Preserving the Legacy, Expanding the Vision
MartialLineage.org is a community-driven platform dedicated to the preservation of martial arts for all mankind - documenting lineages across all styles and systems worldwide.
For years, the Family Tree at Kenponet.com served as an invaluable resource for the Kempo community. It documented instructor-student relationships, tracked the evolution of styles, and helped practitioners understand where they came from. The site carried this honest disclaimer:
"It can't even be called a Family Tree of Kenpo as students have gone on to develop their own styles and systems. This tree consists of people who have reached the level of black belt with an instructor or been promoted to a subsequent degree of black belt. Each page gives an instructor's list of black belts. If those black belt students have promoted others to the level of black belt, you will find a page for their branch on the tree. In addition, there is a list of which instructors that black belt student is a member of, each linking back to their own branch of the tree."
"There will undoubtedly be problems that arise and questions regarding the lineages. I am not saying these are correct. I am saying this is what I have found, read, and been given. As time goes on, hopefully we can clear up problems and sort out questions just like any historian does."
That resource appears to no longer be actively maintained. While the domain has been reregistered, many pages return errors, and much of the historical content has become difficult to access.
We hope Kenponet returns to its former glory. In the meantime, MartialLineage.org was created to ensure that a platform exists where practitioners can preserve their lineages - so that the work of documenting our martial arts heritage doesn't depend on any single site remaining online.
We are not here to replace Kenponet or compete with anyone. We are here to:
Whether you practice Kempo, Karate, Taekwondo, Judo, Kung Fu, Kali, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, or any other art, this platform is for you. Your lineage matters. Your teachers matter. Your place in the history of martial arts matters.
Community-Driven: Anyone can document their own lineage. You don't have to wait for an administrator to add you.
Verification System: Multiple levels of verification help establish trust - self-verified practitioners, peer-verified connections, and admin-verified lineages backed by documentation.
Connected Trees: When practitioners share common instructors, their trees can link together, building a broader picture of how styles and systems evolved and spread.
All Arts Welcome: From traditional to modern, Eastern to Western, striking to grappling - if you have a lineage, you have a home here.
Running a platform like this isn't free. Domains, hosting, storage, and development all have costs. To keep MartialLineage.org sustainable for the long haul, we have a simple membership structure:
Get started and build a meaningful tree:
Free accounts are genuinely free - no trial, no credit card, no expiration. We just ask that you log in at least once every 6 months to keep your tree data active (details below).
Everything you need to document your lineage:
For instructors managing a school:
For associations and federations:
Each tier is inclusive - higher tiers include everything below them. We intentionally keep costs low so that membership is accessible to practitioners worldwide. This isn't about making money - it's about making sure this resource stays online and maintained for years to come.
Free accounts can create meaningful lineage trees - enough to document your direct lineage through 4 generations with up to 20 practitioners. That's plenty to capture your instructor, their instructor, and so on back through the chain.
We cap free trees at 4 generations of depth and 20 total practitioners to keep storage and resource costs manageable across all free accounts. If you need to document a larger tree - more branches, more depth, more practitioners - upgrading to Individual membership is just $1/year.
Your free account is free, forever. We will never charge you for it or expire it. However, we do ask that you log in at least once every 6 months to keep your lineage tree data active.
Why? Hosting lineage data costs real resources - storage, backups, database capacity. We're happy to provide that for free to active members of the community. But if an account goes unused for a long time, we can't justify storing that data indefinitely at our expense. A simple login every 6 months lets us know you still care about your tree, and we're glad to keep it safe for you.
If you don't log in within 6 months, we'll send you reminders before taking any action. After the grace period, inactive free trees are soft-deleted - but we hold them for 30 days in case you come back. If you do log in during that window, your tree is restored immediately.
For practitioners who have passed away, we have the ability to permanently preserve their account and lineage data at no charge. If a practitioner's account holder is deceased, someone simply needs to contact us and let us know. We'll cement the account so the lineage information is preserved indefinitely as part of the historical record - no login requirements, no maintenance, no fees.
This is part of our core mission: preserving martial arts heritage for all mankind. Some lineages are too important to lose.
Like the Kenponet administrators before us, we acknowledge that lineage documentation is imperfect. Memories fade. Records get lost. Stories change in the telling. People disagree.
We are not claiming that everything on this platform is correct. We are providing tools for practitioners to document what they know, verify what they can, and connect with others who may have pieces of the puzzle.
As time goes on, we hope to clear up problems and sort out questions - just like any historian does.
To the creators and contributors of Kenponet's Family Tree: thank you. Your work inspired this project and demonstrated the value of preserving our martial arts heritage. If Kenponet returns to full operation, we'll celebrate that - the more resources preserving lineage information, the better.
To everyone who contributed their lineage information to Kenponet over the years: your data matters. If you'd like to establish your branch on MartialLineage.org as well, we welcome you.
Every practitioner has a story. Every instructor passed something down. Every student carries the art forward.
Document your lineage. Connect with your martial arts family. Help preserve the history of the arts we love.
MartialLineage.org - Where Every Lineage Finds Its Place