I've never really got into exploring my family tree, although I don't have any great aversion to doing so either. I've just never really been bothered, it never managed to get me excited. I've always expected that it would get me excited sooner or later and I'd start exploring and building, but not yet.

One thing that does tend to get me pretty excited is discovering a new web app which is super slick, uses some great technology, and does something interesting and useful. Enter: Geni.

I discovered Geni today by accident and got so excited about it that I've already added 54 people to my tree (that's 40 blood relatives and 13 in-laws¹)². Geni has a very slick flash-based interface which makes adding new members to your family tree exceedingly easy. Navigation and visualisation of the tree is a breeze; if the tree starts to get too crowded sections are automatically separated out in a logical way, always retaining your immediate family and direct lineage. All the possible relationships you'd expect to exist do (including same sex relationships^{3 4}).

The depth of information that can be stored in each person's profile is vast, and useful^{privacy policy addresses quite satisfactorily for me.">5}.

The possibilities presented by Geni are huge. I can't wait to see how it evolves, and to see how my tree evolves.

1. It figures that out for you. [↩]
2. I'm about to send out invites to a bunch of you, so if I know your email address expect to get invited. [↩]
3. It even includes the ability to have two daddies or mummies, which is pretty cool. One thing it doesn't seem to support yet is more than two parents, which could be a bummer for all those adopted children out there. [↩]
4. I totally gave my sister a lesbian lover to test this situation out. [↩]
5. This obviously presents some privacy issues, which the simple and clear privacy policy addresses quite satisfactorily for me. [↩]