---
title: Getting Started
description: "AP Family Research is the private workbench behind your family tree: capture certificates, photographs and notes as artefacts, organise them around the questions you are actually trying to answer, keep a research log that includes the searches that found nothing,…"
url: "https://www.ancestorpress.com/docs/fr-getting-started-guide/"
updated: "2026-09-22"
category: AncestorPress Family Research
---

# Getting Started

AP Family Research is the private workbench behind your family tree: capture certificates, photographs and notes as artefacts, organise them around the questions you are actually trying to answer, keep a research log that includes the searches that found nothing, and promote a conclusion into your tree only when it is proven. Nothing in this plugin is ever published - it has no front-end output at all.

## First run

1. Install and activate from **Plugins → Add New**. Requires WordPress 6.2 or later and PHP 8.0 or later.
2. Open **AP Family Research** in the admin menu. Activation creates the six tables the plugin owns; no setup screen or configuration is needed before you start.
3. Capture something. On the **Inbox** tab, use **Take or choose a photo** from a phone, or **Upload scans and files** from a computer. A file on its own is a complete capture - no title, type or any other field is required.
4. File it. Each captured item waits in the inbox until you file it, which takes one click. Add a title or a type if you want to; every enrichment field is optional.
5. Ask a question. On the **Questions** tab, write the thing you are trying to find out, attach artefacts to it as evidence, and work from there.

## The tabs

- **Inbox** - quick capture, bulk upload, and the untriaged pile. File or discard each item.
- **Import** - bring a spreadsheet of records in as artefacts.
- **Artefacts** - everything you have filed: title, type, tags, comments, transcription, linked people and analysis fields.
- **Questions** - research questions and conjectures, their evidence, the people they concern and their plan steps.
- **Research log** - what you searched, where, and what came of it. Entries write themselves as you work.
- **Tasks** - the plan steps from your questions, in one list.
- **Export** - your data out, in full, at any time; also the uninstall option.
- **Support** - the optional Help assistant and its privacy notice.

## Does it need AP Family Trees?

No. Only two things need a family tree in the shared AncestorPress data: linking an artefact to a person, and promoting a proven conclusion into the tree. Everything else - capture, artefacts, questions, the log, tasks and export - works on its own.