Before you begin

What Asal Ku is, what you need, and the handful of words that make everything else easy.

⏱ 5 minutes🎯 Complete beginner

In this lesson you will learn

What Asal Ku is for, in one minute
What you need to get started
The six words used all through the app
How the rest of this guide works

What is Asal Ku?

Asal Ku (say "AH-sal KOO") is a private family tree that you build together with your relatives. You add the people in your family, show how they are related, and keep their photos, recordings and important dates in one place.

It is made for real families. People marry more than once, adopt children, foster children and share a surname with distant cousins. Asal Ku draws all of that clearly.

Everything is private by default. Only you can see a tree you create, until you decide to share it.

What you need

A phone, tablet or computer with a web browser (Chrome, Safari, Edge or Firefox).
A Google account (an ordinary Gmail address is fine). This is how you sign in. You never have to invent or remember a new password.
An internet connection. Trees you have already opened stay viewable on your phone if the signal drops, but you need a connection to make changes.

Nothing to download

Asal Ku runs in the browser. There is no app store download. In lesson 2 you will see how to add it to your phone's home screen so it opens like any other app.

Six words you will see everywhere

Tree: One family tree, for example "Rahman Family". You can have many trees.
Person (also called a "node"): One circle in a tree. It shows a portrait and a name.
Owner, manager and viewer: The three roles on a tree. The owner made it. A manager can help edit it. A viewer can only look.
Perspective: Looking at the same tree from one person's point of view, so "your" mother is shown as mother to that person.
Gallery: The pictures, audio recordings and videos attached to one person.
Forest: Several family trees joined together because they share a person. Lesson 10 explains it.

The full list of words is in the glossary, which you can open at any time.

How each lesson works

Read the goal box at the top. It tells you what you will be able to do afterwards.
Follow the numbered steps. Each step says exactly what to tap, and the screenshot underneath shows where.
Watch for the coloured boxes. Green boxes are tips, yellow boxes are warnings (things that cannot be undone), blue boxes are extra information.
Do the "Try it yourself" exercise at the end. Doing it once is worth reading it five times.

Try it yourself

Open Asal Ku in your browser and look at the first screen. Do not worry about what it all means yet.
Think of a family you would like to put in your first tree. Write down five names: for example yourself, two parents and two grandparents.

Remember

Asal Ku is a private family tree you build with relatives.
You sign in with Google. No new password.
Tree, person, owner/manager/viewer, perspective, gallery, forest: six words cover almost everything.