Evidence Toolbox
Evidence Toolbox exists to fill gaps we’ve encountered firsthand across the full arc of genealogical research — gaps that established tools and platforms consistently leave open. We build practical, free tools that help genealogists work more productively, accurately, and completely across three categories: search, documentation, and analysis.
Our Focus
- Search — Expand what’s possible with public databases and revive digital collections that have become difficult or impractical to search effectively.
- Documentation — Reduce friction at every step: capture findings as you work, refine your notes, and produce clear, consistent outputs you can carry across your entire research process.
- Analysis — Enrich traditional methods with analytics and visualization, with particular depth in FAN club research: mapping the Friends, Associates, and Neighbors who appear across records to surface patterns and connections that direct evidence alone can miss.
Who Builds This
Evidence Toolbox is built by Glenside Digital LLC, an independent studio in Glenside, Pennsylvania, and is the work of Nathan, an avocational genealogist and researcher. His research practice is grounded in the Genealogical Proof Standard and the documentation norms of the Board for Certification of Genealogists, with primary-source research conducted at major repositories including the Library of Congress. His current work includes a journal-standard proof argument on a long-standing maternal-identity problem in his own family lines — the kind of research problem these tools were built to serve.
By profession, Nathan is a senior scientist in a highly regulated industry, where precision, documentation discipline, and evidence evaluation are daily requirements. Those habits shape every tool on this site.
How Tools Are Built and Tested
Every tool begins as a solution to a problem in our own research. Before release, each one goes through structured field testing against real family lines — real surnames, real localities, real record gaps — and the results drive iteration. Tool behavior is documented in a living specification, and significant design decisions are recorded so behavior stays predictable across versions.
Two principles govern the design of everything here:
- Honest results. A tool must never return a silently incomplete answer. If a search partially fails, times out, or covers a source with known gaps, the tool says so. In genealogy, a false “no results” is worse than an error message — it can send a researcher down years of wrong turns.
- Your data stays yours. No accounts, no logins, no stored inputs. Tool inputs are processed in real time; session data, where a tool offers it, lives in your own browser.
Independence and Funding
Evidence Toolbox is free and independently operated. It is supported by voluntary Ko-Fi contributions and limited advertising, which together cover hosting and continued development. We are not affiliated with any genealogical organization nor any records platform our tools may search; all results link back to original sources so you can evaluate the evidence yourself.
Support on Ko-FiGet In Touch
Questions, bug reports, and ideas for new tools are genuinely welcome — several items on our development roadmap came from user suggestions. Reach us at contact@evidencetoolbox.com or via the contact page.