Family Accounts & Contributions
Invite relatives without opening the archive to everyone.
JFA is designed for controlled family access. Create accounts for the relatives you choose and let them contribute material through a review workflow while you remain in control of the archive.
A private archive is not public registration
JFA does not need to operate like a public social network. Family accounts can be created deliberately for the people who should have access rather than allowing anyone on the internet to create an account.
This keeps the archive understandable: you know who has access, and relatives do not need to navigate a public registration or membership system before they can participate.
Create family accounts intentionally.
For a private family archive, leave ordinary WordPress public registration disabled unless you have a separate reason to enable it.
Creating an account for a relative
Family accounts are created from the JFA administration interface. The administrator chooses the account and can provide the relative with their login details directly.
1
Open the user administration
In Family Archive administration, open the area for managing family access and accounts.
2
Create the account
Choose a username and create a password for the relative. JFA can also help generate a readable password when useful.
3
Share the login details privately
Give the credentials to the intended relative using a suitable private channel rather than publishing them or sending them to a group.
4
Let the relative sign in
The family member can now use the archive with the access granted to their account.
The password is not the archive identity.
A person represented in the family tree and a WordPress login account are different things. A relative can appear in the genealogy without needing an account, and an account is simply the means by which someone signs in to the site.
Not everyone needs administrator access
Relatives who only need to view the archive or contribute material should not receive full WordPress administrator privileges.
Administrator access is powerful: it can affect WordPress, plugins, users and site configuration. Reserve it for the people who actually maintain the installation.
Family access
Relatives
Read the archive and use the family-facing functions their account is allowed to access.
Contribution
Contributors
Provide photographs, documents or other family material through the contribution workflow without directly taking over archive administration.
Administration
Maintainers
Review contributions and manage the archive, users and relevant JFA configuration.
Contributions from relatives
One of the most useful things about a family archive is that knowledge is distributed. One relative may have the photograph, another may recognize the people, and someone else may know the story behind it.
JFA therefore includes a contribution and review workflow. A relative can provide material without that contribution automatically becoming part of the curated archive.
Relative contributes material
↓
Contribution enters review
↓
Maintainer checks the material
↓
Accepted material becomes part of the archive
Why review contributions?
Review is not about distrusting relatives. It gives the archive maintainer an opportunity to keep the collection coherent and protect against accidental mistakes.
IDENTITY
Check the people
Confirm that proposed names and person connections refer to the correct people.
CONTEXT
Check descriptions
Review dates, places, descriptions and other contextual information before treating them as archive metadata.
PRIVACY
Check the material
Consider whether the file is appropriate for the archive and whether its privacy or rights information needs special attention.
A contribution can be valuable even when some details are uncertain.
If a relative knows that a photograph was taken at a family gathering but cannot identify every person or exact year, preserve what is known and leave uncertain details uncertain rather than inventing precision.
A good contribution includes context
The file itself is only part of the contribution. Encourage relatives to include whatever they genuinely know about the material.
- Who is pictured or otherwise connected to the material?
- What is happening?
- When was it created or photographed?
- Where was it created?
- Who originally owned, created or shared it?
- Is any information uncertain?
Account security
A private archive is only as private as the accounts that can enter it. Treat family accounts as real access credentials even when the site is used only by people who know one another.
- Give every person their own account instead of sharing one family-wide login.
- Use unique passwords that are not reused on other services.
- Remove or disable access that is no longer needed.
- Do not give administrator rights simply because someone is a trusted relative.
- Keep WordPress and JFA updated.
One account per person makes the archive easier to manage.
If access later needs to change, an individual account can be updated without changing the login details for every other relative.
A practical family workflow
1
Build a useful archive first
Add enough people and material that relatives can understand what the archive is for when they first sign in.
2
Invite a small group
Start with a few relatives and learn what is clear or confusing before opening access more widely within the family.
3
Ask for corrections and missing context
Relatives may recognize people, places and stories that the archive maintainer could never identify alone.
4
Review contributed material
Check the files and metadata before incorporating them into the curated archive.
5
Keep improving together
A family archive can grow gradually as knowledge and material emerge rather than being considered finished after the first import.
Appearance & Branding →
Choose how the family archive presents itself and use JFA design profiles as a starting point.