Creating an account

Sign up at /register with Google or Microsoft (no email verification needed) or with email + password. Email signups receive a verification link that expires in 24 hours.

New accounts start at the Unverified trust level. You can immediately start building a private tree — verification isn't required.

Two-factor authentication

Under Settings → Security, enrol an authenticator app (Google Authenticator, 1Password, Authy). Every sign-in then prompts for a 6-digit code. OAuth-only accounts must set a password first — the Security page surfaces a card for this.

Completing your profile

Profile page accepts avatar, display name (English + Arabic), bio, region, and tribal affiliation. Mark it public to expose a sanitised version at /u/[your-id].

Creating a tree

My Trees → + New Tree (either the header button or the floating + New tree FAB in the bottom-left). Name it (e.g. "Abbas Family"), add an optional description, pick an accent colour from the eight-swatch palette, save. Trees default to Private — sandbox mode, only you can see it.

The accent colour tints the dashboard tile (side strip + a soft wash over the card) so multiple trees stay glanceable. Skip the picker to keep the default emerald look.

Adding people

On the tree page, hit + Add Person. Latin and Arabic name fields are both supported (Arabic uses Amiri serif + RTL). Birth date can be exact or an approximate year. A duplicate check runs before saving — near-matches are surfaced with similarity scores so you can pick the existing record instead.

Adding relationships

+ Relationship on the tree page or + Add relationship on a person profile. Types: Parent of, Spouse of, Sibling of, Guardian of. You can select multiple counterparties with the same type — useful for adding all of someone's children in one go.

Viewing the tree

The icon-only toolbar in the tree header packs View canvas, Share, Add relationship, and Delete tree into a single segmented chip — only + Add Person keeps its label as the primary CTA. Hover any icon for the label.

View canvas opens the Family Tree Dashboard:

• Mobile: Focus-Node view — large focus card with confidence ring + two tabs ("Parents & siblings" / "Spouse & children"). Tap any relative to refocus.
• Desktop: 3-generation CSS-grid — parents above, focus + spouses in the middle, children below, siblings in a strip. Gold-muted connector lines link generations.
• Canvas Options widget — floats top-right at xl+ (or a bottom sheet below xl, opened from a Settings pill). Hosts node-colour swatches, the Compact/Extended view-mode pill, a live search input with a match-count badge, and the export buttons. Collapses to a gold-rim pill so the tree gets the column back.
• Export PNG in two modes: List PNG (focus card + descendant cards) and Graph PNG (a classic hierarchical genealogy chart, rendered as inline SVG and snapshotted by html-to-image).
• + Add relative FAB (mobile) opens a bottom drawer to wire new relationships from the focused person.

Privacy of living people

Anyone marked living (no death date) is masked everywhere: birth year shown as a decade ("1980s"), Private record badge on their profile, and they never appear in public search regardless of tree visibility.

Evidence types

• Family document— Old family books, registers
• Handwritten tree— Traditional shajrah documents
• Grave record— Headstone photos, cemetery records
• Marriage certificate— Nikah nama, civil registration
• Oral reference— Transcribed elder testimony
• Scholar reference— Genealogy scholar confirmation
• External archive— National archive records

Uploading

On a person profile → Evidence section → pick a file (JPG / PNG / WebP / HEIC / PDF, ≤ 20 MB). Mobile can use the camera directly. For images, in-browser OCR (Tesseract.js) runs automatically — extracted text appears in the transcript field with a confidence percentage. Edit before uploading if needed.

The evidence card

Each row shows: document-type icon + label, file metadata, an OCR confidence bar, transcript snippet, and a 3-step verification timeline (Uploaded → Scanned → Approved/Rejected). Owners can Open / Approve / Reject inline.

New uploads start as Quarantined and don't count toward confidence until approved.

Two separate vouching systems — don't confuse them.

