Preserve Your Family Legacy Across Generations
Build comprehensive family trees, preserve oral traditions, and discover distant cousins through our AI-powered ancestral mapping platform. From verified records to cherished stories passed down through generations.
Hi-Cousin Platform
Everything you need to build, preserve, and share your family history
Dynamic family tree builder with drag-and-drop interface. Add names, dates, locations, photos, and storiesāeven unverified claims and oral traditions.
Advanced matching engine suggests potential relatives based on shared names, dates, places, and story fragments from other users' entries.
Search by surname, location, generation, tribe/clan, or anecdotal tags. Supports phonetic matching for variant spellings.
Interactive world map showing family clusters and migration patterns. Hover over regions to view ancestral stories by location.
Preserve oral traditions, family claims, and hearsay alongside verified facts. Each story is timestamped and attributed to its contributor.
Choose what to keep public, private, or share with "family only." Full control over your data and privacy settings.
See It In Action
Explore how our platform works with real examples
Add New Family Member
Relationship Status
Real Connection Stories
See how families are discovering each other across continents
From Kisii to Tanzania: A 90-Year Family Mystery Solved
"Babu always told us about his cousin who moved to Tanga, Tanzania around the 1930s. His name might've been Omari. We never knew what happened to that side of the family."
"My grandfather Omari always said he came from Kisii in the 1930s. He married my grandmother here in Tanga. I've been searching for his family for years."
8 months later: Our AI matching engine connected Grace and Amina based on shared location patterns and name similarities. Today, they share photos, stories, and plan to meet in person to reconnect their families after 90 years.
Choose Your Access Level
From basic family trees to professional genealogy tools
- Add up to 100 family members
- Basic search and filtering
- Story preservation
- View global map
- Basic privacy controls
- Unlimited family members
- AI cousin discovery
- Advanced search tools
- Photo & document storage
- Export family data
- Priority matching
- Everything in Family Historian
- Verification badges
- Bulk data import/export
- API access
- Collaboration tools
- Priority support
Building a Global Memory Archive
Preserving cultures, clans, and family histories beyond borders. Especially vital for African diasporas, communities fractured by war, migration, or colonization.
Decentralized Preservation
Community-driven platform that outlives any single contributor
Cultural Continuity
Bridging generations and preserving oral knowledge
Future Generations
Ensuring children can retrace their ancestry
Ancestry Timeline
Key milestones in global family history and migration, from ancient times to today.
Featured Community Stories
Inspiring stories from our global community, preserving family memories across generations.
"My grandfather's stories inspired me to trace our roots back to the 1800s. Now, my children know where they come from."
"We discovered cousins in California we never knew existed. Our family is now truly global!"
"Preserving my family's oral traditions online has brought us closer, even across continents."
Abrahamic Lineages & World Diasporas
A scrollable, branching timeline of Abraham's descendants, their migrations, and global impact.
Patriarch of Jews, Christians, Muslims
Prophet of Islam
The Roman Empire: Reach, Displacement, and Legacy
How Rome shaped Europe, North Africa, and the Middle Eastāpeoples, cities, and migrations.
- Peak population: 60ā100 million (c. 25% of world)
- Provinces: 40+ (from Britain to Egypt, Spain to Iraq)
- Major cities: Rome (1M+), Alexandria, Carthage, Antioch, Londinium
- Languages: Latin, Greek, Berber, Coptic, Aramaic, Celtic, Germanic
- Religions: Roman polytheism, Judaism, Christianity (later official)
- Roads: 400,000+ km (50,000+ miles paved)
- Modern countries: 40+ (Italy, France, Spain, UK, Turkey, Egypt, etc.)
- Displacement: Jews (70 CE), Celts, Berbers, Dacians, and more
- Collapse: 476 CE (West), 1453 CE (East/Byzantine)
Migration & Connection:
- Roman citizenship extended to millions, mixing cultures
- Slavery, forced migrations, and resettlement of conquered peoples
- Spread of Christianity and Latin language
- Legacy: Law, architecture, language, and religion across Europe and beyond
Timeline:
- 753 BCE: Founding of Rome
- 27 BCE: Augustus, first emperor
- 117 CE: Empire at greatest extent (Trajan)
- 313 CE: Christianity legalized
- 395 CE: Empire splits East/West
- 476 CE: Fall of Western Empire
- 1453 CE: Fall of Constantinople (Byzantine)
Persian & Macedonian Empires: Connections and Migrations
From Persia to Alexander the Great: migrations, mingling, and the Hellenistic world.
- Persian Empire (Achaemenid): 550ā330 BCE, 44% of world population (50M+)
- Major cities: Persepolis, Babylon, Susa, Ecbatana, Sardis, Memphis
- Languages: Old Persian, Aramaic, Greek, Egyptian, Hebrew, Sanskrit
- Religions: Zoroastrianism, Judaism, local faiths, later Hellenism
- Trade routes: Royal Road, Silk Road, Nile, Indus, Oxus
- Alexander's Empire: 336ā323 BCE, from Greece to India
- Hellenistic world: Greek culture blended with Egyptian, Persian, Indian
- Displacement: Jews (Babylonian exile), Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Indians
- Legacy: Science, philosophy, art, language, and cities (Alexandria, Antioch)
Migration & Connection:
- Massive population movements under Persian and Macedonian rule
- Greek, Persian, Egyptian, and Indian cultures mingled
- Spread of Buddhism, Judaism, and Hellenistic science
- Founding of dozens of new cities (Alexandria, Seleucia, etc.)
