Build a family tree online

If you are searching for family tree software, an online family tree builder, or a private place to map your generations, this guide explains what a modern tree should capture, how Dorot approaches the problem, and how to start without trapping your history in a file format you never open again.

What a family tree actually is

A family tree is a structured record of people and the relationships that connect them across time. Names and dates matter, but the durable core is kinship: who partnered with whom, which children belong to which partnership, and how later marriages, divorces, and blended households reshape the graph.

Good family trees answer practical questions. Who were my grandparents? Which line migrated? Where did this surname first appear in our story? Which cousins share the same great-grandmother? The chart is only useful when the underlying people and unions stay consistent as the family grows.

Historically, trees lived on paper fan charts, wall posters, or desktop genealogy packages. Today most people want an online family tree they can update from a laptop or phone, share with relatives, and revisit for years. The goal has not changed: preserve identities, places, and relationships so the next generation inherits clarity instead of scattered notes.

Why people build family trees online

Online builders lower the starting cost. You do not need specialist software installed before you can add a parent, a spouse, or a set of siblings. Collaboration also improves when living relatives can review names, dates, and places instead of emailing screenshots of a chart that is already outdated.

• Speed: enter what you know now, refine places and dates later.
• Shared memory: aunts, cousins, and elders correct details the original author never heard.
• Continuity: a saved tree survives a laptop wipe when cloud backup and export exist.
• Spatial context: birth and death places turn into a map of movement across generations.

The tradeoff is trust. Family history includes living people. An online family tree should treat save and share as deliberate steps, not automatic public publishing. Dorot is built around that sequence: work locally first, then prove email ownership before cloud save and invites.

What Dorot is

Dorot (from Hebrew for generations) is a browser-based family tree app at dorot.ai. You map people and unions in an interactive generations canvas, inspect places on a map, filter and search the working tree, export a JSON backup, and optionally save to the cloud with a verified email so relatives can be invited.

Dorot is not a public ancestry search engine. It does not scrape historical databases or claim to auto-complete your pedigree from strangers' trees. It is a private workspace for the family you know, structured so remarriage, half-siblings, and place-based storytelling stay honest.

Local-first, then save

Many family tree apps force an account wall before you can try the canvas. Dorot stores the working copy in this browser. You can add people, connect unions, and explore the layout without uploading anything.

When you choose Save, Dorot asks for a verified email through a magic link. The cloud tree becomes the source of truth for that saved work; the browser copy remains a local cache. Sign-in on a new device can resume trees you already own or can access. Sign-out clears the cloud link for that browser without deleting local data.

That order matters for privacy and for momentum. You keep drafting. You publish to cloud storage only when you decide the tree is ready to persist or share.

People and unions: the model that scales

Classic tree UIs often encode children as fields hanging off one parent. That breaks when partnerships change. Dorot separates Person records from Union records. People hold identity and life events. Unions hold partners and childIds. Remarriage is multiple unions that share a partner. Siblings, half-siblings, and cousins are derived by walking unions at query time, not by storing a brittle children array on a person.

If this is the part you care about most, read the deep index in How Dorot works. The short version: correct structure early prevents painful merges later when a second marriage or blended household appears.

How to start building your family tree

1. Begin with living certainty

Add yourself, your parents, and your grandparents first. Prefer full legal names where you know them, plus maiden names when relevant. Approximate years beat blank voids; refine exact dates when documents arrive.

2. Attach unions explicitly

Create a union for each partnership that produced children or that you want on the chart. Put children on the union, not on an orphaned parent field. Status fields such as married, divorced, widowed, or partnered keep the story accurate without forcing a single lifelong spouse assumption.

3. Record places with structure

Birth and death places improve when city, region, and country are separated enough to place on a map. Dorot uses structured place fields and resolves locations through our partners so the map view can show where generations lived. Country review flags help you clean legacy free-text places over time.

4. Expand outward with filters

Once the trunk is stable, add aunts, uncles, cousins, and married-in relatives. Filters for lineage and vital status keep large trees readable. Search finds people quickly when the canvas is dense.

5. Backup, then save and invite

Export a JSON backup before major imports or migrations. When ready, save with a verified email and invite relatives as viewers or editors. Invite links are private tokens, not public profiles.

Family tree vs genealogy software

People often treat “family tree” and “genealogy” as synonyms. A family tree emphasizes the chart and kinship structure. Genealogy emphasizes research method: sources, citations, conflicting records, and proof. Dorot is strongest as a living tree workspace. For deeper research method, see Genealogy and family history.

You can still practice good habits inside a tree builder: note uncertainty in free-text notes, prefer primary names, keep living relatives private, and avoid inventing connections to famous names without evidence. Software cannot replace judgment, but good structure makes corrections cheap.

Online builders, desktop apps, and GEDCOM

Desktop genealogy packages and GEDCOM interchange still matter for archivists and long-term researchers. Browser-first tools like Dorot optimize for immediate clarity and family collaboration. If you later need a transfer path, keep exports current. Dorot's backup format preserves people and unions for restore; treat backups as first- class insurance either way.

When comparing family tree software, ask four questions:

1. Can remarriage and half-siblings be modeled without hacks?
2. Is data local until you choose to sync?
3. Can living relatives collaborate without making the tree public?
4. Can you export a complete copy you control?

Mapping generations, not just listing names

A list of ancestors is a database. A family tree is spatial and temporal: generations lined up, partnerships bridging households, places locating the story on Earth. Dorot's canvas layout and map view exist for that reason. Birth countries in use become filter options. Clustered map markers show migration patterns that a flat table never reveals.

That visual layer helps relatives who would never open a spreadsheet. Elders often remember places better than exact years. Showing the map alongside the tree turns conversation into corrections you can save.

Privacy expectations for living family

Building an online tree does not require publishing everyone. Prefer verified invites over public share links. Avoid posting photographs of living minors without agreement from guardians. Keep sensitive notes restrained. Dorot's invite flow ties access to invited email addresses so collaboration stays intentional.

If a relative wants out, remove or redacts what you control, and stop sharing their details through other channels. Family memory and family consent should stay in balance.

Common mistakes when starting a family tree

• Encoding children only under one parent, then losing half-sibling structure after remarriage.
• Leaving places as vague free text that never geocodes cleanly.
• Waiting for perfect documentation before entering what you already know from living relatives.
• Treating social media posts as verified vital records.
• Sharing a draft publicly before living people agree to appear.
• Skipping backups before a large CSV import or device change.

Who Dorot is for

Dorot fits families who want a focused, modern family tree builder without a research marketplace wrapped around it. If you need DNA matching, newspaper archives, or mega-index search, use specialist genealogy platforms alongside Dorot and keep Dorot as the clean chart of record for your household.

If you need a private canvas, union-aware kinship, place mapping, and verified-email save and invites, open the app and start where memory is strongest.

Start mapping your generations

Open Dorot to build your family tree in the browser. When the trunk feels solid, save with a verified email and invite the relatives who can fill the gaps. For research mindset, read Genealogy. For the product model glossary, read How it works.