I was reading some of the Twitter entries I received from my friends when I ran across an entry from Jeremiah Owyang.  I enjoy reading his blog and he always comes up with some really cool links.  He said I should check out a new application for genealogy enthusiasts called Geni.com.  We talk so much here about how social media and social networks can help a business, we rarely speak about how it all can help a family become closer or how it can educate a person on their everyday life.

I have a huge mountain of notes about my family and my wife’s family that has been collecting dust in my office, so I decided I would give it a try.  I opened the app, and in no time I was adding names and information to our family tree.  14 hours later, I was beginning to see more John’s and Mary’s in our tree, and I may have married some that were not previously married and gave children to those that didn’t have any previous to my addition.  I looked up and I had added 579 profiles of people with birth dates, dates of death and other random information.  I discovered I had some really cool tidbits and other information that I am able to share with the rest of the family.  My wife’s tree actually goes back to the late 1600’s in Talbot County, Maryland.

Now comes the social networking part of the application.  Every time I add a profile, it gives me the ability to invite that person via email to join the network.  Now I know that most of the people I entered either are deceased or would not have a clue how to answer email, but for a number of family members, I was able to send them an invite to join in and begin their own branches of that family tree.  My Aunt was able to fill in some details and my brother’s wife was able to start her own branch and came up with a number of names herself.  This is acts like a quasi-wiki in that other family members can add information and tidbits about relatives from stories and information about our family history.

It also allows us to download pictures of family members and adds those to the profile page of every person entered.  Granted I may not have a picture of that sea Captain from Norway in 1895, but I do have a picture I can scan of my Great-Great Grandmother, that somehow made it into a copier and was sent around 15 years ago.  Technology is allowing us to share and do so much more online, and now I can share that information with family I have never met and have never before seen.  If they have an email and want to join in the family network, it will really bring us together.