Gia Pha OS - Open-source family tree app

Gia Pha OS (Gia Pha means family tree in Vietnamese) is an open-source web app for keeping a family tree online. Relatives in different places can update it together, and your family keeps full control of its data because you host it yourself.

Overview

It started as a small project for my own family. The old family book was just pages of names, and a file on one computer meant only one person could edit it. After I shared a screenshot, other people asked for the same thing, so I published the source code under the MIT license.

• See the whole lineage: Explore your family as a tree, a mindmap or a bubble view.
• Work together: Several relatives can add births, marriages and other updates from their own devices.
• Keep your data: Deploy it to your own Vercel and Supabase accounts, free to start.

Screenshots

Highlights

• Three ways to read the family: Tree, mindmap and bubble view, on desktop and mobile. Pinch with two fingers to zoom on a phone or tablet. On the tree, + and - zoom, 0 resets and the arrow keys scroll; in the bubble view you can reach every family with Tab and open it with Enter, and the canvases are read out by screen readers such as VoiceOver.
• Export as PDF: One page, or multi-page A4 and A3 landscape sheets with a 10 mm overlap for gluing and a "row, column" label on every page.
• Family book and member profile: Print the whole tree as a book, generation by generation, with a cover and table of contents, or print one member's profile on A4.
• Vietnamese lunar calendar: Death anniversaries use the Vietnamese lunar calendar (UTC+7), including leap months, and the Events page can download an .ics file with birthdays, anniversaries and custom events for Google or Apple Calendar.
• Kinship finder: Works out the right Vietnamese forms of address, such as uncle, aunt or cousin, between any two members. When nobody knows who is older, it shows both terms and says which birth year would settle it.
• Complicated families: Handles multiple spouses, remarriage and adoption, plus other names for each member.
• Search: Press Ctrl or ⌘ + K on any dashboard page to find a member by name without accents ("nguyen van" finds "Nguyễn Văn").
• Import and export: JSON, CSV and GEDCOM files. GEDCOM keeps other names and the lunar death date, so an export followed by an import loses neither.
• Checks before you trust the data: A "Possible duplicates" tool lists members who may be the same person and can merge two profiles in one database transaction, and a "Data check" finds impossible dates such as a death before a birth. Both are for admins.
• Backup and restore: Restoring checks the file first, says how many members, relationships and events it holds, and runs in one transaction, so a failure leaves your current data as it was.
• Vietnamese and English interface: Switch the language of the app.
• Roles: Admin, Editor and Member roles, with data protected by Supabase.
• Host it your way: Vercel and Supabase (free to start), or the Docker image, which has a health check so docker ps shows healthy or unhealthy.

Who it helps

• Families spread across places who want one shared, up-to-date family tree.
• The relative who keeps the records and wants something easier than a notebook or a spreadsheet.
• Developers who want a self-hosted genealogy app they can read and change.

Try it

Open the live demo and sign in with giaphaos@homielab.com and the password giaphaos. The demo is public, so do not enter real family data there.

To run your own copy, follow the setup guide in the GitHub repository. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes. You can also read the story behind it in Sharing GiaPha-OS.

FAQ

Is it free? Yes. The code is MIT licensed, and the free tiers of Vercel and Supabase are enough for a typical family.

Is the family data private? Your data lives in your own Supabase project, and new accounts need admin approval. I do not see it.

Does it work in English? Yes, the app has a Vietnamese and an English interface. It is designed mainly for Vietnamese families, so the kinship finder keeps Vietnamese terms such as Bác or Chú.

Where is my data stored? In your own Supabase project, under your account. Photos go to its storage. Nothing is sent to me, and you can export everything as JSON, CSV or GEDCOM at any time.

Can I import from Excel or another genealogy program? Yes. Save the sheet as CSV, or export a GEDCOM file from the other program, and import it from the dashboard. Afterwards the "Possible duplicates" and "Data check" tools help you clean up the result.

Can I run it with Docker? Yes. The repository has a Docker image with a health check and a "Run with Docker" section in the README.

Feedback and support

If you find a bug or have an idea, open an issue on GitHub.