 23

Details Attachments Relationships

2003

Born in London, England

The beginning.

2021

Enrolled at Central Saint Martins

Foundation course in Fashion.

2023

Summer Internship at Alexander McQueen

Three months. Many late nights.

2024

"Sustainable Streetwear" featured at Graduate Fashion Week

First collection. First press.

2025

Launched independent label, E.F. Studio

The dream, made real.

Three ways people use it

Whatever you're starting from.

You don't need to be a genealogist. You don't need a plan. Most people fall into one of three places — and Kinship Trees is built for all three.

The shoebox of photos

You have the photos. They deserve a home.

Stop scrolling through 5,000 phone pictures looking for the good one. Tag the faces, write the captions, gather them around the people they belong to. A digital coffee table book your family can actually open.

The important records

Birth certificates. Diplomas. The papers that matter.

One secure, single source of truth — for the documents you'd be devastated to lose. Attach high-resolution scans directly to the person they belong to, so the paper trail outlives the paper.

The people you actually knew

Just the family you love. Not 500 distant cousins.

Skip the deep research. Build a close-knit tree of the people whose stories you actually want to remember — parents, grandparents, the uncle with the great laugh. Add a photo at the next family reunion and it's done.

What makes Kinship different

Free right now. Yours always.

The big genealogy platforms make money by locking your family's history behind a paywall. We don't. Here's what that means in practice.

Free, with no catch.

No subscription. No "upgrade to see your records." No surprise email saying your tree is now read-only. Free today, with no plans to change that.

Your data, always yours.

You own everything you upload. Export the entire archive any time, in formats that work without us. Delete it just as easily. No corporate hostage-taking.

Built for stories, not spreadsheets.

The big platforms want you researching strangers. We want you remembering people you actually loved. Photos, documents, milestones — the human stuff.

How it works

Three small steps. One lasting thing.

Add a person.

Start with yourself, a parent, a grandparent. Add a name, a couple of dates, and you're moving. Keep it simple at first — you can always add more later.

ii.

Attach the memories.

Upload photos, scan documents, build a life timeline. Photos and PDFs up to 10MB each. Watch the profile go from a name to a person.

iii.

Invite your family.

Share access with parents, siblings, cousins. Everyone contributes what they remember. The tree gets richer with every visit.

Better together

The best archives aren't built alone.

Your mum knows the stories. Your aunt has the photos. Your cousin has the documents. Kinship Trees is designed to be filled in by all of them — each contributor adding the piece only they have.

Invite anyone in your family to view, contribute, or co-edit. The tree becomes a place your family actually wants to visit — because they made it, too.

Start a tree to share

A note from the maker

I built Kinship Trees because the family-history apps I tried felt more like accounting software than scrapbooks. Names and dates in tidy rows — but where were the people?

The photo of my grandmother on her wedding day. The recipe in her handwriting. The letter my grandfather sent home from the war. That is the family history worth keeping. Not a list of distant relatives I'll never meet.

So I made the tool I wanted: free, beautiful, built around the person rather than the database. Your data stays yours. There's no upsell right now, and no plans for one.

If it helps even one family hold on to who they were — it was worth building.

Questions, answered

The honest fine print.

Is it really free? What's the catch?

It's genuinely free to use right now — building your tree, adding photos and documents, inviting family. There's no premium tier hidden behind your data, no sudden "your tree is now read-only" emails. We may introduce optional paid features in the future, but we'll always be upfront about what that means for you before anything changes.

Where is my data stored, and who can see it?

Your tree, photos, and documents are stored securely in the cloud. By default, only you can see your tree — you choose who to invite, and at what access level (view, contribute, or co-edit). Your data is never sold, shared with advertisers, or used to train anything. It's yours.

Can I export everything I upload?

Yes. You can export your full tree and all attached files at any time, in formats that work outside Kinship Trees. The whole point is that your family's history belongs to your family — not to any platform, including this one.

What happens if Kinship Trees shuts down?

A fair question — and one most platforms duck. Because you can export your full archive at any time, your data isn't trapped here. We're committed to giving plenty of notice if anything ever changes, and to making sure you can take everything with you. Your family's history doesn't get held hostage by us.

Do I need to be a genealogist to use this?

Not at all. Kinship Trees is designed for everyone — especially people who find traditional genealogy apps overwhelming. Start with the people you actually know. Add a photo. Write a sentence. There's no research required and no "right way" to use it.

What kinds of files can I upload?

Photos (JPG, PNG) and documents (PDF) up to 10MB each. That covers most family snapshots, scanned letters, certificates, diplomas, and old documents.