From Branches to Streets
Meet Your Ancestors'
Neighbors.
Find the streets where your family lived. See who lived next door, follow their moves, and help put their community back on the map.
Residency Records
Link a person to a specific property and era. Add census links, deed photos, and family letters as evidence.
Stewardship Model
The creator of a record is its Keeper. You approve edits, curate evidence, and ensure accuracy.
Town Dispatch
Follow settlements to get neighbor alerts and a real-time feed of every new record, artifact, and gift added.
The Core Idea
The Power of Proximity
In genealogy, your ancestor's neighbor is often the key to their past.
Strength in Numbers
Families rarely migrated in isolation.
A familiar surname or a shared hometown next door can break through a century-old brick wall.
The Witness Connection
The names in deed margins weren't random.
They were the trusted neighbors who knew your family best — and they're often the missing link between two generations.
Love Thy Neighbor
Sometimes the person they married lived just down the road
Sometimes mapping nearby families reveals a connection you might otherwise miss, including a future spouse.
"The Settlement Project reconstructs these lost communities to help you find the who through the where."
Explore a Resident
Every Record Tells a Story
Explore a Resident
Every Record Tells a Story
Each resident profile brings together biographical details, a residency map, and a full history of every property they called home. See where they lived, who their neighbours were, and follow the evidence trail that documents their life.
- Track every address across a lifetime with dated residency records
- Toggle the Neighbours layer to reveal who lived within walking distance
- Attach census records, deed photos, and family letters as evidence
From a single name
to an entire street.
Three steps. A lifetime of discovery.
Pin a person to a place
Link any individual to a specific property and era. Attach census returns, deed photographs, or family letters as evidence — building a record that lasts.
Discover who lived next door
The archive automatically surfaces every other resident within walking distance during the same years — neighbours you never knew to look for.
Reconstruct an entire community
Step back and see the whole street across generations. Identify witnesses, in-laws, and migration patterns hiding in plain sight.
Distance Intelligence
How far did they really move?
Every residency record is pinned to a precise location. The Settlement Project automatically calculates the distance between connected ancestors — spouses, witnesses, neighbours — and shows you how far each move really was across a lifetime.
- See exact distances between two connected residents in metres and feet
- Track a family's migration step by step — from farm to village to city
- Discover that a 'distant' ancestor only moved 400 metres down the road
- Identify migration clusters where whole communities moved together
Born: Ballyhahill, Co. Limerick
1821
Married: Knockanure, Co. Kerry
1848 · 11.2 km / 7 miles
Settled: Listowel, Co. Kerry
1855 · 4.8 km / 3 miles
The Town Crier
Hear Ye, Hear Ye
A live feed of every new record, piece of evidence, and gift added across all settlements — so you can follow the archive as it grows in real time.
New record added
A record for Ellen has been added to Lenawee County.
by grace.zimmerly
New record added
A record for Arilla has been added to Detroit.
by grace.zimmerly
New record added
A record for Arilla has been added to Lenawee County.
by grace.zimmerly
New record added
A record for Arilla has been added to Lenawee County.
by grace.zimmerly
Purpose-Built
Built for Historians and Genealogists
Unlike general family tree platforms, The Settlement Project is focused on place — reconstructing the communities and streets where your ancestors lived, not just their names on a chart.
Average Neighbour Distance
how far most people married from home
Migration Patterns Visible
trace a family across decades and counties
Away From a New Lead
deed witnesses were almost always neighbours