GEDCOM Explorer

Parse any GEDCOM file and generate a self-contained interactive HTML dashboard.

Quick Start

python3 scripts/build_explorer.py <input.ged> [output.html] [--title "Title"] [--subtitle "Subtitle"]

Examples

# Basic — outputs family-explorer.html in current directory
python3 scripts/build_explorer.py ~/my-family.ged

# Custom output path and title
python3 scripts/build_explorer.py ~/my-family.ged ~/Desktop/hart-family.html \
  --title "Hart Family Tree" --subtitle "Six generations of history"

# Demo with bundled US Presidents data
python3 scripts/build_explorer.py assets/demo-presidents.ged presidents.html \
  --title "Presidential Family Explorer" --subtitle "US Presidents & Their Ancestors"

Features

• Dashboard — Stats grid (people, families, places, generations), On This Day events, top surnames, geographic origins, people by century, party breakdown (for presidential data)

• Family Tree — Interactive tree visualization with zoom/pan, select any person as root, color-coded by gender/president status

• People — Searchable/filterable directory with gender and president filters, pagination, click for full detail modal

• Timeline — Chronological events (births, deaths, marriages) with filters and search

• Daily Alerts — Today's anniversaries, random ancestor spotlight, fun facts

• Person Modal — Full detail view with parents, spouses, children (all clickable links)

• Global Search — Search across all tabs by name, place, or year

How It Works

build_explorer.py parses the GEDCOM, extracts all individuals + families, computes stats, and embeds everything as inline JSON in a single HTML file. No server needed — just open the HTML.

Auto-detects US Presidents from OCCU (occupation) fields. Works with any GEDCOM; presidential features simply won't appear if no president data exists.

GEDCOM Sources

Users can export .ged files from:

• Ancestry.com → Tree Settings → Export Tree

• FamilySearch.org → Download GEDCOM

• MyHeritage → Family Tree → Export → GEDCOM

• Any genealogy software (Gramps, RootsMagic, Legacy, etc.)

Demo Data

assets/demo-presidents.ged — Public domain US Presidents GEDCOM (2,322 people, 1,115 families, 44 presidents). Source: webtreeprint.com.

Serving Locally

cd /path/to/output/dir
python3 -m http.server 8899

# Open http://localhost:8899/family-explorer.html

Extending

The generated HTML is fully self-contained. To customize:

• Edit CSS variables in :root for theming

• The dashboard adapts to whatever data is in the GEDCOM — no presidential data required

• For OpenClaw cron integration: parse GEDCOM daily events and send "On This Day" notifications via Telegram