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About PastPaths

A genealogy app shaped by my own research

I have been researching my family history for many years and have tried quite a few genealogy programs along the way. Many have useful features, but I often found something missing from the way the research itself worked: finding the right place in the program and adding information could be unnecessarily complicated, and it was difficult to get an overview of how people, places and events were connected.

I wanted to do more than record names and dates. I wanted to bring clues, photographs, sources and stories together in one place – and make it easier to see how they relate to one another.

When I couldn't find a program that worked the way I wanted, I started building PastPaths.

Family history is more than a family tree

A family tree shows relationships, but people's lives contain so much more. Who lived in the same place? Who took part in the same event? Which people appear in a photograph, and what story goes with the picture?

With PastPaths, I want to make it easier to collect this kind of information and connect it to the relevant people, places and events. I also want to make room for both short notes and longer stories, without them becoming separate documents that are difficult to find again.

One question that has inspired me is: Which of my relatives took part in the Vasaloppet ski race with Gustav? This is the kind of connection I want family history research to make easier to explore – not just the individual facts, but how they fit together.

Easier to use – and easier to take with you

PastPaths is developed around problems and ideas that come up in my own family history research. The aim is to make the program easy to understand and to make it straightforward to find, add and organise information. The technology should help the research move forward, not get in the way.

I also believe your research should remain yours. That is why PastPaths follows a local-first approach: your database is stored on your own computer, not with an external cloud service. The program is free to use, and no account or subscription is required. Importing, exporting and backing up your data are important too – your research should not be locked into a single program.

Who is behind PastPaths?

My name is Maria Tingvall, and I have a strong interest in history, people and the places where they lived. I have been programming as a hobby since the 1980s and building websites since the late 1990s. Around the turn of the millennium, I ran 9månader, a website with information about pregnancy and childbirth.

In my day job, I work as an IT consultant specialising in healthcare systems. Programming, history, photography, gardening and crafts are among my interests. PastPaths brings several of them together: curiosity about people's lives and a desire to create tools that make it easier to collect, understand and preserve information.

PastPaths is a personal project that grows step by step. I hope it will also be useful to others who want to explore their family history in their own way.

Technology and privacy

PastPaths is a Windows application built with Vue 3, Quasar, Flask and SQLite. The program runs locally on your computer. It does not use cloud services and does not collect telemetry or anonymous usage statistics.

Licence and open source

PastPaths is not open source. The program is distributed free of charge, but its source code is not publicly available.

PastPaths uses a number of open-source libraries and the DejaVu typeface. A complete list of these components and their licences is available in THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.md. The licence texts are included in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt. Both files are included with the installation in the _internal\legal folder inside the program directory.

Looking ahead

PastPaths continues to evolve, with new versions bringing features and improvements. You can follow its progress in the changelog.

Longer-term plans include:

  • Linux support
  • An Android app focused on photographing material while researching and transferring it to a computer

Contact

Thank you

Thank you to the relatives who have helped test features, and to everyone who has reported bugs or suggested improvements. Your feedback helps make PastPaths better.