For everyone who has wondered who they came from.
AncestralFire is an AI partner for your family history. Connect your tree, or start with just one name, and it gets to work: looking in your family's own tree, in FamilySearch Family Tree, in the historical record, and in the history of the places they lived. Then it tells you what it found, as a story, with the source behind every fact.
Why we made AncestralFire
We're a husband and wife who love history, because it's the story of all of us. Every family is a chapter in it, and finding your own chapter is one of the most meaningful things a person can do.
One of us studied family history in college. Following her own ancestors meant learning to read old German script letter by letter, and hours at the library scrolling through microfilm. That's what it used to take. The most dedicated did it. Most people never had the time.
That has changed. An AI can read that script now, and many of the records are online. You don't have to figure it all out yourself anymore. Working with AI is also a new way to learn: you ask, it researches alongside you, explains what it finds, and you come away understanding more than when you started, about your family and about the world they lived in.
AncestralFire is that partnership, made for family history. The AI does the hard work of reading, searching and keeping track of who's who. You keep the part that matters: the stories, the connections, and a better sense of where you come from. And it tells you only what the sources say.
That's where the joy of family history is, and we wanted everyone to have it.
How it fits with what you already use
- It works alongside the records sites. Ancestry, MyHeritage and FamilySearch hold the records, and you'll still want them. AncestralFire works on your tree, looks your family up in FamilySearch Family Tree once you connect it, and reaches for free sources when a question needs them.
- It's the same here and in Claude or ChatGPT. The app on this site and the AI assistant you already use reach the same tools and the same private tree. One family, wherever you happen to be working.
- Nothing changes behind your back. It reads your tree and keeps its findings and pages beside it. It changes a person only when you ask, or when it brings in what FamilySearch already holds for someone you've linked; a clear match links itself, and you can undo it from the card. It writes to FamilySearch Family Tree only after you've seen exactly what will change and pressed Approve.
What we promise your family
- Every fact, footnoted. Facts come from your tree and from kept sources, each cited. If it ever imagines a scene to tell a story, it says so.
- A finding is a lead to check. It points you to the source. Big family trees copy whole lines from one another, mistakes and all. When your tree runs into one of those copied lines, it tells you, and shows where it starts.
- History is not proof. What happened near where someone lived is told as the history around them, never as something they did.
- Your family is yours. Living or not, nobody in your tree is hidden from you, and what you share by link is yours to share.
Who makes it
AncestralFire is made by CatalystFire. Write to support@ancestral-fire.com: a person reads every message.