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Rootkin is a private family-tree app built around recording the voices of the people who lived your history — not just dates and surnames. You build a tree, invite relatives, add photos, and capture audio memories with AI-assisted transcription. Trees are private by default and visible only to people you invite.

Rootkin is free during private testing — every feature, including voice recording and AI transcription, is included. We'll introduce pricing closer to public launch, and testers will get advance notice and a generous grandfathered tier before anything changes.

When you add a parent or child, you can mark the link as biological, adoptive, or step. For half-siblings, give the two siblings only one shared parent — Rootkin infers "half" automatically from the graph.

Open the person's record, tap the menu, choose Delete person, and confirm. Deletion is permanent — relationships pointing at that person are cleaned up automatically, and Settings → Clean Up Orphan Records sweeps any photos that referenced them. If you might want the record back, export the tree to GEDCOM first.

Use her birth surname (her maiden name) as the Last Name on her profile. This is the standard across genealogy software and practice — and not a stylistic choice. A birth name is a permanent fact of identity that links her cleanly to her parents and siblings in the tree. If you record a married name instead, you break that visual connection to her family of origin, and it's also redundant: once she's linked to her husband in the tree, her married name is already implied by the relationship.

Birth surnames also solve the multiple-marriage problem. If a woman married more than once, there's no principled way to choose one married surname as her primary name — but her birth name is the one consistent anchor for her identity across her whole life.

To preserve a well-known married or chosen name (think "Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis"), add it in the Nickname or Biography field on her profile. The same convention applies to anyone who changed their surname for any reason — adoption, marriage, transition, or personal preference.

Yes. Right after you add a photo, you'll see a Tag people button that lets you mark up to 7 additional family members who appear in the picture. The photo then shows up in every tagged person's gallery — you only upload it once. Each photo has one primary subject (whoever's profile you added it from) plus any co-subjects you tag.

To edit the tags on an existing photo, open it from any gallery, review the subject chips in the lightbox, and tap Edit tags. Tap a chip to jump to that person's profile.

Very accurate for clear English in a quiet room — typically above 95%. Heavy accents, dialect, multiple speakers talking over each other, and background noise reduce accuracy. You can always edit the transcript yourself; the original audio is kept regardless.

Yes — always tell the person they're being recorded and get their permission. Many U.S. states and many countries are "two-party consent" jurisdictions, meaning every person in the conversation must agree. Rootkin requires you to confirm consent before saving your first memory. See our Terms for the full policy.

Yes. After you save a recording, you can tag everyone the memory is about — the cousins at the lake, the grandparents reminiscing about their siblings, anyone the story features. The recording then appears in each tagged person's Voice Memories list — you only record it once. You can also list who's speaking on the recording (the narrators), separately from who it's about.

Each memory has one primary subject — whichever profile you were on when you tapped Add Memory — and any number of co-subjects. Open a memory and tap Edit details to change the subject list, narrators, topic tags, or about-date later. The primary subject stays put.

Open the memory, tap Edit transcript, fix the word, and save. The audio itself is never changed — only the transcript. If you're consistently seeing an uncommon family name get rewritten to a more common English word, please let us know so we can tune the cleanup step.

Yes. Open the memory and tap Delete memory. After you confirm, you have about 8 seconds to undo from a snackbar at the bottom of the screen. If you don't undo, both the audio file and the transcript are deleted permanently. Anyone on the tree who already listened to it won't be able to play it again.

Open Settings → Account to change your email or update your password. If you've lost access to your email, write to support@rootkin.family from any address you can prove ownership of and we'll help you recover the account.

Settings → Account → Delete account. Trees you own are permanently deleted along with all photos, recordings, and transcripts. Trees you were invited to remain with their owner — only your account is removed. Backups are purged within 30 days.

Only people you invite. Trees are private by default — there is no "public profile," no search index, and no way for a stranger to find your tree. We do not sell your data and do not use your family content to train AI.

When Child Photo Protection is enabled on your tree (it's on by default), Rootkin automatically detects any person under 18 based on their date of birth and marks them as protected. For tree members who haven't been explicitly approved to view a protected child, the child's full name, date of birth, birthplace, and photos are all hidden — they see initials only, a silhouette placeholder, and a small lock icon. The protection is enforced at the database level, not just in the app UI, so it holds even if someone tries to read the data directly.

Tree members can still see protected persons in the family structure (so the tree makes sense), but without any identifying detail. To grant a specific tree member full access to a child, designate them as a Protector for that child or adjust the tree's visibility policy.

Protection is automatically lifted on their 18th birthday. The tree owner and any assigned Protectors receive a notification — "[Name] turned 18 today — their protection has been lifted." — and can choose to keep it on manually if the family prefers. No action is needed if you're happy with the automatic behavior.

Kid Mode locks the app into a read-only view — useful for when you're handing your phone to a child or anyone who should be able to browse the tree but not make changes. All editing is blocked while Kid Mode is on. Turn it on in Settings → Kid Mode. You'll set a 4-digit PIN, which is required to exit. For a full walkthrough, see Hand the phone to a kid (Kid Mode) in the Help center.

Kid Mode is a UX guardrail, not a security lock. It's designed to stop a curious tap from accidentally changing things, not to protect against an adult with device access. If you forget the PIN, email us and we'll walk you through clearing it (typically by reinstalling the app on that device).

Try a password reset from the login screen first. If that doesn't work, force-quit the app and reopen, or reinstall. If you're still stuck, write to support@rootkin.family from the email on your account and include your phone model.

Check that the app has photo-library permission (Settings → Rootkin → Photos → All Photos). Large bursts of high-res images may pause on cellular; switch to Wi-Fi and they'll resume automatically.

Pull down on the tree screen to force-refresh. Sync should be near-instant when both devices have a connection. If a relative's changes never appear, ask them to check that they accepted the invitation (Settings → Pending invitations).

Make sure you've granted the app Calendar or Reminders permission in your device settings. If your account is iCloud- or Exchange-based and the app can't create its own calendar, events will be added to your default writable calendar instead. You can toggle individual reminders on or off from a person's profile (birthdays) or a relationship's edit screen (anniversaries).