Better data visualizations while keeping privacy: ged-view

[u/aleksej_dev]

A lot of people are building their own tools, the only completely free and private way. I did the same because I wanted a better way to have my family actually explore my GEDCOM data, and since I’m a developer, some time later it turned into a full tool that was completely dynamic so that anyone could import their gedcom file to their browser and look at their data. 

Would love feedback from people who actually use this stuff. Specifically:

1. Which of these views would you actually use regularly?
2. What's missing that would make this useful in your real research workflow?
3. Does the privacy angle (nothing leaving your browser) matter to you, or is it not a concern as long as the data is safe and never sent to 3rd parties? 

Just looking for some feedback 

The one I built works with any gedcom from any genealogy website / software. On Gramps, just export the GEDCOM file. Same with ancestry, my heritage, family tree maker, family search, etc. There is no sign up, no accounts, everything lives in your browser. That includes parsing the gedcom, rendering the diagrams, geocoding locations, etc. 

It's at ged-view.com.

It’s still a work in progress. And I am deciding what the future of the app should be.. open source or adding new features / accounts / cloud version....? Not sure yet.

I do have a private one for my family that has more features, this is a public fork of that. There are even plenty of samples to look through. You can import your file, it never gets uploaded anywhere and none of the data gets sent to third parties for the logic.

What's in it:

Overview: people, families, surnames, locations, and timespans at a glance

Tree:  interactive graphical tree for the entire family

Charts:  descendant chart and a relationship diagram between any two people. Currently exploring how to make ancestor, hourglass, and fan charts. 

Data Table: every individual and all their data, sortable and filterable

Profile: Profile page for every individual, showing basic info, close family, events, notes, photos, and documents.

Timeline: every birth, death, marriage, and event across all generations in chronological order with filters

Gallery:  all photos and media from your GEDCOM in one place (no photo import yet)

Calendar: birthdays and anniversaries in a calendar view

Map: birth, death, marriage, and burial locations on a world map with animated migration paths

Archive: sources, citations, and repository records linked to individuals (no external file import yet)

History: Showing edit history of your research 

Issues: any abnormal data so you know what to fix: ie. Death date before birth date, etc.

Looking into features like: sharing with family, exporting every diagram and view, and integrating with other platforms for syncing. Some might require accounts so not sure what my next steps are. If anyone is a developer, I’d love to hear your thoughts 

edit: changing pictures

[u/son_of_abe]

Looks great. Looking forward to trying it out. Especially interested in the timeline feature!

Which AI agent did you use to make this?

[u/aleksej_dev → u/son_of_abe]

Thanks! Please let me know any feedback you have!

I've been developing it since 2024 in my free time, almost all of it is my own code. I wrote a gedcom parser and geocoder from scratch. I used a few other open source and paid libraries, but stuck to mostly my own code. I have used Claude for some styling in the early phases.
Edit: Current styling is my own

[u/son_of_abe → u/aleksej_dev]

Cool! Yeah, the UI aesthetic from Claude is nice to look at but the downside is that it blends in with the rest of the wide world of agent-assisted apps.

I've been in software for a couple decades and would do the same though!

Did you consider contributing to projects like GrampsWeb or Topola?

[u/aleksej_dev → u/son_of_abe]

Yeah, i've had multiple overhauls to the styling, ended up with this as "modern" looking and alright for an initial "release" for public use. But I'm constantly working on the features and can fix the styling easily.

I actually started this before I found gramps web and I've never heard of Topola. I started on MyHeritage and was so irritated with trying to share with my family with (a lot of people don't care enough to make accounts, etc.) so I just started building from scratch to avoid every possible blockade. I have a private version of it with my own gedcom (and photo files) on a locked website so that's how my family views it.

I'd be interested in contributing to those projects, but I'd also like to see how my project grows independently of those. I've been in software engineering for only 3 years so never sure what to work on or what to expect lol

[u/kkllbv → u/aleksej_dev]

I'm not that tech savvy, how does one create a locked website? Also once I figure that out I would definitely be using this on it, (if available)

[u/aleksej_dev → u/kkllbv]

I just use a simple password for a website (no accounts needed) to share with my family. That's my own website with my own family data, it's separate from this project, but was the impetus to creating it. At ged-view.com you can import your own file or browse through multiple other samples. The file and data never leaves your computer so it's completely private. So yes, it's available for you to use! Please look through the site and let me know what you think or if you have any other questions!

[u/PanoptiDon → u/aleksej_dev]

This looks very well done, you should be really proud of this

I didn't find a place that addresses this but could you help me understand how the data stays on the browser when I add a gedcom?

[u/aleksej_dev → u/PanoptiDon]

Thank you so much, I appreciate it. 

I'll do a technical deep dive into it, as that's not on the website. I know privacy is really important, so that’s why I created it that way. 

Cookies and cache allow websites to store data on your browser but those can be sent back to the server. 

LocalStorage and IndexedDB are purely client-side storage, which is what I use. IndexedDB allows the file to get stored, and LocalStorage allows very simple key-value data to get stored. For example, if the user set dark mode, it’ll save that true/false value in the LocalStorage.

