Frequently asked questions

A story tree is a family tree you make by writing. You type something like "My name is Sam. My mum is Mary and my dad is Tom. Mum was born in Leeds in 1975." and the tree appears beside your words, with everyone in the right place.

There are no forms to fill in and no boxes to drag about. Each person gets a drawn portrait that matches what you have said about them, and you can switch the tree to a timeline or a family quiz.

You can try it on our home page without signing up. Nothing is saved to our servers while you try it, and when you sign up, the tree you started comes with you.

If you already have an account, go to your account page, choose 'Story tree' in the panel for making a new tree, give it a title and click 'Create story tree'.

Write the way you would tell someone about your family. PeoplePlotr understands:

• 1Who people are and how they are related: "My nan is Rose", "Tom and Ann got divorced", "Lily was adopted".

• 2Births, marriages and deaths, with dates and places: "Grandad was born in Cork in 1931".

• 3Ages, jobs and where people live: "Mum is a nurse and lives in York".

• 4What people look like and enjoy: "Dad has a grey beard and loves fishing".

• 5Pets, life events, sources and notes: "We have a cat called Lyska", "Gran moved to London in 1962".

As you type, the words PeoplePlotr has understood are coloured in. If you'd like ideas, open 'Examples' in the top bar and load one of our sample families.

A sentence that wasn't understood has a dotted red underline. Try splitting it into shorter sentences with one fact in each, and use people's names rather than "he" or "she" when it could mean more than one person.

The panel beside the story tells you what PeoplePlotr guessed and how to put it right. For example, if it guessed that Florence is female and she isn't, it will suggest writing "Florence is a man".

Yes. Pick a design from the top bar, such as Storybook, Royal or Superheroes, and open the list for more, including Wanted, Glass and Space Crew. 'Settings' lets you change the colours, the tree's title and the short description shown above it.

Vintage, Zen, Flowers, Ancient and Oil Painting are premium designs. On a free account you can look at one for ten seconds before the tree goes back to its design, and your tree is saved and shared in the design it had. On the try page you can use them all.

No. Your story tree saves itself as you type, and 'All changes saved' appears above the story when it's done. If you change something by mistake, use 'Undo'.

To keep living people safe, a story tree only keeps the year they were born. A name together with a full date of birth is just what fraudsters look for, and family trees are often shared widely.

So when you write "Mum was born on 5 May 1975", the story changes it to "Mum was born in 1975", and only the year is saved to PeoplePlotr or shown on your shared tree. A birthday without a year, such as "Dad's birthday is 9 June", is taken out, because together with an age it would give away the full date.

We count anyone born in the last 120 years as living unless your story says they have died, so a great-grandmother who is still with us is kept safe too. People who have died, or who were born more than 120 years ago, keep their full dates.

Yes. The full date isn't lost: it stays in your web browser on the device where you typed it, and your tree shows it to you there. It is never sent to PeoplePlotr.

To keep a copy, open 'Share' and click 'Download the story'. You get a text file of your story with a list of the full birth dates at the end. Keep this file somewhere private.

To see the full dates on another computer or phone, copy everything in the file and paste it into the story. PeoplePlotr takes the list of dates out of the story straight away and keeps them on that device, so they still aren't saved online.

So that ages keep up. When you write "Evelyn is 12", PeoplePlotr notes the year you wrote it, and next year your tree shows Evelyn as 13 without you changing a thing.

If you'd rather not have it, turn off Add "as of" to ages in Settings. Ages you type after that are left as you wrote them, and ages already in your story keep the year they have. It's off on the Try it page, to keep things simple.

Not yet, but it's on our list. For now, everyone gets a drawn portrait that follows your story: their age, hair, beard, glasses, skin colour and the colour of their clothes. Write "Grandad has white hair and glasses" and his portrait changes to match.

Each portrait is drawn from what your story says about that person, in the style of the design you've picked. It follows:

• 1Their age, from babies and toddlers to grandparents, with grey hair and lines arriving gradually over the years.

• 2Hair colour, length and style, and beards and moustaches: "Mum has long curly red hair", "Grandad has a bushy white beard".

• 3Eye colour, glasses, freckles, earrings, hats and more: "Dad wears glasses", "Nan has freckles".

• 4The colour of their clothes: "Nan wears a red dress", "Dad dresses in black".

Anything you haven't mentioned is drawn in the design's own neutral colours, so a portrait never claims something about a person that your story didn't say. If you'd rather everyone looked a little different, see Are there special sentences I can use?

Just say it in your story, for example "Mum has olive skin", "Grandad has dark brown skin" or "Lily is pale". PeoplePlotr understands words from pale, fair and light through olive and tanned to brown, dark and black, and picks the closest of six skin tones.

We never guess skin colour from a name, and we never pick colours at random. Until your story or your settings say otherwise, the portrait uses the design's neutral colour, and you can change it at any time by changing your words. Children you haven't described take after their parents, with a shade between theirs.

Yes, in two ways, so you don't have to describe everyone one by one.

• 1Write it in your story. "Our family has olive skin", "We all have dark skin" or "Everyone has fair skin" covers everyone in the tree. "The Tudors were fair-skinned" covers everyone with that surname and their children, and "Victoria's family has light brown skin" covers Victoria and her children and grandchildren. People who married into a family keep their own look.

