The best family tree software, free and paid.
To draw a quick tree, use a free browser tool like Family Echo or our family tree maker. To share one tree with relatives you may never have met, use FamilySearch. To keep a private tree on your own computer, RootsMagic Essentials, Gramps and Family Tree Builder are free, and Family Tree Maker is paid.
Side by side.
| Where it runs | Cost | Good for | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Our family tree maker | Your browser | Free, no account | Four generations on a page, to print or download |
| Family Echo | Your browser | Free | Drawing and printing a tree quickly |
| FamilySearch Family Tree | Your browser or phone | Free | One tree everyone shares, joined to its records |
| RootsMagic Essentials | Windows and Mac | Free, with a paid full version | A private tree on your computer |
| Gramps | Your computer | Free and open source | People who like to control every detail |
| Family Tree Builder | Your computer | Free download, from MyHeritage | People already using MyHeritage |
| Family Tree Maker | Your computer | Paid | A long-running program with charts and books |
Which to choose.
- Just want to see it on a page? Start with the family tree maker or a printable template.
- Want help from relatives you've never met? FamilySearch, because someone may already have built part of your family.
- Want it private and yours? A program on your computer. Back it up.
You won't be locked in.
Nearly all of these can read and write a GEDCOM file, so you can move a tree from one to another. Here's how to get your file out of each one.
Where Ancestral Fire fits.
It isn't another place to build a tree. It takes the tree you have, from FamilySearch or a GEDCOM file, and tells you who those people were, with the source behind each fact. See how it compares.
Or just ask.
Tell Ancestral Fire one name, and it reads your tree, searches FamilySearch Family Tree once you connect it, and tells you what it found, with the source behind each fact. A real answer:
(The published Kennedy file, brought in from the first screen.)
The tree at a glance: 208 people · 75 families · born 1728–1984. Commonest surnames: Kennedy, Bouvier, Caulfield, Mahoney, Skakel, Fitzgerald.
What Ancestral Fire showed seconds after the Kennedy family's published GEDCOM was brought in.
Do it now: move your file between programs with the free GEDCOM converter.
See a whole conversation on How it works, or what it finds in one family: The Kennedy family tree, from Wexford to Dallas.
Keep reading.
- Is AI genealogy accurate? What to check. It can be, when it answers from records and says which ones.
- Is there a genealogy app for ChatGPT or Claude?. Yes.