Vouch for a record (community endorsement)

On a person profile that isn't in your own tree, the Vouch for record button adds your endorsement. One vouch per (user, record). The count shows on the button ("Vouched ✓ 3"). Tree owners cannot vouch their own records.

Vouch for a user (identity trust)

• Trust vouch — "I know this person." 10 per 30 days. Both parties get a reputation bump.
• Identity co-sign — only Identity-Verified+ users can co-sign. 3 co-signs auto-promote the recipient to Identity Verified.

Trust levels

Verification badge tiers

The large badge on a person profile reflects the record's confidence score:

• ≥ 80 — Officially Verified
• 50–79 — Probable Verified
• 30–49 — Documented
• < 30 — Unverified

Raising

On a person profile → Raise dispute in the Trust controls row → pick a category (Incorrect Name / Dates / Relationship / False Lineage Claim / Duplicate Record / Privacy Violation / Other) → write a factual explanation → optionally add supporting evidence text.

The dispute center

• Alert banner — status (Pending / Under Review / Resolved / Dismissed), the raiser's weight pill (Heavy / Standard / Low), category, estimated confidence penalty while open.
• Claim vs Counter-Claim grid — left card is the current registry record, right card is the disputed correction, highlighted amber. Mobile uses a Current / Proposed toggle.
• Discussion thread — each comment shows role (Raiser / Tree owner / Member) with tinted border + trust-level badge + reputation score. L5+ get a gold ring so high-credibility voices stand out.

Resolving (tree owners)

Tree owners see two buttons: Mark resolved (apply the correction, add an optional outcome note the raiser sees) or Dismiss (close without action, explain why). Once closed, the thread is read-only.

The public search at /search is accessible without signing in. Living descendants never appear — hard rule in the code.

• Tribe chips — sticky bar under the search input. One-tap lineage filter. Horizontal scroll on mobile.
• Advanced filters drawer — region/birthplace, century/decade range, confidence threshold, "documented evidence only" toggle.
• Verification seal — gold for ≥ 80, emerald for 50–79, ink dot for < 50.

Tree visibility

Removal requests

To remove yourself from someone else's tree, submit feedback (chat-bubble bottom-right) with the tree link and your name. Processed within 7 days.

The tree detail page has a Share button (owner only). Add a relative's email and choose what they can do:

• View only — open the tree and persons, no changes.
• Edit — add and update persons + relationships; cannot delete anything.
• Edit + delete child items — full edit including removing persons and relationships. The tree itself can still only be deleted by you.

The invitee sees the tree in Shared with me on their dashboard the next time they sign in — no acceptance flow. They also get an in-app notification at the moment of invite (or when you change their permission). Every change a collaborator makes generates a notification back to you.

PublicVerified trees (e.g. the seeded prophet trees) are also readable to any signed-in user, so you can open a record like the prophet tree even without an explicit share grant.

The bell icon in the left sidebar (or under More → Notifications on mobile) shows an unread count and opens /notifications. You can:

• Filter by All / Unread / Read.
• Tick rows and use Mark read / Mark unread in bulk.
• Hit Mark all read in the header for a one-shot clear.
• Use the per-row Open-tree link to jump to the tree the notification is about.

Floating chat-bubble button at the bottom-right of every non-auth page opens the feedback widget. Categories: Bug, Feature Request, Content Issue, General, Other. Subject ≤ 200 chars, message ≤ 5000.

Anonymous submissions require an email so the team can reply. Signed-in users get a thread view at /feedback to follow up on past submissions.

• Settings → Security — password, set initial password (OAuth-only), enable / disable TOTP
• Sessions — see every active device, revoke other sessions in one click
• Profile — edit display info, avatar, set public / private
• Logout — top-right account dropdown (desktop) or via the More sheet (mobile)

To delete your account, contact [email protected].

If anything is unclear or you can't find what you need:

• Support email: [email protected]
• Feedback button: chat-bubble bottom-right of any non-auth page