Rootstrap
Give your family its tree. Then tell them what you're building.
Rootstrap turns a family's history into one living tree the whole family can explore, and lets the story continue into what one of you is building now.
What it is
One family, one living tree, and the stories inside it.
A founder starts a tree from a family file, public records and what relatives remember. Every person gets a page, a story written from the evidence with its sources shown, and a place on a tree you can walk.
Relatives are invited by name. They find themselves, claim their root, add the people and photos the tree is missing, and decide what is shown about them. Near the end, the tree reaches the present and the founder's own chapter, with optional ways to help. Rootstrap never makes the family history a price of admission.
How it works
From records to roots to the next chapter.
- 1
Records and memories
Genealogy files, public archives and what relatives remember, each kept with its source.
- 2
One living tree
Everyone is connected in a single tree you can walk: roots, branches, in-laws and all.
- 3
Find yourself
Type your name, see who you come from and who you are connected to.
- 4
Stories and numbers
A story for each person from the evidence, plus what the family built and where it lived.
- 5
The next chapter
The story continues into what one of us is building now, told the same way.
- 6
Help if you like
Follow, share, make an introduction, lend expertise. Entirely optional.
For the family
Your root is yours.
Living relatives appear with what the family already knows, so the tree is worth visiting from day one. Sign in, claim your root, and you decide the rest.
Find yourself
Your name is enough. Your page shows your place in the tree and your relatives.
Grow your branch
Add the parents, partners and children the tree is missing, and your photo.
Or hide it
Show your details to everyone, to signed-in family only, or to no one but you.
Never shown
Full birth dates, contact details and anything private stay out of sight, for everyone.
For founders
Something worth giving your family first.
Then, and only then, the introductions, the advice and the backing you need.
Start from a file
Export from Ancestry, FamilySearch or MyHeritage. Rootstrap builds the tree, checks public records and writes a sourced story for each person.
Let the family fill it in
A gentle interviewer gathers what relatives remember; they add people, photos and corrections themselves.
Your chapter, in context
Your venture told as the family's next chapter, with ways to help that are optional and kept apart from anything to do with investment.
Private by design
Every rule about who sees what is enforced in the database, not the page. Living relatives control their own root.
Basic
$[set price] one-timeYou bring the family file; Rootstrap builds the tree.
Premium
$[set price] one-timeYou tell us what you know; we do the research.
You will sign in first; nothing is charged until launch.