Jiapu Studio

Your family's 家譜, readable by everyone in the family.

Send photos of your genealogy chart or book. We type out every name, translate it, convert the old-calendar dates, and return a bilingual family tree your relatives can open on a phone or print for the wall.

Start with one page for $49 See a sample tree

Full refund within 14 days of delivery if it isn't right.

One entry, as written and as read

泉州林氏家譜　卷一 一世　文煥　字明遠 生道光二十八年戊申三月初九 卒宣統三年辛亥十月廿□ 配陳氏　子二　德馨　德茂

  1. Lin Wenhuan, courtesy name Mingyuan. In the family's Hokkien spelling, Lim Boon Huan.
  2. Born 1848. The chart gives the emperor's reign year (Daoguang 28) and the 60-year-cycle name.
  3. Died 1911, tenth lunar month. The day is torn away, so we flag it and say what we can see.
  4. Wife, née Chen (Tan). Older charts often record women by maiden surname only.
  5. Two sons, Dexin and Demao. They share 德, the generation character for their line.

What you get back

A family tree both generations can read

This sample is a made-up Lin family from Quanzhou. Tap a person to open their card. Entries marked CHECK are ones we couldn't read with confidence.

Sample · fictional family

Lin Wenhuan (1848–1911) and five generations of descendants load here.

  • A private tree pageWorks on phones. You share it by link with the relatives you choose.
  • A print-ready PDFSized for a wall poster or for the reunion binder.
  • Your data filesCSV for spreadsheets and GEDCOM for Ancestry, MyHeritage, and FamilySearch.
  • A list of open questionsEvery flagged entry in one place, ready to ask an elder about.

How it works

Four steps, about two weeks

  1. Send photos

    A phone photo of each page is enough. Handwritten or printed, traditional or simplified, vertical or horizontal.

  2. We read and translate

    Each person gets their Chinese name, pinyin, and the spelling your family uses (Lim, Lam, Ng, Wong). Reign-year and lunar dates are converted. AI tools do the first pass and a person checks every entry against your photos.

  3. You review a draft

    Anything uncertain is flagged with a note on what we see. You or an elder confirm, and we correct it. Two rounds of corrections are included.

  4. You get your tree

    The tree page, the PDF, and your data files. They are yours to keep and to host anywhere.

Pricing

One price per project, paid once

No subscription. Checkout is handled by Stripe, and we never see your card number.

One Page

A single page, tablet, or gravestone photo

$49

  • Up to 25 names from one photo
  • Typed Chinese, pinyin, and English
  • Old-calendar dates converted
  • PDF and spreadsheet in 3 business days
Order One Page

Most families start here

Family Tree

One chart or book section, up to 150 people

$249

  • Everything in One Page, for the whole chart
  • Bilingual tree page to share by link
  • Print-ready PDF, CSV, and GEDCOM
  • Two rounds of corrections
  • Delivered in 10 business days
Order Family Tree

Heritage

Several documents, up to 400 people

$549

  • Everything in Family Tree
  • Prefaces, biographies, or a eulogy translated, up to 3,000 characters
  • Your generation poem explained
  • A written summary of the family's migration story
  • Delivered in 15 business days
Order Heritage

After you pay, we email you within one business day with a private upload link for your photos. If your chart turns out to be bigger than the plan you chose, we tell you before doing any work and you can upgrade or get a refund.

Promises

How we handle your family's history

Flagged, never guessed
If a character is smudged or could be read two ways, we mark it and tell you what we see. We don't fill gaps with something plausible.
Private by default
Your tree page is unlisted. We don't publish, sell, or share your family's information, and your files are used only to complete your order.
Living relatives are your call
We show living people only the way you ask, and can leave them off the shared page entirely.
Yours to keep
You receive every file. Nothing is locked into our site or a subscription.
Deleted when you ask
Tell us and we delete your photos and data within 7 days.
Clear about our limits
We read and translate what you send. We don't search archives in China or verify what the chart claims. If you need that research, we'll point you to specialists.

Questions

Before you order

My chart is handwritten and faded. Can you still read it?

Usually, yes. Take photos in daylight, straight on, one page per photo. If a page is too damaged to read reliably we tell you before starting, and you can send a better photo or get a refund.

Our family uses Cantonese, Hokkien, Teochew, or Hakka spellings. Will the names match?

Tell us the spellings your family uses, such as Lim for 林 or Ng for 吳, and we use them next to the pinyin. Where we don't know a relative's own spelling we show pinyin only and ask you.

Do you use AI?

Yes, for the first transcription and translation pass. A person then checks every entry against your photos, and anything doubtful is flagged for you. You always get the reading and the original characters side by side so a relative can verify them.

The chart only lists sons. Can we add daughters and wives?

Yes. Send what your family knows and we add them, marked as added by the family so the original record stays distinguishable.

What is a generation poem?

Many families chose a poem in advance, and each generation takes the next character from it as part of their given name. It is why cousins share a character. If your chart has one, we show it across the top of your tree.

Can you find ancestors who aren't on our chart?

No. We work from the documents you send. For village visits and archive research in China, firms like My China Roots do that work.

What if I'm not happy with the result?

Ask for a refund within 14 days of delivery and you get the full amount back. You keep nothing you don't want, and we delete your files.

We built this for our own family first

Jiapu Studio is a small family studio in California. Our relatives passed around a chart covering twelve generations, starting with an ancestor born in 1719, and most of the younger generation couldn't read it. We built tools to turn it into something everyone could use at the reunion. Now we do the same for other families.