Remember having to create a family tree in elementary school? Speaking to living grandparents and relatives was about as far back as we were able to trace, but not anymore. Family mapping and family tree building is all the rage these days, and advancements in official data gathering and organization put our school projects to shame. DNA testing is easy-to-use, affordable, painless, and precise.
When choosing a family tree software to use, it’s important to choose one that’s reliable, as well as one that has positive reviews and a good reputation. Looking to find the best one but aren’t sure where to start? Read our breakdown of the top family tree sites to choose the right one for your needs.
Here They Are. The Best Sites to Build a Family Tree:
- Customize your Ancestry homepage with your most used features
- Build and continuously grow your family tree
- Find long lost relatives with the “New Ancestor Discoveries” feature
- View, manage, and add to your family tree using the mobile app
Ancestry offers a software that lets you uncover your ethnic mix, find distant relatives, and build a comprehensive family tree. To get started you just add a few family members to your tree, and the site will search for them in its record collections. If the site finds interesting information, you’ll see an icon of a leaf on the family member's picture. You can then look up that person, and if it’s accurate, add them to your family tree.
But the best part about Ancestry’s family trees is that the more family members you add, the more the site can tell you about your family and the more clear your history becomes. The company has over 6 million subscribers, has been featured in Fortune, and ABC News, and offers a 14-day free trial period.
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- Covers 80 different regions worldwide
- Results split into 3 sections – family ancestry, mother line, and father line
- Provides extremely in-depth insights
LivingDNA offers a genetic analysis and family mapping product that utilizes some of the most advanced technology. Since the insight provided is more detailed than other sites out there, it’s ideal for people who want to know the exact breakdown of their family and where they fit in. The company splits its results into 3 categories – your family ancestry, your mother line, and your father line.
It covers 80 different regions worldwide, and traces your ethnic heritage back 10 generations. Additionally, it provides its users with an interactive map, that shows you your ancestors’ migration paths. This is really useful for learning about where you come from and how you got to where you are.
- Well established company with an excellent reputation
- Various pricing options
- Vital records from over 45 countries
- 24/7 customer phone support
- Largest international network of family trees
With 2.9 billion profiles, over 90 million users worldwide, and 40 million family trees, MyHeritage is a leader in the DNA mapping and family tree space.
It offers family tree building software and DNA testing kits whose unique results give you in-depth information about where you come from and who you are. Not only are its tests comprehensive, but they’re easy-to-use, well-designed, and intuitive. Additionally, its tests are made to help you build out your family tree by combining DNA results and family tree analysis.
The site can also help you find long-lost relatives around the world. After gathering your information, you can build a complete family tree. Everything can be done on MyHeritage’s site, which is built specifically for family mapping and analysis. MyHeritage offers competitive pricing, good customer support, and detailed ancestral insights.
Family Tree Builder
- Easy-to-use platform that can be accessed by web or mobile
- Over 6 billion historical records
- BBB accredited business
- Discover unknown relatives with the Smart Matches feature
- Free to download and use
Family Tree Builder is a free and powerful genealogy software for researching and building family trees.
To get started you just add relatives to your profile. From there you can create beautiful charts and visualizations, and then share your history on your own secure family site. If you’re looking for relatives or are curious if you have any that are unknown, you can use the company's Smart Matches feature that lets you discover unknown relatives and contact them if they too have a family tree on the site.
You can also use the search function to look through billions of historical records and family tree profiles. One of the best parts of Family Tree Builder is that everything can be done from your mobile device, including adding photos to family trees, and running a relative search. The site was featured on Fox News, as well as in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
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Newspaper Archive
- Over 200,000 subscribers
- Database contains 5.6 billion names
Newspaper Archive contains the largest historical newspaper database online. It has tens of millions of newspaper pages dating back to 1607, over 100 million obituaries, and millions of family history records. On the site you can research your ancestors and family’s history, or explore gripping news headlines and articles. You can also perform a free name search to learn about yourself or relatives. The information found on the site is really useful for creating in-depth and researched family trees.
OneGreatFamily
- Free 7-day trial
- Large genealogy learning and resource center
OneGreatFamily is an online genealogical service with the aim of connecting the world through a single database. The service uses your family tree to build one, central family tree that connects people from around the world. Anyone can use the service to learn more about their family and their roots. Experts and genealogists can also benefit from the site’s database of over 200 million names.
Find Your Roots
With so many choices out there, with varying pricing plans and security features, choosing the right company is critical to a positive and successful family mapping experience. Use our recommendations of the top family tree sites to ensure the best and most accurate results possible.
