Three app screens in front of a locked wall, with a database peeking over the top
Archive for Dummies, explained like you're 12 · 1 of 9

Every app is secretly a database.

Notion, Salesforce, NetSuite, QuickBooks, Google Sheets, even Claude. Behind the screen, every one of them keeps your stuff in a database.
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Archive Family

A private archive for a family's papers, photos, stories and family tree, and its bills, receipts and warranties too. Built as a module on Archive.

Visit archive.familySee the engine
A house on a base, with a mailbox holding a letter, a photo album and a tree out front

A family tree, from a file or a chat.

Bring in the tree you already have, from any genealogy app, and every person, couple, event and place becomes a record that points back to the line it came from.

Or just tell it who is who. Either way, it is the same tree.

A family tree four generations deep, centred on one person, with photos on some of the people

A story becomes records.

Write “my grandmother kept bees behind the house” and it suggests what that says: a person, a place, a habit, each quoting the words it came from.

Nothing goes in until someone ticks it. Where it isn’t sure who you mean, it asks.

Suggested records from a story, each ticked or waiting, each quoting the words it came from

Photos, kept and found.

Every photo is kept as it was, and found by who is in it, where and when.

Each one starts private to whoever added it, until they share it with the family.

A grid of old family photographs, newest first

Ask it about anyone.

The family’s chat answers from the archive itself, and every answer shows where it came from.

It only ever sees what the person asking is allowed to.

A chat where a family tree file has been brought in, with a line saying how many people, families and events it held

Screens from Archive Family, with a made-up family.

What a family keeps.

Trees drawn by hand, certificates, tickets, deeds, letters and photographs. Archive Family keeps the original, reads what it says, and files it with the people and places in it.

A family tree drawn by hand, Connecticut, around 1800
A family tree drawn by hand, Connecticut, around 1800National Archives, NAID 12059080
A marriage certificate filled in by hand, New Jersey, 1855
A marriage certificate filled in by hand, New Jersey, 1855Library of Congress, LC-DIG-pga-05615
A steamship ticket, Rotterdam to New York, 1911
A steamship ticket, Rotterdam to New York, 1911National Archives, NAID 5753067
A family around the radio, 1920s
A family around the radio, 1920sLibrary of Congress, LC-DIG-hec-45134
A land deed and its wax seal, Greene County, Georgia, 1797
A land deed and its wax seal, Greene County, Georgia, 1797Library of Congress, LC-USF34-044309-D
A letter of thanks from schoolchildren, Montenegro, 1921
A letter of thanks from schoolchildren, Montenegro, 1921Library of Congress, LC-DIG-anrc-14705

One module, the whole engine.

Archive Family adds its own kinds of record and a few screens. Files, search, spaces, sharing and assistants all come from Archive, in one program.

Its own kinds of record

  • People, couples, parents, events and places
  • Stories, pages and the sources behind each claim
  • Twelve kinds of document, from a bill to a keepsake

Private by default

  • A member’s files start in their own space
  • Family records stay closed until an approver opens them
  • Sharing is always on purpose

Dates that matter

  • Everything due, expiring or renewing in one calendar
  • A reminder by email or text, if you want one
  • A private calendar address for each member
A city block whose buildings are records, pages, files, a vault and an antenna for AI assistants

Build your own on Archive.

Start with your own kinds of record. Archive does the rest.

Visit archive.familyBuild on Archive