African family knowledge centre

A family tree is not finished when it is drawn. It is a living record that has to be handed from one generation to the next, or it dies with the person who kept it. These are the practices that keep it alive, learned from families who have kept their records for over two hundred years.

1. Many owners, never one

A tree held by one person is one illness away from being lost. Let the master tree of the family have several owners:

• One owner for each house (each wife's household, or each branch of the founding family), appointed by the tree's custodians. Many families already keep one contact person per house; that person is the natural owner.
• The founders who started the tree stay owners whatever the houses decide, so the family's continuity never depends on one house.
• Every owner is a Tree custodian. Everyone else in a house can be a custodian or a deputy (Family rep or Curator), so the work is shared.

2. Two or three people who carry it on

Every owner names 2 or 3 continuity contacts, first to last, like a legacy contact on a phone. Choose: Check your list every year, and after every wedding, birth and funeral.

• People of a younger generation, who will be here after you
• People in different houses or places, so one event cannot take them all
• People who already care for the family record, and who know they were chosen

3. When an owner passes on

Any member of the family reports the passing on the Continuity page, with a notice: a death certificate, funeral programme or obituary (a photo is fine). The platform's Super Admin checks it. Only then do the owner's chosen people become owners, in their order. The notice is kept privately in the family's file cabinet.

4. When an owner goes quiet

People fall ill, lose their phones, or step away. An owner who has not signed in for 90 days is asked by email whether all is well, with one tap to say "I'm here", or a reply to say what should happen to the tree. With no answer and no sign-in 30 days later, their chosen people are told and the Super Admin decides with the family who carries the tree on. The quiet owner stays an owner, so nothing is taken from someone who comes back.

5. Forking: a tree for every family, one source for all

When a branch grows into a family of its own (a daughter's household, a new surname), start a tree for that family from the master: a fork. The master stays the one source: corrections are made there once and flow down to every fork. The new family's own members own their fork, and name their own continuity contacts. Avoid private side-trees that copy people: two copies always drift apart.

6. Handing over from one generation to the next

Do not wait for a funeral. While you are well:

• Make a younger relative a co-owner, or the owner of your house, and work alongside them for a year
• Teach them the family's relation words, the houses and the order of birth: the knowledge, not only the data
• Keep the family's papers (certificates, letters, funeral programmes) in the file cabinet, not in one person's drawer
• Count the generations as the family grows: children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren per house. A tree that keeps growing is a tree being looked after

7. The family decides

Owners and custodians appoint and replace each other. The platform's Super Admin approves ownership changes and steps in only for a passing or a long silence, so no tree is ever left without someone to care for it.