README

Discover, preserve and share your family history — powered by Laravel 12, PHP 8.5 and Filament 5.

Liberu Genealogy is a free, open-source genealogy platform that makes it easy to build, explore and share family trees. It is built on the latest versions of Laravel 12, PHP 8.5, Filament 5 and Livewire 4, providing a fast, modern, and accessible web application for everyone from hobbyists to professional genealogists.

The platform integrates with leading genealogy services (MyHeritage, Ancestry, FamilySearch, FindMyPast), supports GEDCOM file import/export, DNA-match analysis, facial-recognition-assisted photo tagging, and a rich set of research tools — all within a modular, developer-friendly codebase designed to grow with your needs.

• 🌐 Live demo: https://familytree365.com
• 🏠 Managed hosting: https://liberu.co.uk

Features

Core Genealogy

• Family Tree Management — Build, browse and visualise family trees with interactive charts and timelines.
• GEDCOM Import / Export — Read and write the industry-standard GEDCOM format so data is always portable.
• DNA Matching — Upload raw DNA results, find genetic relatives and map triangulated segments.
• Facial Recognition — Automatically tag people in photos using AI-assisted facial recognition.
• Media Management — Attach photos, documents and audio files to individuals and events.
• Source Citations — Record and cite primary and secondary sources for every fact.
• Research Checklists — Track research tasks and to-dos per person or family line.
• Privacy Controls — Automatically redact living persons for public views.

Integrations & Discovery

• MyHeritage — Search millions of family trees and records for potential matches.
• Ancestry — Discover records and hints directly from Ancestry.com.
• FamilySearch — Access the world's largest free family tree and record collection.
• FindMyPast — Tap into UK/Ireland records: newspapers, parish registers, census, GRO indices, military records and more. See FINDMYPAST_FEATURES.md.
• Smart Confidence Scoring — Machine-learning algorithms rank and score match candidates automatically.
• Automated Background Discovery — Queued jobs continuously search external services for new hints.

Developer Experience

• Built on Laravel 12 with Filament 5 admin panels and Livewire 4 reactive components.
• Modular architecture — features are cleanly separated into service classes and Filament resources.
• Full Docker and Laravel Sail support for reproducible local environments.
• Comprehensive PHPUnit test suite with code-coverage reporting via Codecov.
• GitHub Actions CI/CD pipelines for install, test and Docker build workflows.

Installation

Requirements: PHP 8.5, Composer, Node.js, a database (MySQL / MariaDB / PostgreSQL), and optionally Docker.

Option 1 — Command-line installer (recommended)

Clone the repository and run the provided installer script:

git clone https://github.com/liberu-genealogy/genealogy-laravel.git
cd genealogy-laravel
./setup.sh

The setup.sh script will install PHP and Node dependencies, copy the example environment file, generate an application key and run database migrations automatically.

Tip: If you prefer a guided, point-and-click experience, a graphical installer is available. Launch it from a terminal with ./setup.sh or use your desktop file manager to run the script on supported environments, and follow the on-screen prompts.

Option 2 — Manual steps

git clone https://github.com/liberu-genealogy/genealogy-laravel.git
cd genealogy-laravel
composer install
cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate
php artisan migrate --seed
npm install && npm run build
php artisan serve

Visit http://localhost:8000 in your browser.

Option 3 — Docker

docker build -t genealogy-laravel .
docker run -p 8000:8000 genealogy-laravel

For a full development environment with a database container, use Laravel Sail:

./vendor/bin/sail up -d

Then visit http://localhost.

Our Projects

Liberu Genealogy is part of the wider Liberu open-source ecosystem. Each project below is a standalone Laravel application that can be run independently or alongside the others.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome and will be fully credited! We accept contributions via Pull Requests on GitHub.

Pull Request Process

1. Fork the repository and create your branch from main.
2. Follow PSR-4 coding standards. The easiest way to apply the conventions is to install PHP CS Fixer.
3. Write or update tests for any new or changed behaviour.
4. Run the test suite locally and make sure everything passes:

   vendor/bin/phpunit

5. Document any change in behaviour — update README.md and any other relevant documentation.
6. Create feature branches. Do not send pull requests from your main branch.
7. One pull request per feature. If you want to do more than one thing, send multiple pull requests.
8. Keep a coherent history. Please squash intermediate commits before submitting.

Please also read CONTRIBUTING.md and CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md before opening a pull request.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License — see the LICENSE file for the full text.

The MIT License is one of the most permissive open-source licenses available. This means:

• ✅ Free to use — use Liberu Genealogy in personal, commercial or government projects at no cost.
• ✅ Free to modify — adapt the source code to suit your own requirements.
• ✅ Free to distribute — share your own copies or forks with anyone.
• ✅ No warranty obligations — the software is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind.
• ✅ Minimal restrictions — the only requirement is to include the original copyright notice and licence text in any distribution.

By choosing the MIT License, Liberu Genealogy ensures that the community can build on this work freely, fostering collaboration, innovation and long-term sustainability.

Community & Support

• Issues & bug reports: https://github.com/liberu-genealogy/genealogy-laravel/issues
• Feature requests: Open a GitHub Discussion or issue in the repository.
• WhatsApp: Chat with us
• Social media: YouTube · Facebook · Instagram · X · LinkedIn (links at the top of this page)

Maintainers: Liberu Genealogy team

Contributors: see https://github.com/liberu-genealogy/genealogy-laravel/graphs/contributors