Turn your genealogy research into a complete, curated family history website - self-hosted, with your data in your own WordPress database rather than locked inside a third-party platform.

AP Family Archive is the site-builder of the AncestorPress suite: the modern, WordPress-native way to publish the kind of family history site that dedicated site-builder software has produced for decades. It gives every ancestor a person page, every couple a family group page, and every surname an A-Z index - all cross-linked, search-ready, and publication-grade. Conclusions only, sources cited, living people protected automatically.

Your data lives in your own WordPress database and can always be exported in full as GEDCOM. No lock-in, ever.

Built by AncestorPress – tools for family history, built to last.

Who It Is For

AP Family Archive is designed for:

- Family history researchers who want to publish their whole tree as a proper website, not just a chart on a page
- Genealogy societies and archives presenting lineage data in a structured, professional, public-facing format
- Historians and heritage organisations building ancestor resources that are searchable and cite their sources
- Anyone moving off a hosted genealogy platform or dedicated site-builder software who wants their family history on their own WordPress site, under their own control

What Makes It Different

Most genealogy plugins give you a single chart or widget. AP Family Archive builds the family history *site*: person and family pages, a surname index, full search, a statistics-driven hub, sourced conclusions, and numbered reports - the experience family historians expect from dedicated site-builder software, delivered natively in WordPress.

It is also privacy-first by design: living and private people are filtered out in the suite's shared data core, so they never reach a public page, a search result, or an export - and that floor cannot be switched off from the admin screen.

Your data stays on your server, in your own WordPress database - not uploaded to an external platform - and a full GEDCOM export is included free, so you are never locked in.

### Part of the AncestorPress suite

AP Family Archive shares its data core with [AP Family Trees](https://ancestorpress.com/) - install either one first, alone or together, and the same people appear in both with no re-import. Trees embeds interactive charts and profiles into an existing site; Archive builds the family history site itself.

Third-party libraries

This plugin bundles the following open-source libraries. All are GPL-compatible.

* php-gedcom by Kristopher Wilson - MIT licence. Used for reading and writing GEDCOM files on import and export.
* Freemius WordPress SDK by Freemius - MIT licence. Used for licence management on the Pro plan.

The Pro build additionally bundles FPDF (FPDF licence, freely usable including commercially) for PDF report output.

Privacy and data

This plugin does not collect or transmit any personal data from your site or your visitors. All family tree data is stored exclusively in your own WordPress database.

If you activate a paid Pro or Pro Plus licence, the Freemius SDK is used to validate and manage that licence. Freemius may collect basic site and usage data as part of licence activation. This is subject to the Freemius Privacy Policy. No licence activation is required to use the free plan.