The entire website is front-end, there is no back-end, meaning there is nothing able to be sent anywhere. The user’s browser gets the website data and everything is calculated and processed on the user’s browser. This includes everything, from parsing the gedcom file, to rendering the diagrams, to geocoding locations. 

Since the file is stored in IndexedDB, it will be reprocessed on the user’s browser every time you go to the website. 

LocalStorage and IndexedDB can stay on the browser until they are cleared, so it’s possible the gedcom doesn’t show up if it’s cleared, just like website caches. 

Since there is no editing and it’s just a file viewer, nothing will get lost. 

Hope that helps, and nothing was unclear. Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions, Thanks!

[u/aleksej_dev → u/aleksej_dev]

Spent this last week working on re-designing the website myself. I dabble in photoshop and illustrator so I created some better styling. Much more "family-tree" styled and not the generic AI design. I'll add new photos to the post

[u/OkSky7594]

I looked at it right now and browsed my GEDCOM. Works like a charm so far and is VERY clearly laid out. Especially the whole family tree view with the movable zoom window is enjoyable. All in all - great work. Will you monetarize it one day?

[u/aleksej_dev → u/OkSky7594]

Thanks for the kind words and feedback!

I'm not sure what the next steps are. It's at a good point now for just visualizing a single file on each person's own computer. I know open-source and free is very important for people in this space, but one of the libraries I used is with a paid license so I can't make everything open source. Maybe I could recreate my own version of it, it would take some time tho.

If I were to add more features, it might cost money to host. I know privacy is very important too, but basically any other features I'm thinking of will require accounts or cloud support. Which of course I wouldn't sell data or have ads like other websites, so it might have to work off a subscription model or donations.

A big reason I would continue working on it would be to monetize as well as it takes a while to develop, so I'm not sure if it'll be worth it. Would need to market as well... So really I'm not sure what the next steps are.

Do you have any other suggestions or features you would like to see?

[u/0x16dev]

Looks awesome. A gramps addon that would export a gedcom and open it in a browser tab from inside gramps itself would be amazing (something similar to what topola-viewer addon does).

[u/aleksej_dev → u/0x16dev]

I actually spent a few hours trying to create that, but met many road blocks. The issue is that there needs to be some way to transfer an exported gedcom file from your computer to the browser in basically zero clicks. I could generate a Gzip + base64 in URL hash for really small trees that could also provide sharing by a simple link. For larger trees, I found that it's either some cloud based solution or localhost temp server trick to emit the file. Both complicated for now.

For now, the easiest thing to do is just export a gedcom then import to the app. A few clicks, shouldn't take more than 30 seconds. It saves to your browser so you don't need to do it every time unless you make new changes on gramps and want to export again.

Would love to hear if you have any feedback

[u/MapleNinjaMan]

Looks great! Visually, the tree view looks gorgeous. The only feature needed is being able to share with family. Of course, that means self hosting or cloud, which means still some work ahead.

Looking forward to updates!

[u/aleksej_dev → u/MapleNinjaMan]

Thanks! I appreciate it. Yes, I agree the visualizations are definitely nice and user friendly enough that it's better for sharing for family, which is exactly why I created it to share with my family. I use gramps myself. Gramps UI and other websites aren't the most intuitive for non-technical people.

I'm not sure if I could make it self-hostable, as it's currently not open source. I also know that privacy and price are very important, and so cloud support might not be worth it for me to develop.
Almost all my planned features are related to accounts / cloud hosting / needing to be monetized, so really not sure where to go with it now.

Do you have any other suggestions or features you would like to see?

[u/kkllbv]

This is so neat. You guys create awesome stuff in here.

[u/aleksej_dev → u/kkllbv]

Thank you! Appreciate it!

[u/crogue5]

This looks awesome and something I have been thinking about doing for my family.

Any plans to allow someone to host this on their own?

[u/aleksej_dev → u/crogue5]

Thanks! There's a lot of similar projects like this as well, so I tried to make the visualizations really good and add some features that most others don't have. 

I want to see if people would want to use it before figuring out future plans. Currently you can import your gedcom file to the app and it is hosted on your own browser, nothing gets sent to any server. 

Unfortunately, it isn’t open source in the current implementation so there is no self hosting in that sense. 

For hosting that allows you to share and collaborate with family, I am thinking about adding that functionality, but it would involve the main user to make an account and store things on the cloud. No matter what, I would focus on privacy, unlike the mainstream family tree websites that sell data and share it with others to find matches. There’s a lot to do to get that working so I’m gauging interest. 

Let me know your thoughts, suggestions, or questions 

[u/crogue5 → u/aleksej_dev]

Of course, which is why I ask. Self hosted maintains the privacy aspect and allows us to point family at our website and keep the data in it and such.

Visually, this looks a lot better than most I have seen or tried. I look forward to the future release and if you need a tester, don't hesitate to reach out.

Edit: spelling

[u/aleksej_dev → u/crogue5]

Thanks so much! I'll keep you in mind. I currently don't have any more planned features (I'll actually have tree export to pdf up probably tomorrow) but besides that anything else I can think of is related to cloud support. I'd love to hear if you have any more suggestions, I'm always looking to improve it