Bricks
Bricks is a genealogy assistant. You give it your family tree and point it at the ancestor you cannot get past — the brick wall — and it works out what records might exist for that person, where those records are actually kept, and what to try next. It writes you a plan in plain English, one step at a time.
What it does
- Reads a RootsMagic or Legacy Family Tree file directly, or the GEDCOM file that almost every other genealogy program can save.
- Builds a timeline of everything known about the person, and points out what is missing or contradicts itself.
- Works out which archives, registries and record sets covered that place at that time — anywhere in the world, not just North America.
- Gives you a numbered research plan: one record, one place, one repository per step, with the link to go and look, and what to do whether you find it or not.
- Keeps your family tree on your own computer. It is never uploaded anywhere.
How it uses AI
Bricks uses AI to do the reasoning a professional genealogist would do: read the timeline, work out what is missing, and propose where the answer is likely to be recorded. That is what makes it different from a search box.
AI also invents things — a record reference that sounds right, an archive that does not hold what it claims, a place mistaken for another with a similar name. Most of the work in Bricks has gone into narrowing that down:
- It is given the real answers up front. Curated tables of actual archives and their web addresses, which records survive for a place and from what year, and which jurisdictions lost their records to fire — so it is looking things up rather than recalling them.
- A second AI reviews the first. Every idea is peer-reviewed by a separate skeptical pass that downgrades or throws out what the evidence does not support, and says so in the report.
- Automatic checks run afterward, every time. Fixed rules — not more AI — flag invented-looking manuscript citations, point out a repository that is not recognized, and spot research aimed at the wrong archive for that area.
- Every link is tested before the plan reaches you.
- It shows its uncertainty rather than hiding it: anything the checks are unsure about is marked in the report for you to confirm.
Why not just ask ChatGPT or Claude? A chat window knows only what you paste into it, answers from memory, and judges its own ideas. Bricks reads the person straight from your family file, looks things up in real reference tables, has a separate AI argue against every idea, and checks the result with fixed rules afterward.
How the research works — the team of AI specialists behind every analysis.
None of this makes it infallible, and we will not pretend otherwise. What Bricks gives you is a set of well-reasoned places to look — a research plan, not proof, and not a finished family tree. Look at the actual record with your own eyes before you add anything. Used that way it is very good at noticing what is missing and at suggesting the record set you had not thought of.
See a real report
Read the report Bricks wrote for Thomas Milhous, born in Carrickfergus, Ireland in 1699, whose parents nobody has named. It is shown as the program wrote it, for a person in the free sample family file you can download and try yourself. The page also has both reports Bricks gives you as PDFs, the 3-page summary and the 39-page full report with its charts, and explains the difference.
Get it
Get Bricks from the Microsoft Store
For Windows 10 and 11. It installs in a click, needs no administrator password, and keeps itself up to date from then on.
Already installed Bricks from this page? You do not have to do anything — it keeps working. If you would rather move to the Store version, uninstall the old one first (Settings → Apps → Bricks), or you will end up with two copies. Your family trees and reports are kept either way.
There is no Apple/Mac version yet. If you use a Mac, email luc@mudcreeksoftware.com and we'll let you know when one is ready.
Getting started
- Click the button above and choose Get (or Install) in the Microsoft Store. It takes a few seconds.
- Open Bricks and load your family tree. You can look around your tree right away — no account needed for that part.
- When you ask it to work on a brick wall for the first time, it asks for your name and email and sends you your own account code. Type that in once and you are set.
What it costs
You start free. A new account comes with one free piece of research — a Thorough analysis, the same careful work a paying customer gets — so you can see whether it helps you before paying anything. No card is asked for. After that you can buy credits whenever you want them, or choose a plan:
| Plan | Price | Credits each month |
|---|---|---|
| Free | — | One free analysis to start with |
| Starter | $4.99 / month, or $49 / year | 45 |
| Standard | $12 / month | 120 |
| Premium | $30 / month | 320 |
A brick-wall analysis costs between 2 and 40 credits depending on how thoroughly you ask it to look, and the app always shows you the cost before you commit to it. Plans renew monthly (yearly, if you pay for Starter by the year) and you can cancel any time; if you do, the credits you already have stay yours and your saved reports stay on your computer.
Questions
Email luc@mudcreeksoftware.com — a real person reads it.