How The Attic works

You can make everything on this website bigger.

Hold down the Ctrl key (the ⌘ Command key on a Mac) and press the + key. Each press makes the page a little larger. Ctrl and − (⌘ and − on a Mac) makes it smaller again, and Ctrl and 0 puts it back as it was.

Your browser remembers the size you chose for next time.

Making the page bigger (Ctrl and +, or ⌘ and + on a Mac) makes the buttons bigger too.

On the iPhone app, Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size has "Button Shapes" and "Increase Contrast", which make everything on your phone clearer to look at.

Choose Record (on the left on a computer, along the bottom on a phone). Pick a subject, choose a question you like, and then choose how you want to answer — on camera, just your voice, or by typing.

Or answer today's question straight from Home.

There is no time limit worth worrying about, and nothing is shared with anyone unless you decide to share it.

When you stop recording you get to watch it back before anything is kept. If you don't like it, tap "Record again" and the first one is thrown away.

Nothing is saved until you say so.

The Attic keeps what you had recorded up to that moment. When you come back you'll see it waiting, with a note saying "We saved what you captured". You can keep it or record again.

You will not lose what you've already said.

On the website you need to be connected to the internet. If the connection drops while a recording is being sent, it is kept safely in this browser, and a note at the top of every page offers to finish saving it once you're back online.

Begin with the people you could name without looking anything up: your parents, your grandparents, your brothers and sisters, your children. You are on the tree already.

On the Family page, choose "Add a person". Type their name, and a year if you know it.

For the first few, choose who they are to you under "Who are they to you?" — Mother, Father. After that, "How are they connected?" joins each new person to someone already there: "Child of Rita", "Brother or sister of Paul". They go straight into the right place.

This takes about ten minutes.

Is a relative about to send you a tree file (step 2)? Then you can wait, bring the file in first, and add only whoever is missing.

Somebody in your family may already have done years of work — a cousin on Ancestry, an aunt on MyHeritage. Ask them. They can download their tree as a file and email it to you. Step 3 shows them how.

On Ancestry, only the person who made a tree can download it. Even if they have shared it with you, they need to download it themselves and send it.

Relatives who use The Attic can join their tree to yours. Open their card, add their email address under "Change their details", then choose "Invite". When they join with that address, you are asked whether to connect them. Nothing happens until you say yes.

Once you are connected, "Compare trees with a relative" at the top of the Family page shows who they have that you don't. And when a grandparent is on both trees, their card asks "Is this the same Rita as on Paul's tree?" Say yes, and from then on you share one set of details.

A tree file brings in a whole family at once. Family-tree websites call it a GEDCOM file, and its name ends in .ged. Downloading one is easiest on a computer.

From Ancestry — free, with no paid membership:

1. Sign in at ancestry.com. Choose Trees, then open your tree.
2. Choose More (⋯), then Tree Settings.
3. Under "Manage your tree", choose Export tree, then Export.
4. Wait while it says "Generating a GEDCOM file". Then choose Download Your GEDCOM File.
5. It arrives as a ZIP file. Open it — double-click it on a computer, or tap it in the Files app on an iPhone. Inside is the file ending in .ged.

From MyHeritage:

1. Sign in at myheritage.com. Choose Family tree, then Manage Trees.
2. Next to your tree, choose "Export to GEDCOM".
3. It asks about photos. The Attic reads only the words, so you can leave them out. Then choose Begin the export.
4. A big tree may come as a link in an email instead.

In MyHeritage's Family Tree Builder program, it is File → Export GEDCOM.

A tree file carries only words: names, dates, places, who is related to whom, and notes. Photos and documents never come with it. You can add those to people's cards afterwards.

On this computer:

1. On the Family page, choose "Import a family tree file".
2. Choose your .ged file, or drag it onto the box.
3. You see everyone in it before anything is added. Anyone who looks like somebody already on your tree is un-ticked, so you don't get two of Grandma.
4. Look down the list. If your own name is there, untick it — you are on your tree already. If someone is un-ticked who isn't really on your tree, tick them.
5. Choose "Add these people to my tree".

One family at a time is fine: your mother's side from one cousin, your father's from another. Each file is checked against everyone already on your tree.

Afterwards, the new family may sit to one side of the tree, not yet joined to you. One connection joins them. Click the person who links them to you — your mother, say — choose "Change their details", and under "Who are they to you?" choose Mother. If she was on your tree already, click her mother instead, and under Connections make her Parent of your mother. Everyone else moves into place with them.

On the phone, Family → Tools → "Bring in a family file" works too. But the phone brings in everyone in the file without checking who you already have, so use it only for a first file, onto a tree that is still nearly empty.

FamilySearch no longer lets you download a tree file. There is an easier way, one family at a time.

1. On familysearch.org, open a grandparent's page.
2. Find their "Family Members" list. Select all of it, and copy it.
3. In The Attic, click that grandparent on your tree and choose "Read an obituary or family list".
4. Paste the list. Say whose family it is, look over everyone, then Save.

The list is read right here in your browser, and it is free. People already on your tree get their missing years filled in. Anyone new is added, joined to the right person.

Work outward from one grandparent: then their parents, then their brothers and sisters.

The button is on the card of anyone marked as having died. If you don't see it, choose "Change their details", tick "They have died", and save.

FamilySearch is one big tree shared by everyone, and it keeps changing. What you copy is how it looked that day.

Comfortable with computer programs? RootsMagic, Ancestral Quest and Legacy Family Tree can each download a branch from FamilySearch and save it as a .ged file, which you bring in as in step 4.

An obituary names a whole family: a husband or wife, children, brothers and sisters, often with their towns.

Click someone who has died and choose "Read an obituary or family list". Paste a link to the obituary, or paste its words. A photo or screenshot of a newspaper cutting works too.

