Geni.com - Everyone's Related

Want to get in touch with a relative? Want to know how big you family tree really is? Geni.com will help you with these and more. The site provides the opportunity of starting your own family tree from scratch; you can either do it by yourself, or invite family members by email, and allowing them to add relatives to the tree. By allowing everyone to add and edit relatives’ profiles, the tree can become huge, maybe even letting you know you’ve got a blood link with someone you didn’t even knew of. All you need to do in order to start building you family tree is to upload your name and email address and you are ready to go. Along the way, as other relatives receive their email invitation (if you wish to send them one) your tree will begin to take shape and have more accurate profiles. The service offered by Geni is completely free, and there’s no real registration required, you can input just the information you wish, there’s no compulsory information. In order to use this service there’s no software or program needed to be downloaded, you just enter their site and you are able to start your tree.

“Geni is a tool for understanding and staying in touch with your family. Geni lets you create a family tree through our fun simple interface. You can expand your tree by adding relatives' email addresses. They will be invited to join your tree and can add other relatives. Your tree will continue to grow as relatives invite other relatives. Each family member has a profile which can be viewed by clicking their name in the tree. This helps family members learn more about each other and stay in touch. Family members can also share photos and work together to build profiles for common ancestors.”

The service provided by Geni has a double function; you can use it just to know how your family tree looks like, or rather just for keeping in touch with relatives, or both. The site is really easy to use, there’s not much explanation needed for how to use the service, but nevertheless, Geni has an extensive Q&A page which will clear any doubt you might have. The site could attract a big market, due to the usefulness of the service, and also due to the fact that this service is completely free.

What makes Geni stand out between his, although not many, competitors? Couldn’t they offer a service which helps reassure the users that the info which has been uploaded? How much can a users use this service before getting bored? Couldn’t something be added to make it more fun?