An extensible genealogy toolbox, built to work with your AI.
Free, local-first genealogy software that keeps your evidence — not just your conclusions — at the center. Connect the AI you already use: it proposes, you decide.
AI can't put anything in your tree without you seeing it.
Let it transcribe records, pull out claims, and suggest where to look next. Everything it produces waits beside the source it came from until you confirm it — structural, not a promise, so unconfirmed content can never reach your conclusions or your exports.
Where to start
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For you
Research with your evidence kept attached to the people it belongs to. See what the app does today, what's coming next, and how your existing tree comes across in one step.
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For your AI assistant
You talk to the assistant you already use — no new app to learn. It can read records, suggest where to look next, and keep a log as it works, and you approve every change before it touches your tree.
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For toolmakers
Build your own tools on your own data — the full technical reference lives one level down, behind a door you'll never hit by accident.
What Heartwood is
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Free — really
No subscriptions, no tiers, no accounts, no sign-in. Download it and use it.
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Local-first, and yours
Your data lives on your disk, in plain files you can copy, back up, and walk away with at any time. Nothing about your research leaves your machine except what you explicitly choose to send — see the privacy policy for the exact, itemized list.
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Evidence-first
Sources, citations, and the claims they make are the spine of the data model — the Genealogical Proof Standard's methodology, built into the engine rather than bolted on.
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Works with the AI you already use
Connect Claude Desktop, or another assistant of your choosing, entirely on your machine. Your evidence goes only to the model you personally chose. Toolmakers get the same access through a documented local API. Read the docs.
How it works
Heartwood is a desktop app for macOS (Windows is coming). Import a GEDCOM file from your current tool — the import is immediate, your original file is kept byte-for-byte, and existing citations are honored. Work your research questions with sources and citations attached as you go; conflicts between records are kept visible instead of silently resolved. If you connect an AI assistant, it proposes — you decide. Everything stays on your machine, in files you own.
Heartwood is in early alpha and under very active development — public builds aren't up yet, but they're close. The features & roadmap page says plainly what works today and what's still being built — we'd rather undersell than surprise you.