Generation Archives is a free, private family-tree product for people who want names, photos, and stories in one place they control. Trees are private by default. Relatives see a tree only when you invite them, or when you turn on a public link. The tree itself does not require a subscription. Hosting media files with us is optional prepaid credit.
The product is built and operated from Canada. The guides and comparisons on this site are written by the same people who ship the software. When a page compares Generation Archives with another product, it says so up front. It is the maker’s account, not a pretend independent review.
A lot of family-history tools are built for discovering ancestors in record collections or DNA match lists. That work matters. It is not the job this product tries to replace. Generation Archives is for the archive you keep after you already know the people: living relatives, photo albums, and stories that do not belong on a public research graph.
Many families end up with a research tree on one site and a messy folder of scans somewhere else. The research site is excellent at hints. It is a poor place to keep every living cousin’s childhood photos by default. The opposite problem shows up too: a private shared drive full of images with no reliable link to who is who. Generation Archives sits in that gap. You place people on a canvas, tag faces, and keep notes on the profiles they belong to.
The design choices follow from that job. Layouts can be dragged by hand. A person can have more than two parents, which is how adoptive and step-parents are shown. Photos can be tagged so faces stay attached to profiles. Media can stay on a host you already use, linked by URL, so families are not forced to re-upload a shoebox just to try the tree.
Generation Archives was built by Kyle, an independent developer in Canada. It is a small product, not a large editorial staff, and these pages do not claim certified genealogist credentials. Product decisions, support replies, and the how-to guides come from the same person who ships the app. That is deliberate. The writing should match how the software actually behaves, including limits.
If something in a guide is wrong, or a feature does not match the text, say so on the Contact page. Corrections land in the same place feature requests do.
Building and sharing a tree does not require payment. Accounts, people, relationships, notes, memories, invitations, and GEDCOM import or export are free. Linking a public URL for a file you already store does not use Generation Archives storage.
Optional media hosting is prepaid credit at $1 per GB per year, with a small starter allotment on new accounts. Nothing renews on a schedule. You buy credit when you want hosted files here. Details are on Pricing & Storage and in family tree software with no subscription.
The site may show a single banner ad in some cases. The banner stays off when an account has more than 100 MB-years of storage credit left, and it stays off for everyone on a tree that has a custom URL. Ads are not why the tree features exist; prepaid hosting and the free tier are the main product path.
Article pages explain genealogy workflows and how they map onto this product: private sharing, GEDCOM moves, printables, adoptive relationships, and comparisons with research sites. Where another product is described, we link to that product’s own pages and note that plans change. We do not invent rankings or “best of” lists that pretend neutrality.
Start with the guides hub, comparisons, printables, or the FAQ. You can also try the demo or open the sample tree before creating an account.
Private means who is allowed to open a tree. It is a visibility setting, not a claim that no operator exists. Account data, media you upload, and payment records for storage credit are handled as described in the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. For living people on a shared tree, see what to record about living people. For invite workflows, see private family trees.
Data or privacy requests that need a person should go through the contact form. There is no public email address on that page, by design, to limit spam. Discord is optional when enabled.
It is not a historical record library. It does not sell DNA tests or DNA match lists. It will not auto-grow your tree from census hints. If that is the job you need right now, use a research site, then bring the people you trust into a private archive with a GEDCOM when you want a family-facing copy. How to import a GEDCOM covers what usually survives that move.
It is also not a social network. There is no public feed of other families to browse. Collaboration is invite-based. That keeps the product smaller, and it keeps living relatives off the open web unless you choose otherwise.