How to Share a Family Tree with Family Members Online

One of the most common requests when building a family tree is: “How do I share this with the rest of the family?”

Maybe your aunt has details about your grandparents you don’t have. Maybe your cousin wants to add their children. Or maybe you just want the whole family to be able to browse the tree at the next reunion.

This guide walks through the practical options — and the pitfalls — of sharing a family tree online.

The two sharing models

Before picking a tool, decide which model fits your situation:

1. Public or link-based sharing
Anyone with the link can view the tree. No login required. Simple, but you lose control once the link is out — and privacy becomes a concern if the tree contains living people.

2. Invite-based private sharing
You invite specific people by email. They create an account to access it. More setup, but you control exactly who sees what.

For most families, invite-based sharing is the right choice. The extra step of creating an account is a small price for knowing your family’s private information isn’t publicly indexed.

What permissions do you actually need?

Think about who in your family falls into each category:

A typical setup: you and one or two active relatives are editors; everyone else (elderly relatives, kids, casual interest) gets viewer access.

How to share a family tree on Rootleaves

Rootleaves uses invite-based sharing with role controls built in.

Step 1 — Open the Share dialog

Open your family tree, then click the Share button in the top toolbar. This opens the sharing panel showing everyone who currently has access.

Step 2 — Invite a family member

Enter the email address of the person you want to invite, choose their role (Editor or Viewer), and click Invite.

They’ll receive an email with a link to join. If they don’t have a Rootleaves account yet, they’ll be prompted to create a free one — it takes about 30 seconds.

Step 3 — Manage access

The Share panel shows everyone with access and their current role. You can:

• Change a role — promote a viewer to editor, or demote an editor back to viewer
• Remove someone — click the trash icon to revoke access entirely

Only the tree owner can change roles or remove members.

What the invitee sees

When a family member opens their invitation email and logs in, they land directly on the shared tree. Editors see the full editing interface; viewers see a read-only tree they can pan, zoom, and search — but no edit controls.

Tips for smooth family collaboration

Start with one editor. Adding five editors at once leads to conflicting edits and duplicate people. Bring in one trusted relative first, agree on conventions (how to format dates, what counts as a “good enough” entry), then expand.

Use the viewer role generously. Most family members just want to look at the tree, not edit it. Defaulting everyone to viewer keeps the tree clean and reduces accidental deletions.

Agree on a source of truth for dates. Different family members often have different records — one has the birth certificate, another remembers it differently. Decide upfront whose source wins and note it in the person’s bio field.

Add a bio for key ancestors. The bio field in each person card is the right place for stories, context, and the “why” behind the data. Encourage editors to add a sentence or two when they know something interesting.

What about large family WhatsApp groups?

A common workaround is screenshotting the family tree and sharing it to a WhatsApp or group chat. This works for a snapshot, but it gets stale immediately — the moment someone adds a person, every screenshot is out of date.

Live invite-based sharing solves this permanently: every family member with access always sees the current version.

Privacy considerations for living people

If your tree includes living people — children, siblings, cousins — be thoughtful about who you share with. A few principles:

• Never use public/link-based sharing for trees with living people
• Use viewer role for anyone you don’t fully trust with editing access
• Consider leaving living people’s contact details (email, phone) out of the tree if you’re sharing broadly within the family

Rootleaves trees are private by default — they’re never indexed by search engines and are only accessible to people you explicitly invite.

Ready to share your family tree? Create a free Rootleaves account and invite your family →