Famistry
Famistry Desktop · User guide

Build and preserve your family tree

A practical guide to creating a portable family archive with people, relationships, photographs, and documents stored on your own computer.

Quick start

Create a project. Choose its folder and name. Famistry keeps the project database and media together there.
Add the first person. Enter what you know now; dates, stories, and media can be added later.
Build the family. Add parents, partners, and children from a person card so relationships remain explicit.
Make a backup. Copy the complete project folder to another disk or trusted storage.
Famistry Desktop works without registration. Your family project remains on your computer unless you deliberately export or send it elsewhere.

Projects

A project is an independent family archive. Use Create project for a new family, Open project to select an existing folder, and the recent-project list to return to previous work.

Moving a complete project

Close Famistry, copy the entire project folder, and open that folder on the destination computer. Keeping the whole folder preserves the tree and its media. A plain JSON export contains tree data only and is not a substitute for a full project backup.

Saving and closing

Famistry saves project changes locally. You can also use Ctrl + S. Close the project before moving its folder, and let the application finish saving before exiting.

People and relationships

Each person card can hold names, gender, dates and places, biographical details, and family links. Add relatives from the selected person whenever possible; this gives the editor enough context to create the correct relationship.

  • Use separate people for every real individual, even when names are identical.
  • Record uncertain facts conservatively and refine them when a source becomes available.
  • Review parent, partner, and child links after importing a tree.
  • Choose a central person when you want to inspect the family from a different perspective.

Photos and documents

Desktop projects can contain photographs and documents. Add media to the relevant person and select a portrait when you want an image to appear on that person’s card.

Media belongs to the project folder. Renaming, deleting, or moving internal files by hand can break links; manage them through Famistry and transfer the complete folder when moving the archive.

Import and export

.fami and JSON

Famistry can exchange tree structure through .fami or JSON files. A data-only file is useful for sharing people and relationships without media. Portable archive variants can include the project’s media when supported by the receiving edition.

Import safely

  1. Keep a backup of the destination project.
  2. Open or create the project that should receive the data.
  3. Choose the import command and inspect the resulting people and links.
  4. Resolve duplicates before continuing regular editing.

Language

Select a language on the first screen or use Language / Язык in the application menu. The interface and update messages change immediately. Russian links open the Russian Famistry site; every other language uses famistry.org.

Plugins

Plugins add focused workflows to Famistry, such as preparing a designed family book for print. Open the plugin catalog from the prominent Plugins control in the application. The catalog follows the selected language and opens in your browser.

A plugin may ask you to choose the data required for its task and will show what is being transferred before processing. Available plugins, previews, beta terms, and prices are presented in the catalog.

Updates

Famistry can check famistry.org for a newer Desktop release automatically. Use Help → Check for updates to check manually, or disable automatic checks from the same menu. The application opens the official download page in your browser when an update is available.

Backup and privacy

  • Back up the complete project folder, not only an exported tree.
  • Keep at least one backup on a different physical device.
  • Verify periodically that the copied project opens and its media is present.
  • Treat family dates, stories, photographs, and documents as private information.
  • Share a project or export only with people you trust.

Support

For questions, bug reports, and feedback, use the contact form on famistry.org or email team@famistry.org. Include your Famistry Desktop version, Windows version, and a short description of what happened. Do not attach private family data unless the support team specifically asks for it.