Documentation

Full reference for every module

How each part of the platform works, what it stores, and how it connects to everything else.

Module 01

People

The People module is your biographical database. Every person in your research — known ancestors, DNA matches, witnesses, enslavers, neighbors — can be added here. Records are private to your account and not shared with any public tree.

Person record fields

Name Full name as it appears in records. If the name is unknown, enter a description: Female, age 14, Alabama, 1860. The platform will never invent a name for an unnamed person.
Dates Birth, death, and other life events. All dates can be marked as exact, approximate (c.), or estimated range — the distinction matters and is preserved in exports.
Places Where a person was born, lived, and died. County-level specificity is more useful than state-level when searching most 19th-century records.
Sources Every fact should be linked to a source. Enter the record type, repository, date, and any relevant citation details. Unsourced assertions are tracked separately as hypotheses.
Notes Free-text field for anything that doesn't fit a structured field. Oral history, researcher commentary, conflicting information — write it here.
Relationships Parent, child, spouse, sibling. Relationship certainty can be flagged as documented, probable, or hypothetical.

Photos and documents

Upload a photograph to any person record. Documents from the Archives module can be linked here — a census record, a deed, a photograph can be attached to every person named in it.

Module 02

Research

The Research module holds your active questions and the AI-assisted sessions that work on them. Every session is logged automatically. Nothing is discarded — a search that returned nothing is still evidence of what was searched.

Research questions

A research question is a specific, answerable statement: What county in Alabama was James Perrin living in at the time of the 1867 Freedmen's Bureau labor contracts? The more specific, the better the AI can direct its search strategy.

Questions have a status: Open, In progress, Answered, or Abandoned (with notes on why). Answered questions are archived, not deleted — they remain searchable.

AI research sessions

When you open a research question and click Research this, the AI assistant:

1. Identifies the relevant record sets — which databases, archives, and record types are most likely to contain evidence for this question in this time and place.

2. Proposes a search strategy — the order in which to search, what name variations to try, what geographic scope to use.

3. Interprets what it finds — reads record language in context, flags conflicts, and explains what a result does and does not prove.

The session transcript is saved in full and linked to the research question. You can continue any session at any time.

The research log

Every database searched, every result reviewed, and every AI session is written to the research log automatically. The log is exportable as a dated PDF — useful when collaborating with other researchers or when submitting findings for publication.

Module 03

Archives

The Archives module is your document collection. Upload any file — a photograph, a scanned letter, a downloaded census image, a PDF from a state archive — and it becomes part of your permanent research record.

Uploading documents

Supported formats: JPEG, PNG, PDF, TIFF. Maximum file size is 50 MB per document on the Free plan, 250 MB on Basic, and unlimited on Upgrade. Storage limits are listed on the pricing page.

Archive scanner (Basic, Upgrade)

The archive scanner reads document metadata and attempts to extract names, dates, and places from uploaded files. It does not alter the original document — it creates a separate structured record that you can review, correct, and confirm. Extracted information is offered as a suggestion, never written directly to a person record without your approval.

Free plan accounts receive 3–5 lifetime scans. Basic accounts receive 100 scans per month. Upgrade accounts have unlimited scanning plus bulk ZIP and PDF upload.

Linking documents to people

Any document can be linked to one or more people in your tree. A Freedmen's Bureau labor contract might name a husband, wife, and three children — link it to all five. The link appears in each person's record and in the document's own detail view.

Module 04

DNA Testing & Matches

The DNA module helps you manage and interpret autosomal DNA matches from consumer testing platforms. It does not process raw DNA files — it works with the match data you export from your testing company's website.

Importing match data

Export your match list from AncestryDNA, 23andMe, FamilyTreeDNA, or MyHeritage as a CSV file. Upload it to the DNA module. Matches are sorted by shared centimorgans (cM) and estimated relationship range.

Working with matches

cM value The total shared DNA in centimorgans. This determines the range of possible relationships. The platform uses the Shared cM Project data to calculate relationship probabilities.
Clusters Group matches by which line they likely descend from. Clustering helps identify unknown branches and confirm hypothetical connections.
Notes Add research notes to each match. What you know about their family. What line they appear to connect through. What you've already asked them.
Link to tree Link a DNA match to a person in your People database when the connection is confirmed or hypothesized. The link is directional — it doesn't modify the match record.
A note on DNA and the 1870 break: Autosomal DNA is most useful for 5th cousins and closer — roughly 150–200 years. For lines that disappear before 1870, DNA can point you toward living cousins whose family lines have better documentation than yours. That paper trail is then the bridge.

Module 05

Collections & Exhibits

A collection is a curated selection of people, documents, and research notes organized around a theme — a family line, a migration story, a specific generation. A public exhibit (Upgrade plan) makes that collection viewable by anyone with the link.

Creating a collection

Go to Collections in the sidebar and click New collection. Give it a title and a curatorial statement — one or two sentences that explain what this collection is and why it matters. Then add items: people from your tree, documents from your archives, research log entries.

Private vs. public

Basic plan collections are private — visible only to you. Upgrade plan collections can be made public at a permanent URL you control. Public exhibits do not expose any personal information beyond what you explicitly include in the collection.