RootsPersona

GEDCOM 5.5 and 5.5.1 from any program, and GEDCOM 7.0 / 7.1, also as GEDZIP archives with photos. The file may be in UTF-8, UTF-16, ANSEL or a Windows code page: Cyrillic “ANSI” files (Windows-1251) are recognised. Tags of common programs are understood: married names (_MARN, _MARNM), adoption (_FREL, _MREL), other names (_AKA), the main photo (_PRIM). When a new version of the tree is uploaded, people renumbered by the program are recognised by its code (_UID, FamilySearch ids), by name and birth year or by their relatives, so their pages, addresses and photos stay with them.

Yes, and it is the normal way to keep the site up to date: upload the new file with the same Batch Id. People and families are updated in place; pages, their addresses, your own text on them and the photos stay. Your program may give people new numbers (I123) — RootsPersona recognises them by their code, name and birth year or relatives. If too many people cannot be recognised, the file is probably another tree, and the import stops without changing anything (a checkbox lets you load it anyway). People who are no longer in the file are listed in the report, their pages are not deleted.

The GEDCOM file only names the photo files on your computer. Open Tools → RootsPersona → Upload photos and choose the folder with the photos: only the files the tree refers to are uploaded, and each appears on the pages of its people — the person’s own first photo as the portrait, the others in the gallery. Names are matched loosely (“Ivanov Ivan[1].jpg”, ё/е, spaces and dashes), and a photo already on a page under another file name is recognised and not uploaded twice. Running it again is safe. Or upload the tree as an archive — a GEDZIP file (.gdz, GEDCOM 7) or a .zip with the GEDCOM file and the photos — on the Upload GEDCOM page: the photos then go onto the pages by themselves.

Yes. Put the persona shortcode in a Shortcode widget, whole ( [rootsPersona personId="I1" batchId="1" /] ) or in parts with part="intro" , part="family" , part="photos" , part="map" , part="sources" or part="rest" , and your own widgets in between. Photo upload puts the portrait into the widget with the intro and other photos into the widget with the photos.

Put [rootspersona_hub] on a page (in Elementor: the Shortcode widget). It shows the tree in numbers, faces of the older generations, remembrance days around today, ways into the tree (earliest ancestor, largest family, longest life, a random person), births per decade, the families of the tree by surname and the places with a map. Surname and place pages open on the same page. The parts also work alone, for example on the home page: [rootspersona_faces count="12"] , [rootspersona_today days="7"] , [rootspersona_start] , [rootspersona_timeline] , [rootspersona_surnames count="30"] , [rootspersona_places] . Everything is counted over the people the visitor may see; birthdays and portraits of living people are shown to logged-in users only. With several trees on one site, add batch="2" .

Yes. Export the chart as an SVG file (for example from “Древо Жизни”) and upload it on Tools → RootsPersona → Tree chart. If the chart has photos, upload a ZIP with the SVG file and the folder of photos the program saved next to it, or put that folder into the media library. Every box whose name and years match a person of the tree becomes a link to their page; namesakes are told apart by the years, the birth surname in brackets and by where their parents, spouses and children are drawn. A report lists the boxes that could not be linked. Put [rootspersona_chart] on a page: the chart opens there with zoom (wheel, two fingers, buttons), drag, full screen and a search that finds and highlights people. Scripts and outside links are removed from the uploaded file. After a GEDCOM import or when new pages are created, the links are made again by themselves.

Put [rootspersona_search] where the box should be, for example in the header, and [rootspersona_search_results] on a search results page; point the box to it with [rootspersona_search results="/search/"] . Suggestions appear while typing: people by any of their names, places and years (ё and е are the same), and the posts of the site. Visitors search a prebuilt index, so it is instant; logged-in users also find the people only they may see.

[rootsPersona personId="I1" batchId="1" /] — the persona page ( part="…" for a part of it, see above). [rootsPersonaIndexPage batchId="1" /] — index of all people. [rootspersona_hub] and its parts — front page of the tree. [rootspersona_search] , [rootspersona_search_results] — search. [rootspersona_chart] — the chart of the whole tree uploaded on Tools → RootsPersona → Tree chart. [rootsEvidencePage batchId="1" /] — the sources of the tree; with sourceId="S1" one source and the people it is cited for. [rootsEditPersonaForm] — the edit form (system of record only). The older panel shortcodes ( rootsPersonaHeader , rootsPersonaFacts , rootsPersonaAncestors , rootsPersonaFamilyC , rootsPersonaFamilyS , rootsPersonaPictures , rootsPersonaEvidence , rootsPersonaBio , rootsPersonaDescendancy ) still work for the Classic layout.

A person born less than 110 years ago without a death is living. A person without dates is judged by their own events (a burial means deceased) and by their parents, spouses and children; with no clue at all the “People without dates” setting decides. What living people show — everything, only to members, or nothing — is set in Settings → RootsPersona → Privacy, and each page can override it. Hidden people are left out of titles, menus, sitemaps, search, the front page and, if you choose, the GEDCOM export.

When the GEDCOM file gives coordinates for a place (PLAC with MAP, LATI and LONG), the persona page shows the places of the person’s life on a map. The map is drawn with Leaflet (included in the plugin, BSD 2-Clause license) and the map images come from OpenStreetMap : when a visitor scrolls to the map, their browser loads the images from the OpenStreetMap servers, which see the visitor’s IP address. Mention this in your privacy policy if your site needs one. The map can be switched off in Settings (Show on the page → Map of places), and developers can use another map provider with the rootspersona_map_tiles filter.

The file on your computer is untouched. The copy uploaded to the site is read into the plugin’s database tables and then deleted, together with any archive it came in. The photos of an archive go to the media library.

RootsPersona keeps its own import log. Open Tools → RootsPersona → Upload GEDCOM, scroll to the Import log box, press Download log and send the downloaded file to the plugin developer. The box also shows where the file is stored on your site (wp-content/uploads/rootspersona-logs/). The log lists every import step, the GEDCOM record that was being processed when the error happened and the exact database error. To get a clean log, press Clear log first and then repeat the import. The log may contain short fragments of your family data (names, notes), so send it only to the developer.

RootsPersona is translated by the community at translate.wordpress.org . Open your language there and suggest or correct a string. Once the language team approves it, WordPress delivers it to all sites automatically – no plugin update is needed.

Upgrade to 2.4.0 first, then to the current version.