Inspiration
I've always been interested in seeing if people I know were related to me and how they were related. All humans are related in some way or another. Exactly how closely are we related? My project seeks to shed light on this question.
What it does
Long Lost Relatives uses a person's DNA relative matches from 23andMe's API and adds them to FamilySearch's shared family tree service. My website will show a person's distant relatives.
How I built it
I built this as a React JavaScript project. It uses libraries from both 23andMe and FamilySearch for authentication. I have an EC2 instance hosting my website using Apache2 and a node server authenticating 23andMe requests. I used dabeng's org chart library for the visually appealing Javascript organization chart.
Challenges I ran into
This was my first React project. I have only a little experience with making websites so learning how to use React was a big challenge. Authenticating a user through two APIs took a long time to figure out because OAuth2 tends to be a challenge to setup!
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
I'm proud I was able to create a functional prototype in the available time. In addition, it was great to learn a myriad of new tools and techniques through this project.
What I learned
It was important for me to remember that even if I felt discouraged with time constraints, it's better to try than not try at all. My perseverance gave me the confidence to continue.
What's next for Long Lost Relatives
I'll update the user interface and add more features such as the ability to remove people from the tree. After that, I would add more security features and a preview of what might happen to your tree if you were to add a DNA relative.
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