Gramps Web

What it does

Gramps Web is a private website for your family history. Add people, dates, places, photos and sources, and see them as family tree charts, fan charts, timelines and maps. Invite relatives to look or help edit, write up stories in its blog, and optionally ask an AI questions such as "where was Grandad born?". It works together with the Gramps desktop program and runs on your own server, so your family's details stay private.

• Family tree, fan, hourglass and relationship charts
• Maps with historical overlays, timelines, sources and DNA tools
• Invite relatives with roles from view-only to editor
• Optional AI chat about your tree, including fully local models

Great for: Family historians and relatives who want to build and share one family tree privately.

Make it yours: ideas

Pick an idea to start from, or describe your own.

• Settings, no code Invite the family to look and help “I want my brothers to be able to edit our tree, and my aunts and cousins to only look and suggest changes. Help me set up their accounts.” Start with this idea
• Extend: themes, plugins, API Bring my tree over from another site “I have a GEDCOM file exported from Ancestry with about 800 people. Help me import it into Gramps Web with the photos.” Start with this idea
• Settings, no code Ask questions about our ancestors “Set up the AI chat so my children can ask things like 'who were Grandma's parents?', using a model that runs on our own computer.” Start with this idea
• Extend: themes, plugins, API A printed family history book “Make a PDF book of my father's side of the family, with photos, birth and death dates and the stories from the blog, to print for his 80th birthday.” Start with this idea
• Code changes A simpler home page for older relatives “My mother finds it confusing. Make the home page show just a big photo tree of the family, today's birthdays and a search box.” Start with this idea

How easy is it to adapt?

This repository is the web interface only (Lit web components in src/). The server is the separate Gramps Web API repository (Python), which uses the Gramps desktop libraries. Settings, theme colours and front-end options cover a lot; interface changes are plain JavaScript and approachable with AGENTS.md, but anything about data means changing the API too. Your AI always tries the gentlest step first, so your version stays easy to update.

1. 1

   Settings 5 options

   No code. Change it in the app or its config.

   • Let grandparents only look, cousins add suggestions, and one or two people edit everything.
   • Pick the family's colours for the whole tree.
   • Each relative picks their own language and who the tree centres on.
   • Hide the DNA section, hide sign-up, or use different background maps.
   • Ask questions about your tree in your own language, with a cloud model or a private local one.
2. 2

   Extend 2 options

   Themes, plugins, webhooks and the API. Still no fork.

   • Bring in a tree from Ancestry or another program, and keep Gramps Desktop and the website in step.
   • Scripts that add records, make printed books or check for missing dates.
3. 3

   Code 2 options

   Your AI edits the source for anything else.

   • New pages, dashboard cards or chart styles.
   • Change wording; other languages come from Weblate.

Can I trust it?

• AGPL-3.0-or-later. Free to use and change. If you run a changed version that other people use over the internet (for example relatives outside your household), you must offer them your source code under the same licence. Running it unchanged, or for yourself, has no extra obligations.
• Your data: stores personal data, on your own device or server. The family tree in a Gramps database (gramps_db volume, SQLite by default; PostgreSQL optional), user accounts in a separate user database (gramps_users), photos and documents in gramps_media, plus search index and caches.
• Other services: LLM provider (OpenAI, Mistral, Anthropic or other OpenAI-compatible APIs) (optional, pay-per-use (or free with local Ollama)); Ollama (local) (optional, free (uses your own hardware; a GPU helps)); Email (SMTP) (optional, free with most providers); Map tiles (OpenFreeMap, OpenHistoricalMap) (optional, free); Gramps Web telemetry (optional, free)
• Pinned version 81176f7. Every handover uses exactly this code, which we've reviewed.
• Family trees hold names, birth dates and places of living people. Keep registration disabled, use HTTPS, and give relatives the lowest role they need.
• With a cloud AI model, your question and the tree records the AI looks up are sent to that provider. Use Ollama to keep the chat on your own machine.
• Anonymous telemetry is on by default; set GRAMPSWEB_DISABLE_TELEMETRY=True to turn it off.
• Never paste the secret key, email password or API keys into an AI chat.

Did it work for people?

Tell us how it went

For your AI

The project pack has the pinned version, how to run it, and where to customise it. Your prompt links to it automatically.

https://handoff.bespokeai.software/p/gramps-web/81176f7/pack.md

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