GeneWeb

GeneWeb
GeneWeb web interface in 2008
Developer	Daniel de Rauglaudre
Initial release	1998 (1998)
Stable release	7.0.0 / 30 October 2020 (2020-10-30)1
Preview release	7.1.0-beta2 / 25 December 2025 (2025-12-25)2
Written in	OCaml
Operating system	Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows, macOS
Type	Genealogy software
License	GPL-2.0-or-later
Website	geneweb.org
Repository	github.com/geneweb/geneweb

GeneWeb is free genealogy software with a web-based interface. It was created by Daniel de Rauglaudre, a research engineer at INRIA, and was first released in 1998.³⁴ The software is written in OCaml and can be used locally through a browser or deployed as a web service.⁵

GeneWeb is designed for managing genealogical databases, displaying family relationships, and calculating kinship and consanguinity. It stores data in its own .gw format while also supporting GEDCOM, the dominant exchange format for genealogy software.⁶ It has been used by large online genealogy projects, including Geneanet and Roglo.⁵⁷

GeneWeb was developed by de Rauglaudre at INRIA in the late 1990s. A 2001 review in PC Alamode Magazine described it as a web-server approach to genealogy, noting that users interacted with the software through ordinary web browsers rather than a conventional desktop interface.³

The original INRIA documentation described GeneWeb as usable either offline on a standalone computer or as a web-accessible genealogy database. It also emphasized relationship and consanguinity calculations developed with Didier Rémy, then a research director at INRIA.⁴

Development later moved to a public GitHub repository. Version 7.0.0 was released on 30 October 2020, and version 7.1.0-beta2 was published as a testing release on 25 December 2025.¹²

GeneWeb runs a lightweight web server and presents its user interface through a web browser. It can be used without an internet connection on a local computer, or hosted so that multiple users can access a shared database.⁴ The software supports dynamic generation of person pages, relationship charts, and genealogical views rather than relying on pre-generated static pages.⁴

The program includes tools for relationship and consanguinity calculations, multilingual display, access controls, and import and export of GEDCOM files.⁴⁵ Jean Vaucher, writing in a 2010 guide, described GeneWeb as multilingual and noted its use in both standalone and server-based modes.⁷

GeneWeb's data model differs from GEDCOM, although it supports GEDCOM import and export. In a 2018 article on genealogical file formats, J. Tuomas Harviainen and Bo-Christer Björk used GeneWeb as an example of a genealogy tool that maintains its own .gw format while also supporting GEDCOM because of that format's market dominance.⁶

GeneWeb is distributed through operating-system package systems as well as from its upstream project. The MacPorts package describes it as genealogy software with a web interface, relationship and consanguinity calculation, and support for databases containing hundreds of thousands of entries.⁸

GeneWeb has been used as the software engine for large collaborative genealogy databases. The GeneWeb project describes Roglo as containing more than 11 million individuals and maintained by nearly 300 contributors, and states that Geneanet used GeneWeb as its core engine for two decades.⁵ Vaucher also identified GeneWeb as the software used by Roglo and Geneanet in his 2010 guide.⁷

In a 2008 roundup of online family-tree tools, Rick Crume wrote in Family Tree Magazine that Geneanet allowed users to build a family tree using either its newer editor or the older GeneWeb program.⁹