Root cause
Genealogy is a well-known field of studies. In recent years there was a boom in finding information about your origin and ancestors (it even went to the level of DNA tests which are possible to do at home). In my case initiators were my parents. They have stumbled upon family’s historic documents (maps, notarial acts etc.). Our family already had tree but only for one ‘indirect branch’. The idea was to catalog all the data which we are able to acquire from a documents and living members. To preserve it in digital form, we needed some kind of software.
Available solutions
Like always there are hosted solutions which require subscription but deliver quite a few interesting features.
We tried MyHeritage. Usage difficulty is rather on the easier side. As a nice additional feature we can mention AI-powered photo tools - results are interesting and pleasant to the eye (not necessarily real). Service also helps in finding possible matches in already existing trees which are publicly available in the service - contacting their creators is possible if subscription is active. After logging in, local editor is available so all data can be stored/managed for free.
As for alternative, beautiful and responsive diagrams can be generated using My Family Tree.
For android robust solution (at least for exploring/reading) is Family Gem. Application is open source and available in Google Play/GitHub/IzzyDroid.
Self-hosting approach also had a few options. Currently 3 have active userbase and are worth mentioning in my opinion (features and licensing):
After evaluation the best (and the easiest for install) for my use case was the last option:
- can be easily extended using plugins
- hardware requirements are not demanding
- administration panel packs a lot of features
- Dockerfile is working
Data storage/migration between applications
Remembering classic meme about standards we can say it is ‘somehow’ working between genealogy software. There is de facto a standard called GEDCOM. The issue with that is all implementations provide understanding of basic tags but some of them also add specific field. That is why it is not uncommon to read ‘unindentified field’ error during import. Also path mapping for files (relative/absolute paths) may need manual intervention (it is mostly limited to fast CTRL+F and replace all ).
Sharing with others
For that I would advise:
- setup docker container
- configure accesses inside application (only users should be able to view data, limit account registration etc.)
- create reverse proxy config (examples can be found online)
My personal instance is already hosted and accessible to relatives only. For more detailed information please reach to me or my family.
Marek Pawlak