Frequently asked questions

Kinderhof is a website that helps whole families, children included, explore their family history together. Family accounts and sign-in are available now. Kinderhof is being built to take your family tree and turn it into a shared family calendar and games made from your own ancestors.

Kinderhof is free while it is being built. We will announce any pricing here before charging, and nobody will be billed without agreeing to it first.

No. You can start by uploading a GEDCOM file from any family tree program or website. Connecting FamilySearch is planned and marked coming soon. It will always be optional.

GEDCOM is the standard file format for family trees. Almost every family tree program and website can export one, usually from a menu called Export or Download. You can upload a GEDCOM file to your family now, and then browse your tree: a searchable list of people, a page for each person and an ancestor chart. The file itself is read once and not kept, and people who may be living are kept private.

Enter your email address and we send you a link. Click it and you are signed in. The link works once and expires after 15 minutes. There are no passwords to remember or lose.

Yes. Parents and guardians can add child profiles to the family. A child profile has no email address and no login. It is managed by an adult in the family. The games, when they arrive, will have levels for different ages.

Child profiles hold only a first name or nickname and, optionally, a birth year. We do not ask children for an email address, we do not show them advertising, and we do not sell or share their information. See the Privacy page for details.

People who may still be alive are kept private. Kinderhof stores no names or details for them, only their place in the tree, and they appear as "Living person". When games and the calendar arrive, they will not appear there either. Someone is treated as living unless the file has a death record or shows they were born more than 110 years ago. If someone has died but looks living, an owner or admin can mark them as deceased. Notes about people who have died are stored as written, so please check them for mentions of living relatives before you upload.

Only the people you invite to your family account, according to the role you give them. Family trees are not public, are not searchable, and are not shared between different family accounts. Only owners and admins can upload or delete the tree.

Owners and admins manage the family and its members. Members can browse the family tree; the calendar and games are coming soon. Child profiles are for children who do not have their own login. The How it works page explains each role.

Yes. One email address can belong to several families, for example your own household and your parents' household, and you can switch between them.

Yes. Owners and admins can delete the family tree at any time and it is removed immediately. You can also remove people, delete a family, or delete your whole account from your account pages. Deleted data is removed from our live systems promptly and from backups within 35 days, as described in the Privacy Policy. You can also email us and we will help.

No. Kinderhof is an independent website and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by FamilySearch or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. FamilySearch is a trademark of its owner. We are working toward an optional connection that you would approve yourself.

Any modern web browser on a phone, tablet or computer. There is nothing to install. The calendar feed, when it arrives, is planned to work with Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and Outlook.