About Family Linkage

What is Family Linkage?

Family Linkage is a family tree website at familylinkage.com. You add people, connect parents, children and partners, and the tree draws itself. Then you send a link to your relatives so they can see it.

• One button to start. Tap Start my family tree and add your first person. No sign-up.
• The tree draws itself. You add people, and the layout is done for you.
• Relatives need no account. They open one link on any phone.
• Private, with no ads. Only people with your link can see the tree.
• It works in any modern web browser on a phone, tablet or computer. There is nothing to install.

The guides on this site are written by the Family Linkage team. They answer common questions about family trees, including questions that have nothing to do with our product.

What does it cost?

Prices are in US dollars. For a group, a society or another organisation, write to contact@familylinkage.com.

Photos, edit links and printing come with Standard and Pro.

What do relatives need to see a tree?

Relatives need a web browser and the link you send them. They do not need an account, an email address or a password, and they do not install anything. The link works on phones, tablets and computers.

What can you add for each person?

Each person card can hold:

• First name and last name
• Date of birth
• Place of birth
• Living or deceased. Cards for people who have died show "in memoriam".
• A photo (Standard and Pro)

How are relationships shown?

Family Linkage uses two kinds of links: parent and partner (a husband, wife or partner). Every other relationship comes from combining them:

• Siblings share the same parents.
• Half-siblings share one parent.
• A step-parent is the partner of your parent.
• In-laws are the parents and siblings of your partner.
• Cousins are the children of your parents' siblings.

There are no special labels for adoption, step-relationships, divorce or marriage dates. You draw these with parent and partner links.

You can drag cards to arrange the tree and select many cards at once. You can also make a copy of a whole tree from the page that lists your trees.

How does sharing work?

You make a link and send it by text, email or a family chat.

• View-only link (Free, Standard and Pro): relatives can look at the tree.
• Edit link (Standard and Pro): relatives can suggest new people and photos. You approve or decline each change before it joins the tree.

You can give each link a name if you like, such as "Aunt Carol", so you know who opened it. For every link, you can see how often it was opened. You can stop any link at any time, and a stopped link no longer opens the tree.

How do you print the tree?

On Standard and Pro, you can save the tree as a high-resolution PNG image or as an A4 PDF. The PDF fits the whole tree onto one A4 page. A very large tree prints best as a PNG at a print shop, on a bigger sheet of paper. Family Linkage does not sell or ship prints.

Who can see a tree?

Only the people you send a link to. Shared tree pages are marked "noindex", so search engines do not list them.

• There are no ads.
• We never sell personal data.
• Our website analytics (Plausible) use no cookies.
• Payments are handled by Stripe.
• Sign-in is handled by Amazon Cognito.

What happens if a paid plan ends?

The account returns to the Free plan. Nothing is deleted: your trees and the people in them stay. To add more trees, people or photos, choose a paid plan again.

What Family Linkage does not do

• No DNA tests
• No search of historical records, such as census pages or birth indexes
• No GEDCOM import or export
• No import from Ancestry
• No co-owners: each tree has one owner
• No app in the Apple App Store or Google Play. It runs in the web browser.

For records, people often use a research site such as FamilySearch alongside Family Linkage. Our comparison of the best free family tree makers explains the difference.