We read it and show you what it says: their years, and the relatives it names. People already on your tree get their missing years filled in. Anyone new can be added. Untick anything that isn't right, then Save. Nothing changes until you do.

Some newspaper websites won't let us read their pages. If that happens, copy the words from the page and paste them in instead.

Every change to somebody's details is listed under Changes on their card, and can be put back.

Once a few families are in, give the tree a tidy.

"Worth a look", below your tree on the Family page, gathers what is worth checking:

• "Is Diane also Cory's mother?" — when someone's husband or wife is probably their child's other parent. One click says yes.
• Dates that don't fit — a mother born after her daughter, say. Usually it is one wrong year. Fix it, or keep it as it is.
• People who need a place — joined to someone, but the tree can't tell where they go. Choose "Place them one by one", and we suggest where each belongs.

"Not placed yet", just under the tree, lists everyone still waiting for a place.

On the tree itself:

• "Tidy up" lays the whole tree out fresh.
• "Families:" shows one family at a time — your mother's side, then your father's.
• Click anyone and choose "Show Rita's family" to see just them and their closest family.

Two cards for one person? Open the one with less on it and look at its Connections. Add any that are missing to the other card. Then choose "Remove this person". Recordings are never removed with a card.

A tree of names is a beginning. The stories are the point.

Click anyone on your tree and choose "Tell a story about Rita". Say what you remember: how she laughed, what she cooked, the thing she always said. A minute is plenty.

Ask the rest of the family too. Stories about someone gather on their card, so in time everyone on the tree has a few of their own. That is what your grandchildren will open.

Only you, unless you change it. Every recording starts private.

On any recording you can choose:

• Private — only you
• Family — close family, extended family or everyone on your tree (see below)
• On a date — sent to someone on a date you pick
• After I'm gone — held until you're gone, then sent to your trusted contacts
• Everyone — anyone with an Attic account, if you ever want that
• A private link — anyone you send it to can watch, until you turn the link off

You choose, each time you share. There are three answers:

Close family — your husband, wife or partner, your parents, your children, your brothers and sisters, your grandparents and your grandchildren. Step-family and half-brothers and sisters count too: a stepfather, a stepdaughter, a half-sister.

Extended family — close family, and also your aunts and uncles, great-aunts and great-uncles, nieces and nephews, and first and second cousins.

Everyone on your tree — anybody connected to your family tree, however distant.

New recordings start with close family. In Account you can make extended family or everyone on your tree the starting point instead, and you can name particular people who should always count as close family — so the cousin you adore is included without opening it up to everyone.

Only relatives who have joined The Attic and connected to your tree can see anything. Someone on your tree who hasn't joined sees nothing. Being on the tree and being shared with are two different things.

Yes. If you use "Let's script this" to write out what you want to say, those words are kept with the recording and sent with it — so whoever opens it gets the letter as well as hearing you read it.

If you wrote it by hand on paper, take a photo of it and add that too. Open the recording in your library and tap "Add a photo of the letter". The handwriting is often the part a family keeps.

Yes. Set a recording to Public and anyone with an Attic account can watch it. Useful for a family story you are happy for anyone to hear.

It is per recording and never the default — nothing becomes public unless you choose it for that one recording, and you can set it back at any time.

When a relative joins The Attic and their email matches someone on your tree, you'll be asked whether to connect them. Nothing happens until you say yes.

Connecting them means they can see recordings you've shared with family — but only the ones shared with a circle they are in: close family, extended family or everyone on your tree. You can disconnect them at any time from their card in the Family tab.

Names, dates and how people are related — the family history. It never shares recordings. Both people have to agree, and either of you can stop at any time.

Don't take our word for it. Go to Account, open Advanced, and under "How should The Attic know you're still here?" choose "Show me what my family will receive".

We'll send the real email — the same words, the same look, with one of your own recordings in it — to your own inbox. Nobody else receives anything.

Every six months we email you to ask if you're still with us. Tap "Yes, I'm here" in the email and that's all. Opening The Attic app, signing in on the website, or making a recording counts too — any of those tells us you're here.

If we don't hear back, we wait a month and ask again, and once more a month after that. If three months pass with no answer at all, a person on our team looks at your account and tries to reach you before anything is passed on. Nothing is ever released automatically, and the moment you turn up, it all stops.

Your trusted contacts, in Account — including the person you named when you signed up. Each of them receives the recordings you've left to your trusted contacts. You can name more than one, and you should — one person can be unreachable at exactly the wrong moment.

Only your trusted contacts can tell us. When one does, we email you first, at every address we have. Then we wait — two weeks with a death certificate, a month with an obituary, three months with a signed statement alone — and a person on our team checks before anything is passed on.

If you're still here, one tap on our email (or just opening the app) cancels it, and that person can't report you again. In Account you can turn this off, ask for a death certificate only, or add extra waiting time.

Recordings of someone who has died are never put behind a paywall. That is a promise, not a setting.

You pick up to ten old photographs and send them to someone — usually the person who'd know. They swipe through them one at a time on their own phone and tell you what each one is: who's in it, where it was, what was happening.

Their answers come back to you, kept with the photo they belong to.

Yes. While you're choosing the photos, tap any one of them and write your question — "who is that next to Grandma?" — and they'll see it with that photo.

It's safe. It's kept in this browser and hasn't been lost — it just hasn't finished sending yet. The note at the top of the page has a "Finish saving it" button; press it when your connection is good.

Your recording is still safe in this browser. Go to Account to see how much room you have, and choose a plan there if you'd like more. Then press "Finish saving it" in the note at the top of the page.

Deleting a recording gives the space back straight away.

Everything is in the Library tab. There's a search box at the top — type any word from the question you answered.