PastPaths¶
Your genealogy. On your computer. Under your control.
PastPaths is a genealogy program for anyone who wants to own their own data. Everything — persons, photos, sources, stories — is saved locally on your computer. Nothing is sent to cloud services, nothing requires a subscription, and no company policy decides what you can do with your own family history.
Latest version: 1.2.0 – 2026-07-24
Improved GEDCOM import, easier duplicate merging, a new Biography tab for persons, and a long list of bug fixes.
Where do you want to start?¶
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Download PastPaths
Get the latest version directly from GitHub.
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New user?
Install the program and start creating your first family history.
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Read the manual
A walkthrough of every feature — persons, places, events, media, blog.
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Import existing data
Do you have data in GEDCOM format? Want to bring in information from Ancestry, MyHeritage, or TNG? No problem!
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Need help?
Frequently asked questions and troubleshooting for anything that's not working.
What is PastPaths?¶
PastPaths is a local genealogy program. That means the entire database, all images, all notes — everything — is saved in a folder on your computer. When you start the program, it opens like a regular Windows program (with plans for Linux support and, later, a mobile app for taking photos in the field).
This is a good fit if you:
- Research your own family and want full control over the information
- Don't want to pay an ongoing fee for a cloud-based genealogy service
- Want to be able to back up, move, or export at any time
- Value privacy — especially important when saving information about currently living relatives
What PastPaths is not¶
PastPaths is not a platform for sharing genealogy research with others. It's a tool for your research. You can export and import GEDCOM so you can move data between PastPaths and other programs — but there's no built-in "publish to the web" button.
Backup is your responsibility
Since everything sits locally on your computer, it's also you who needs to take backups. More on that in the troubleshooting section.