Heritage AIGenealogical Tree Online: How It Differs From a Simple Family Tree
An online genealogical tree is more than a list of relatives. It is a research tool with sources and generations. The differences, and where to begin the search for ancestors.
Also in Russian: the original article
In this article· 3 sections
“Family tree” and “genealogical tree” are often used as synonyms. There is a difference, and it affects which tool you should use.
A family tree usually holds living and recently departed relatives: what the family remembers without archive research. A genealogical tree goes further. It is an attempt to reconstruct the line several generations back, relying on documents, not only on relatives’ memory. For Russian roots, those documents are metric books (metricheskie knigi, parish birth, marriage and death registers), revision lists (revizskie skazki, tax censuses of 1719–1858) and archive certificates.
You do not have to choose one or the other. A good tool grows with your research. It starts as an ordinary family tree and, as you make finds, is filled out with archive data, sources and more distant branches.
What to clarify when you start a genealogical search
- Full name, including patronymic and maiden name. Without these it is easy to confuse people with the same surname in archive records.
- Place of birth down to the village or parish, not only the region. Metric books were kept by parish, and without the name of the village searching is almost impossible.
- Religion, if known. It determines which documents are worth searching, since metric books were kept by parishes of a specific denomination.
- Occupation and social estate. This often decides which archive collections may hold information: revision lists for peasants and townspeople are organised differently from service records for officials or military men.
Requests to Russian archives are written in Russian. Heritage AI prepares the letter text for you.
If you already have data in another service
Many people begin research in one tool and then move to another, and nobody wants to lose what they have built. The GEDCOM standard exists for this: it lets you export a tree from one service and import it into another without re-entering each person by hand.
Why sources matter
An online genealogical tree is useful exactly as far as it is easy to record not just a name but the source it came from. That is what separates research from guesswork.
You can start with a free research plan: /en.
Questions and answers
- What is the difference between a family tree and a genealogical tree?
- A family tree usually covers living and recently departed relatives, from family memory. A genealogical tree reconstructs the line several generations back, based on documents such as metric books, revision lists and archive certificates.
- What do I need to know before searching for ancestors in Russian records?
- Full name with patronymic and maiden name, place of birth down to the village or parish, religion if known, and occupation or social estate. These determine where to search.
- Can I move my tree from another service?
- The GEDCOM standard exists so that a tree can be exported from one service and imported into another without re-entering every person.
Next step
Start with a free research plan
Tell Heritage AI where your family came from and get a plan for where to look first. It shows the route; it does not promise to find a record. The product is currently available in Russian for families in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.