Features

Member Management

  • Members can be listed, filtered by first and last name and sorted

    members

  • Site admin or any member (depending on settings) can invite other members by email

    invite

  • Anyone can request an invitation which will be emailed to the site admin who can then invite them. Invitation requests are protected by a captcha.

    request-invite

  • Members can create "managed" members, i.e. members who are not active on the site (e.g. for small children or elderly people)

  • Managed members can be activated by their managing members (e.g. when a child is old enough to be active on the site).
  • Members can be imported in bulk via CSV files
  • Members can update their own profile and the profile of the members they manage

  • Members can be marked as deceased with a death date (useful for genealogy and family history)

    profile

  • A directory of members can be printed in PDF format

    directory

  • Birthdays in the next 50 days can be displayed (50 can be changed in settings)

    birthdays

Authentication

  • Standard email/password authentication
  • OAuth/SSO authentication with multiple providers:
    • Google
    • Facebook
    • Apple
    • GitHub
    • PocketID (self-hosted OpenID Connect)
    • Any OpenID Connect compatible provider
  • See OAuth Authentication for detailed configuration

Security & Login History

  • All login attempts are automatically tracked with IP geolocation
  • Login history is stored for security auditing (visible to site administrators in Django admin)
  • Automatic purge of old login records after a configurable retention period
  • Helps administrators detect unauthorized access attempts

Followers & Notifications

  • Members can follow other members to be notified of their activities
  • Members can follow chat rooms, forums, galleries, and other content
  • Automatic email notifications when followed content is updated
  • Configurable notification frequency per member:
    • Immediate - Receive notifications as soon as events occur
    • Hourly - Receive a summary of events every hour
    • Daily - Receive a daily digest of events
    • Weekly - Receive a weekly summary
    • Monthly - Receive a monthly summary
    • Never - Disable notifications completely
  • Each member can configure their preferred notification frequency in their profile settings
  • Notification batching reduces email overload while keeping members informed

Galleries

  • All active members can create galleries and add photos and videos to them
  • Galleries can have sub galleries of any depth
  • Photos and videos can be imported in bulk using zip files. Each folder in the zip file becomes a gallery. Updates are managed
  • Gallery photo display is paginated
  • Photos and videos can be displayed in fullscreen mode and as a slideshow with a configurable delay

Forum

  • Active members can create posts
  • Active members can reply to other members' posts or add simple comments

Chat

  • Connected members can chat in live mode with other connected members
  • Cousins Matter manages as many chat rooms as requested
  • Members can create private chat rooms and select the members who can participate in these rooms. The creator of the room becomes admin in this room and can add other members and elect admins in these members. Admins can invite other members and other admins

Pages / CMS

Basic CMS features: admins can create static HTML pages and publish them on the site. The home page can also be configured this way as well as the privcay policy, the about pages... Public pages (those which are shown from the Pages menu even if you are not logged in) can be created and published by any admin member. Their URL must start with '/publish/' Private pages (those which are shown from the Pages menu only if you are logged in) can be created and published by any admin member. Their URL must start with '/private/' Admin messages are a specific kind of page which is displayed to all connected members at the top of the site. Their URL must start with '/admin-message/' Other default specific pages can be modified by any admin member. They are displayed from the admin menu under "Edit pages" and they show respectively the home page when youre not connected (/home/unauthenticated/\), when you're connected (/home/authenticated/\), the privacy policy (/about/privacy-policy/\).

Troves

This is a place where you can put the focus on numeric family treasures, be it texts, music, videos

Polls

Any active member can create a poll and any active member can answer an active poll. Polls have publication and closure dates. They can contains multiple questions and questions can be either

  • simple yes/no questions: tick the check box
  • open text: enter whatever rich text you want
  • date: pick a date
  • choices: pick a choice in a list

Event planning

As a sub module of the Poll module, any active member can create an event planning survey to define when an avent should take place. This adds to the Poll module the following kinds of choices:

  • choose one date in a provided list
  • choose several dates in a provided list

Classified ads

Any active member can publish a classified ad that can be seen by all other members. If a memeber is interested in an ad, s.he can send a message to the ad publisher who will receive an email.

Genealogy

Any active member can add people to the genealogy of the site. You can add people to the genealogy by typing their data in forms or by importing a GEDCOM file. You can export the genealogy in GEDCOM format. The genealogy can be displayed as a dynamic tree or as a lists of persons or families.