What can I import?
- A PDF, such as a tree printed from another program or a chart someone made years ago.
- A document or text file listing people and how they're related.
- A photo of a hand-drawn chart: the one on the back of a wedding card, or the one your uncle drew on a sheet of A3.
Most families have a tree somewhere already. Someone did the work once, and it's sitting in a drawer or an email attachment. Typing it all in again is the reason many trees never get started. Import is there to skip that part.
How does the import work?
In Curate → People, choose Import a family tree and upload the file. Kumbaa reads it and turns it into a proposal: a list of the people it found, with their names and any dates, and the links between them, like who married whom and whose children are whose.
You look over the proposal before anything happens. Fix a misread name, drop someone who's already in the tree, or leave out a link you're not sure about. Only then is it added. Nothing goes into your tree without you seeing it first.
Can I import a GEDCOM file?
Not yet. GEDCOM is the file format most genealogy programs use to swap trees, and Kumbaa doesn't read or write it today. If your tree lives in one of those programs, see whether it can print or save the tree as a PDF, and import that instead.
Tips for a clean import
- For a hand-drawn chart, take the photo straight on, in good light, with the whole chart in frame.
- If a chart is huge, photograph it in sections and import one branch at a time.
- Dates that are guesses can be marked "circa" once they're in. Year-only dates are fine.
- Check spellings with whoever knows that branch best. An import is a good excuse to call them.
After the import
Once the people are in, the tree comes alive. Add photos and name the faces, write a line or two of each person's story, and invite the family so each of them can correct their own branch. "How are we related?" works straight away on everyone you've added.
Don't have a tree yet? Our guide on how to make a family tree starts from scratch, and the family tree template gives you something to fill in on paper first.