I attended the TechCrunch/PopSugar party in Hollywood last week and was introduced to a new genealogy site called Geni.com. I love the idea of moving my family tree work off my laptop (what if it crashes and I lose everything?) and to an online, collaborative site. And since it's online, it's not dependent upon a particular operating system the way my Family Tree Maker software is. So that means my father, who works on a Mac, can add to it. Or if I'm visiting a relative and they suddenly mention a new family detail, I can borrow their computer to add it to the file.
Geni is still very much in beta with some features being a little tough to figure out or, as happened yesterday, the whole system was suddenly unavailable for a few hours. No matter, I like what I see and will probably do a small amount with it until I can upload my gedcom file from Family Tree Maker. That file is the result of years of effort building a family tree and adding loads of details from relatives, print records and research done online at Ancestry.com (where I pay an annual subscription.) Another new site I saw is itsourtree.com which adds a Google mapping feature to show where everyone was born. Cute.
I also got into Twitter a few weeks ago. I have to admit, I don't really get the whole Twitter phenomenon which I suspect is mostly among us techy folk. OK, so I can update large groups of people at once (and my Facebook site) using a web page or my cell phone? Hmm, and the immediate benefit of this is?? Narcissism? The jury is out on this one but if you want to "follow" me on Twitter, my id is marianmerritt. Not very creative but at least I can be found.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
Original posting date: Friday, April 18, 2008 | 12:00 PM |