Follow My Roots
Follow My Roots — Your roots, your culture, simplified.

Interactive product preview

Your family and community, in your own words.

Map how people are connected and describe the relationships that matter to you. We’re developing language tools with communities so those connections can be expressed in the words they use themselves.

Explore a sample network

Demonstration uses entirely fictional people and relationships.

The product moment

Explore a network that reflects real belonging.

Select a person, filter the kinds of ties you want to see, or trace a guided connection across this entirely fictional network.

Inherited familyMarital or affinal familyChosen familyCommunity relationship
Fictional sample relationship networkNine fictional people connected through inherited, marital, chosen-family and community relationships. Selectable people reveal their direct connections in the adjacent panel.RCRuth ColeDCDaniel ColeMCMaya ColeSHSamir HaddadACAmara ColeLCLeo ColeNGNia GrantETEli ThompsonAMAsha Mensah

Tap a person or use Tab and Enter to inspect their ties.

Guided interaction

Trace a connection

Explore a family route, a wider social connection or the personal words someone uses for a tie.

Choose a route above

The relevant people and connections will brighten while the rest of the network gently recedes.

Separate language example

The words we use for our relationships

This fixed example shows how Daniel is related to Amara. Try the small demonstration vocabulary below. Broader language coverage and cultural usage are still being developed with community review.

Daniel is Amara’s father

BaFather · Mungaka

A demonstration vocabulary. Dialect, spelling and wider relationship coverage remain subject to community review. This example is independent of the selected map route.

Why it matters

Every relationship has a place. Every community has its words.

  1. 01

    People define their own circles.

    Chosen family, elders, mentors and community bonds deserve a clear place alongside relatives.

  2. 02

    Relationship words carry meaning.

    The way we describe someone can reflect care, culture, place and generation. Families need room for that context.

  3. 03

    Language knowledge can be shared.

    Family and social vocabulary offers a familiar starting point for communities building digital resources in their languages.

How it works

Begin with the people. Let the relationships tell the story.

  1. 1

    Add the people who matter

    Start with a name, then build the record at your own pace.

  2. 2

    Define relationships in the terms that fit

    Record inherited, marital, chosen and community ties without ranking their importance.

  3. 3

    Explore how everyone is connected

    Move through the network, focus on a person and reveal routes across the wider family.

Planned language bank

A shared resource, shaped by speakers.

We’re planning a place for speakers to document relationship terms together, starting with family and social connections. This is a first contribution to languages with limited digital support.

  1. Contribute a term and its context

    Describe who uses it, what it means and when it fits. Voice examples are a future possibility for spoken usage.

  2. Invite review across groups

    Speakers from participating families and communities can say whether they recognise a usage, suggest a change or say they do not know it.

  3. Keep room for differences

    Alternative meanings, spellings and dialects can sit alongside each other. A personal family description remains the choice of the people using it.

Sharing a term would be optional, with a separate choice about how it can be used. Contributing vocabulary would not publish a private family map.

Product in motion

A working MVP, shown as it is today.

These current screens show today’s dashboard, 2D map, person record and relationship-composer experiences. Identifying labels have been replaced with fictional demonstration data.

2D relationship map — current Follow My Roots MVP screen using fictional demonstration labels
Active refinement

2D relationship map

The working 2D view separates lineage and community layers while keeping both visible as meaningful parts of the wider network.

Product status

Where the product stands

Follow My Roots has a working relationship-mapping MVP. This public preview lets you explore a fictional sample network and a small demonstration vocabulary while the product is prepared for closed pilot testing.

Implemented
Person records, relationship records, tree dashboard, 2D map and bounded 3D exploration.
Active refinement
Dense-graph readability, mobile ergonomics, accessibility, GEDCOM confidence and cultural review.
Under development
Multilingual kinship labelling and real-time multi-user collaboration.
Planned
A shared language bank with optional contributions, review across community groups and visible language variants.

Community pilots and partnerships

Build the next chapter with your community.

We’re seeking diaspora associations and community networks for initial pilots, with families and speakers helping shape the experience.

Community organisations
Explore member access and supported onboarding. Pilot participation will help us test what works and how an organisation subscription could be packaged.
NGOs and public institutions
Discuss a facilitated programme with local community partners, helping families document their connections and the language they use.
Technology partners
Explore future integrations or sponsorship of community programmes. These are partnership proposals, with scope to be developed together.

Founder-led

Built from lived diaspora experience

Founder Jamal Bangura created Follow My Roots from his own experience of tracing family across cultures. He built the MVP to help people map their living connections and keep the language and understanding that give those relationships meaning.