This is the code repository for the Porter family history, available at porterfamilytree.ca.

If you would like to suggest updates to the family tree itself (e.g., births, deaths, marriages), please use the report page on the website itself. Suggestions for code improvements can be raised by opening an issue or pull request on the Github page.

This website is licensed with a GPLv3 license; so, you are free to use and modify the code for your own purposes provided that your use/modifications are also distributed under the GPLv3 license and the source made available. See the LICENSE file for the full license.

The app is contained in Docker containers for ease of dependency management, so the primary dependency is Docker itself. Follow the instructions to install Docker for your OS, and also be sure to install Docker Compose as well if it does not come with your Docker installation. (The latter is not a hard requirement, but makes it simpler to set up the containers.)

Clone the git repo to your local system. You'll need to copy .env.template to create a .env file, and fill in values for the variables in it. Then, in a terminal, navigate to the project directory, and run:

docker-compose -f compose.common.yml -f compose.dev.yml up -d --build

This should build the images, set up the network and volumes, and start the containers. On subsequent runs, the --build flag is not necessary. Give it a minute or so, and then the app should be available on http://localhost:8080.

To stop the app, run:

docker-compose -f compose.common.yml -f compose.dev.yml down

Follow a similar process if you want to set up the app for production (rather than development), substituting compose.dev.yml for compose.prod.yml.

If you want to take this and use it for your own family tree, the main change will be to substitute the .csv files in the db/ directory. The people.csv file is the full list of all people in the tree, with id being the primary key for referencing from the other tables. marriages.csv refers to two id values, along with some data about the marriage itself. children.csv has one row per parent-child relationship. (Of course, in most cases, there will be two rows per child, but this approach would also handle cases of adoption. This table layout may still not be the best approach, though, to be honest.) As long as you can set up the data for your own family tree in a similar way, you should be able to replace these .csv files and be all set.

The other change to make will be to look through the app/app/templates/ directory and adjust the HTML templates to suit you. Note in particular the "extended" templates that provide some additional long-form content for some of the early members in the family tree. These special cases are handled semi-manually, with a list of person IDs in the EXTENDED_NOTES list near the top of app/app/main.py.

For any more significant changes, you may also need to adjust the Linux/Python dependencies, which are in app/Dockerfile.

I make no guarantees about how well this app will suit your own family tree, but if you need any help making it work, feel free to open a Github issue/discussion and I'm happy to try to help you out.