Geni - free internet based tool

[geoff3]

Hi,
anybody using Geni ?
I've been using it for 2-3 months now and I am quite pleased with it.
It is free and does not depend on PC operating systems (I use Linux),
is is shareable which is handy as I live in France and the rest of my family live in the UK, they can see my updates (receive a mail) and can update it from their side too.
It generates GEDCOM
Geoff

[christanel]

Hi Geoff
I looked at Geni and it looks an interesting concept but the home page is not very informative. It appears that one has to actually start one's tree to become a member. Is that correct?
So when I start my tree and add my parents' names does this then allow me to generate a user name and password? Also can I import my full tree from another gedcom file or do I have to enter each person individually. I can't imagine that I would have to but as I say I don't seem to be able to get much info from the home page ( I am easily confused).
Thanks for your thoughts on this.
Christina

[Peter_uk_can]

I also had a look at it. It may have its uses but is not a genealogy program as such. Reminds me a little of facebook, but seeing that me and facebook are not the best of friends, I will admit to being biased against Geni.

Somewhere along the line someone is making money out of hits to the Geni site.

[geoff3]

Geni is basically a program to create your family tree, you open a free account and start, it is extremely easy, but it doesn't help researching your ancesters or give access to any BMD or Census databases. It's strong point is the fact that as soon as you add the e-mail address to a member of your tree, that member has access to the tree and can update it from their PC.

I imagine Geni is making money out of hits to it's site but so is Google, Yahoo and the rest of them.