View a GEDCOM file privately — or begin a family tree of your own
Kinlight can open a book of your own hand: a family tree built here from a single name, or read in from a GEDCOM file exported by Ancestry, FamilySearch, MyHeritage, Gramps or any other genealogy program. It runs entirely in your browser — there is no account, no sign-up, and no upload. Your family’s record is written to this device’s own storage, and leaves it only if you choose to keep a copy in your own Google Drive.
Open the library and begin your own book — start from a blank page, or bring a GEDCOM file to the same door.
What the book can do
- Opens GEDCOM (.ged) exports of up to 5,000 people
- Builds a family tree from scratch — begin with one name
- No account, no sign-up, nothing uploaded — all data stays on your device
- The tree is drawn as an interactive 3D constellation
- Portraits from your own album, stored with the book on the device
- Binds to a portable .kinbook file for backup or moving devices
- Prints a free tree sheet of the whole tree — A4 or A3 PDF, drawn on your device
- Offers the heirloom print: a fuller A3 with portraits and detail, for a small fee
Is it really free?
Yes. The archive, the historical volumes, your own book, and everything you need to build and keep it are free — no subscription, no trial, no account.
One thing costs money: the heirloom print, a fuller A3 sheet with portraits, crowns and detail, made to frame — €3.99 a print, or €9.99 for three. The plain tree sheet stays free.
Do I need an account?
No. There are no accounts anywhere on Kinlight, so there is nothing to sign up for and no personal detail is ever asked of you before you begin.
Is my family’s data uploaded anywhere?
No. The book is written to your browser’s own storage (IndexedDB) on this device. Opening a GEDCOM file, adding people, adding portraits — all of it happens locally; no request carries your family’s record off the machine. If you want to see for yourself, open your browser’s network tab while you work: nothing of the book goes out.
There is one exception, and it is a choice you make yourself: you can connect your own Google Drive to keep a copy of your books and carry them between devices. It is off unless you turn it on, and the copy goes from your browser straight to a folder in your own Drive — never to Kinlight.
Buying the heirloom print changes none of this: the payment goes to Stripe and the unlock service sees only your purchase code — never a name, a date, or anything from the book. The PDF itself is drawn on your device.
Can it open a GEDCOM file from Ancestry or FamilySearch?
Yes. Export your tree as a GEDCOM (.ged) file — every major genealogy service and program offers this — and bring it to the library here. Kinlight reads the people, their dates, and the marriages and children that join them, up to 5,000 people in one book. Larger exports are refused with their count named, so nothing is silently cut; export a smaller branch and bring that instead.
How do I get a GEDCOM file out of my genealogy site or program?
Look in your tree’s settings, or the program’s menu, for “Export” or “Export to GEDCOM”, and save the .ged file it gives you. Online services usually prepare the file and offer it as a download; desktop programs write it straight to disk. If your tree is larger than 5,000 people, export one branch at a time.
What does Kinlight read from a GEDCOM file?
The people and the families that join them: names, sex, birth and death dates, birthplaces, occupations and notes, marriages and divorces, and every parent–child link. Sources, extra events and program-specific tags are skipped. Before the book is made you see a summary that warns about anything it could not carry — photographs that live only on the exporting site, or a record that appears twice in the file.
GEDCOM exports from online services do not contain photographs — at most links to them — so portraits are added afterwards from your own pictures. A GEDZIP file (.gdz, from GEDCOM 7 programs) can carry its images inside, and those become portraits on import.
Which GEDCOM versions and character sets work?
GEDCOM 5.5.1 and 7.0, the versions genealogy software writes today, in UTF-8 or the older UTF-16 “UNICODE” form. Files from older programs written in Windows Western lettering are recovered, with a note to check accented names; files that declare the old ANSEL lettering open with a warning that some accented letters may look off.
How do I keep it safe, or move it to another device?
Bind the book to a file: the export button writes a portable .kinbook file — the facts and the portraits together — that no browser can lose. Keep it wherever you keep files that matter, and open it on any other device to carry the book across.
What happens if I clear my browser data?
The book lives in this browser’s storage, so clearing site data removes it — that is the honest cost of nothing ever being uploaded. The archive reminds you when a book has unsaved work; bind it to a .kinbook file first and nothing is lost.
Can I print it?
Yes — two ways. The free tree sheet draws the whole tree, names alone, onto one A4 or A3 PDF. The heirloom print (€3.99) draws the full detail — portraits, dates, generation marks, crowns and houses where the record carries them — onto an A3 made to frame, upright or sideways.
Both are drawn to PDF on your own device; the book does not leave the browser to be printed.