• 2Pick a starting colour in 'Settings', under 'Skin tone'. Neutral is the default, or choose one of six tones. It's used for anyone your story doesn't describe.

What you say about one person always wins, so "Tom has dark skin" changes Tom's portrait whatever the family sentence or setting says. Your choice is kept with the tree, so the shared and embedded tree look the same as yours.

Yes, with a premium account (Bronze, Silver or Education). Open 'Share' and click 'Save the tree as a picture' to get a large picture of the whole tree in your chosen design, ready to print or send.

Yes. Write "Make Tom and Ann 50% bigger", "Make Joan 20% smaller", "Make Pete's family smaller" or "Make the Smiths smaller". Without a percentage, bigger is 30% and smaller is 25%. Cards go from half size up to double, in every design. A sentence about one person wins over one about their family, and their row of the tree grows or shrinks to fit. It works for anyone already in your story.

Yes. As well as telling your family's story, a few sentences change how the tree looks or add notes to it. Put each one on its own line, anywhere in your story:

• 1Different looks for everyone: "Give everyone different looks." Each person gets their own hair colour and style, eye colour and, for some grown men, a beard, chosen to suit their age and sex. It's handy for big or historical trees where most people aren't described. Anything your story does say about someone still wins, and it never changes skin colour or adds glasses. Take the sentence out to go back to the design's neutral look.

• 2Colour-coding a family: "Colour Victoria's family blue", "Make my mum's family green" or "Our family is purple". Everyone in that branch is marked in the colour, which makes it easy to see where each side of the family is. "Colour Rose red" marks just Rose. You can use most everyday colour names, such as red, teal, gold, navy or light blue.

• 3Skin colour for a family: "Our family has olive skin" or "The Tudors were fair-skinned". See Can I set a skin colour for the whole family?

• 4About a person: "About Gran: She grew up on a farm and loved baking." Everything after the colon is kept word for word and shown when you click on that person. Hobbies and personality in it are picked up too.

• 5About a family: "About the Rostov family: The Rostovs were a large and lively family." This is shown as a small note card on the tree, beside that family.

• 6Sources and notes: "Source for Mary: 1881 census, York" or "Note for John: served in the navy". They're kept word for word on that person, for anyone researching the family.

• 7Other names: "Vera Rostova is also known as Vera Berg" gives someone a second name without making a second person.

• 8Twins and triplets: "Jules and Edward are twins" keeps them side by side on the tree with a shared line and a small "Twins" label.

• 9Rough dates: "Rose was born about 1930" or "Kirill was born before 1750" when you don't know the exact year.

• 10Sizes: "Make Tom and Ann 50% bigger" or "Make the Smiths smaller" changes how big their cards are. See Can I make some people bigger or smaller?

If you'd like to see these in action, open 'Examples' in the top bar and load the Tudors or War and Peace.

Open 'Share' and click 'Copy link', then send the link to whoever you like. They see the tree and the people in it, but not the story you wrote. They can explore it, but they can't change anything.

You decide, under 'Who can see this tree' in 'Share':

• 1Anyone with the link. Whoever you send the link to can see the tree.

• 2People with the secret word. Visitors have to type a word you choose before the tree appears.

• 3Only me. The link works only when you are logged in to your account.

You can always see your own tree when you're logged in, whichever you choose.

Choose 'People with the secret word', type a word, and give it to your family along with the link. Capital letters don't matter. Once someone has typed the right word, their device remembers it for 30 days. If you change the word, everyone needs the new one.

Yes. In 'Share', turn on 'Hide surnames' to show first names only. 'Hide ages' leaves out the ages and birth years of living people, and is on to start with for every new tree; turn it off if you'd like family to see them. People who have died keep their dates either way. Your own view of the tree doesn't change.

Yes, with a premium account (Bronze, Silver or an education account). 'Share' has a piece of code under 'Embed on a website'. Click 'Copy code' and paste it into your page. Your choice of who can see the tree applies there too.

Each view on another website counts towards your account's monthly embedded views, the same allowance your classic plots use: 5,000 a month with Bronze and 20,000 with Silver. 'Share' shows how many you have left this month. If you go over, your website shows a short message with a link to the tree on PeoplePlotr instead, until the count starts again the next month. Your own views don't count.

No, not unless you choose. We ask Google and other search engines not to list family trees on PeoplePlotr, and that includes classic plots.

With a premium account you can let them list a story tree. Turn on 'Let search engines list this tree' in 'Settings'. It only takes effect while 'Anyone with the link' can see the tree, and only on the tree's own page, not where it's embedded on another website. Search engines can take a few weeks to notice the change either way.

Each story tree can have this many people and this much story:

Story trees and classic plots share your account's allowance of trees, and every account can make at least one story tree.

Nothing is deleted. People beyond your limit are shown faded and can't be opened, and you can keep editing your story as long as you don't make it any longer. Upgrade again and everyone comes back.

Open 'Share' and click 'Download the story' to save it as a text file on your computer. To bring it back, paste the whole file into a story tree. The file includes the full birth dates kept on your device, so keep it private.

On your account page, find the tree under 'My trees' and click 'Delete'. This can't be undone, so you may want to download the story first.