WitnessLives

You’ve invested years of research, tracked down census records, and meticulously built a family tree with hundreds—maybe thousands—of names. But deep down, you know your ancestors are more than just a collection of birth and death dates. You’ve probably found yourself wondering: Who in my family was actually alive during the American Revolution or the 1918 flu? I’m standing in this historic town—did any of my ancestors walk these same streets? Which lines of my heritage carry the most remarkable stories? Welcome to Witness. Witness is not another tree builder. It is an intelligent discovery and analysis layer that sits directly on top of the tree you’ve already built. By simply importing your standard GEDCOM file, Witness instantly transforms your raw data into a living, breathing family chronicle. Discover the Stories Hiding in Your Data Temporal Intelligence: Instantly see who was alive during major historical events — “188 of your relatives were alive when the Mayflower landed” — every match labeled documented or probable, and marked by how they relate to you: your direct line, a blood relative, or kin by marriage. This Week in Your Family: A weekly digest of the anniversaries falling in the next seven days, one life featured and placed in its historical moment. A Sunday morning reminder brings the week’s lead story to you. The Family Stage: One household — a marriage and its children — drawn as lifelines against falling time. Sweep the years and watch ages, unions, and departures unfold across a century. The Portrait: Every person opens as a portrait of their family — parents, brothers and sisters in true birth order, each marriage with its children, and a line of descent under every name. Their life story and the world they lived in open inline, so you never lose your place in the family around them. Search by Name or Place: One search box finds people by name or by where their lives were recorded. Type “Worcester” and meet everyone in your tree who was born, married, or buried there. Field Discovery & Cemetery GPS: Take your iPhone into the field. See who in your family has history within a mile — or a hundred — of where you’re standing, and the whole world of your tree on a map, era by era. AI-Powered Rich Biographies: Read warm, beautifully written life narratives for your ancestors, synthesized by AI that blends your tree’s data with real historical context — carefully constructed to never make unsubstantiated claims. Tree Health: Twenty-two forensic data-integrity checks — the FTAnalyzer catalog trusted by serious desktop researchers — run over every person, family, and date, each finding one tap from the person it concerns. Orphan Records finds the people disconnected from your tree and suggests where they might belong. Break Through Brick Walls: Stuck at a dead end in 1720? Witness analyzes your data gaps and generates a structured, expert Research Brief with specific suggested sources and local archives. In the National Archives: Federal records matched to your ancestors — draft cards, naturalizations, and more — each awaiting your judgment. The Field Guide: Every screen, explained — annotated walkthroughs of the whole app, one tap away whenever you need them. Absolute Privacy Your hard work is sacred. Witness is entirely read-only—we will never alter your original tree. Your GEDCOM file is encrypted with a key created on your iPhone that never leaves it: we store your file, but we genuinely cannot read it — and your recovery code brings it back on any device. Stop just building your tree. Start experiencing it. Terms of Use: https://witnesslives.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://witnesslives.com/privacy