Timeline:
- 550 BCE: Cyrus the Great founds Persian Empire
- 539 BCE: Babylon conquered
- 334ā323 BCE: Alexander's conquests
- 323ā30 BCE: Hellenistic kingdoms
- 30 BCE: Egypt becomes Roman province
World History Maps & Diasporas
Explore how ancient kingdoms, slave routes, and great diasporas shaped today's world.
See how the borders of Egypt, Kush, Israel, and Mesopotamia evolved into modern nations.
Trans-Atlantic, Trans-Saharan, and Indian Ocean slave routes connected continents and changed societies forever.
Jewish, African, and Asian diasporas have shaped cultures and identities across the globe.
Traditional African Trade Routes & Migrations
Explore the great migrations and trade routes that shaped Africa's peoples and cultures.
The Bantu-speaking peoples migrated from West/Central Africa to the south and east, spreading language, agriculture, and ironworking.
Cushitic peoples of the Horn of Africa traded with Egypt, Arabia, and India, shaping the region's culture and economy.
Khoisan hunter-gatherers and Congo rainforest peoples represent some of Africa's oldest lineages and unique migration patterns.
Gold, salt, and other goods crossed the Sahara, connecting West Africa to North Africa and the Mediterranean world.
Swahili city-states traded with Arabia, Persia, India, and China, blending African and Asian cultures.
Nilotic peoples migrated along the Nile and into the Great Lakes region, shaping East Africa's history and diversity.
Hi-Cousin is a global, open-source platform dedicated to helping people everywhere discover, connect, and preserve their family history. We believe that every story matters, and that by sharing our roots, we build bridges across generations, cultures, and continents.
Why do we do this? Our world is more connected than ever, yet many family stories, traditions, and lineages are at risk of being lost. Hi-Cousin empowers you to record, verify, and share your ancestryāwhether it's through oral tradition, documents, or DNA. By making this platform open and collaborative, we ensure that everyone, regardless of background, can contribute to the world's shared heritage.
Why is it important? Family history is more than names and datesāit's the foundation of identity, belonging, and understanding. By preserving your family's journey, you help future generations know where they come from, celebrate diversity, and foster empathy. Our tools make it easy to connect with distant relatives, discover migration patterns, and honor the stories that shaped us all.
Why does it involve you? Hi-Cousin is built for everyone. Whether you're a genealogist, a student, or just curious about your roots, your participation enriches the platform. You can add your family tree, contribute stories, verify information, or help others connect the dots. Every contributionābig or smallāhelps preserve our collective memory.
Open Source & Community-Driven
Hi-Cousin is fully open source. Anyone can view, use, and contribute to the codebase. We welcome developers, designers, historians, and storytellers from all backgrounds. Together, we can build a platform that's transparent, trustworthy, and always improving. Contribute on GitHub.
Privacy & Trust
Your privacy matters. You control what information is public, private, or shared with family only. We are committed to protecting your data and will never sell your information. For more details, please see our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service (coming soon).
Join us! Hi-Cousin is more than an appāit's a movement to preserve the world's family stories. Start your journey today, invite your relatives, and help us build a living archive for all humanity.
Hi-Cousin uses advanced, multi-layered encryption to keep your data private and secure. Here's how it works:
- Minor Displacement: Your data is first slightly distorted (e.g., by shifting characters or numbers) to prevent direct recognition.
- Vector Encryption: The distorted data is converted into a mathematical vector and encrypted using a unique key.
- Triple Encryption: The vector is encrypted three times, each with a different key, for maximum security.
- Cross-Server Key Release: The keys are stored on separate servers. All servers must cooperate in sequence to decrypt your dataāno single server can access your information alone.
const data = "my-secret"; const displaced = data.split('').map((c,i)=>String.fromCharCode(c.charCodeAt(0)+i)).join(""); const encrypted = encryptVector(displaced, key1); const doubleEncrypted = encryptVector(encrypted, key2); const tripleEncrypted = encryptVector(doubleEncrypted, key3); // Data is split and stored across servers
Result: Without all servers working together, your data cannot be decrypted. This protects you even if one server is compromised.
š Simple Encryption Example (Try it Yourself!)
// Your name: RAMAH // Key: 1 (each letter moves 1 step forward) // Encrypt (displace each letter by +1): R ā S A ā B M ā N A ā B H ā I // What is stored: SBNBI // Decrypt (move each letter back by -1): S ā R B ā A N ā M B ā A I ā H
How it works: If you enter RAMAH and the key is 1, each letter is shifted forward by 1 in the alphabet. The stored value is SBNBI. To decrypt, the system shifts each letter back by 1 using the same key, revealing your real name only when authorized.