The Story Behind This Site

It started with a client project

A few years ago, a client hired me to put together their family tree. They had everything you could hope for — photographs going back generations, handwritten notes, names, dates, the lot. I figured the hard part would be organising all of it.

I was wrong. The hard part was the software.

I tried the big-name family tree tools first. They're impressive, but they're built around subscriptions to things my client never asked for — historical record databases, newspaper archives, DNA matching, endless hint systems. All they wanted was a simple, good-looking tree their family could look at, correct with a pen, and add to. Every one of those features stood between them and that.

So I tried the free tools instead. Different problem: most of them look like they haven't been redesigned in fifteen years. Cluttered interfaces, cramped layouts, watermarks stamped across anything you export. You wouldn't hand the result around at a family lunch.

What I actually needed was almost embarrassingly simple — a clean family tree you could print, pass around a table, and let the older generation correct and fill in from memory. I couldn't find anything that did that job well.

So I started with paper

I still manage that client's project and work continually on it. I'm a designer and developer based in Australia, and I kept coming back to the same thought: recording a family's story is about as universal as a need gets — why is the tooling either bloated or ugly?

This site is my answer, starting with the simplest possible version: printable template, free for anyone. No account. No watermarks. Formatted for A4 so they print properly.

They're the resources I wish I could have handed my client on day one.

Why free?

Because a printable chart shouldn't be a product — it's a sheet of paper. Family history already has enough paywalls in front of it. If a blank pedigree chart helps you get three generations down on paper at Christmas lunch, that costs me nothing and it's worth something to you. That trade is fine by me. I am still exploring the world of geneology and these templates are the result of those research. I do have more to understand about it. So I use AI where I can to get a better understanding.

A word about AI — and why I'm going slow

It's fair to wonder, these days, whether a site giving away templates is just AI-generated content farming. So let me be upfront about where AI fits in here.

I've been building family tree tools by hand for years — long before this site, I hand-coded a free family tree maker in Nuxt, and I still use it to host family trees for clients today. These templates come out of that same work: my own designs, refined by watching real families use them. I do use AI in my work now — to build faster, not to do the thinking.

Because here's the thing about AI: it can make almost anything you ask for. But what you can ask for isn't the same as what people actually need. I could generate a hundred templates and a thousand pages overnight — and none of it would be any better for the family trying to get three generations down on paper.

So I'm deliberately taking the slow approach: put well-made templates out, see which ones people actually use, listen to what family historians say is missing, and understand this space properly — its needs, what's relevant, what's noise. Then build the next thing carefully, one piece at a time, with AI speeding up the building but never replacing the judgment. That's the philosophy behind this whole project.

If you'd like a say in where this goes, grab the Genealogy Starter Kit — it's the easiest way to stay in touch, and I read every reply.

Who runs this?

Just me, for now. I'm keeping the site low-key rather than putting my face all over it — the templates matter more than I do. If something's broken, if a template doesn't print right, or if there's a format you wish existed, email [email protected] and you'll get a reply from an actual person.