About

About Shajra

Shajra is a private family-tree app for South Asian families. It keeps your khandan's names, photos and relations in one place, and shows every relation in the words families actually use — Abbu, Ammi, Chachu, Phuphi, Mamu, Khala, Dada, Nani — with the English meaning beside it.

Why we built it

Most genealogy software is designed around English relation names and public records. In Urdu- and Hindi-speaking families the question is different: who is this person to me? Your father's brother is a Chachu, your mother's brother is a Mamu, and their children are Chachazad and Mamuzad cousins. Shajra works these relations out automatically from the tree, so a teenager and their grandmother each see the right word for everyone.

Family trees also hold private information. That is why every Shajra tree is invite-only: relatives join through the admin's invite link and see nothing until the admin approves them. There is no public directory of families.

What Shajra does

• An interactive family tree you can pan, zoom and print on one page.
• Profiles with names, nicknames, photos, dates, places and a short note — deliberately no phone numbers or ID numbers.
• Relations in everyday words, worked out from each person's point of view (see the relation guide).
• Linked trees: when a branch of the family keeps its own tree, the two trees can be linked at the shared person with both admins' approval.
• Admin succession: a family can choose a next of kin who takes over if the admin passes away or stops using Shajra.
• Export: admins can download the whole tree, including photos, at any time.

Who we are

Shajra is made and run by 313bits, a small software studio. Shajra is free to use and supported by advertising; families who prefer no ads can upgrade to Shajra Plus.

Contact us

Questions, feedback, a problem with your tree, or a privacy request — we would like to hear from you.