On Geni, Family Trees, & Distant Cousins

It occurred to me that I had an old Geni account that maybe I could use to figure it out. If you're not familiar with Geni, it's a very cool online family tree maker. You start the tree with yourself and work your way out from there. Each leaf can be invited to the tree where they can complete their own profile and fill in or add other information.

So I fired it up and worked my way through a nearly impossible to follow word doc with my family history and somehow we got all linked together.

A side effect of that however was that while I was there, I also filled in some other info. I uploaded some pictures, added some birthdays, and invited some family to to the tree. And folks started to visit. People started to add in their own families and fill in some of the blanks. It seemed that people were really enjoying it. I thought that perhaps Geni could do what I had tried to do with our family site.

I kept adding pictures and have even found a descendant of my Great Great Grandfather's brother. We've merged the tree to add a huge new branch. This branch is growing exponentially as that whole side of the family has latched on to the idea zealously - new folks are joining nearly every day.

And yet my side of the tree is seemingly dying. No one adds new family members or photos. People occasionally visit but it has lost all of its interactivity. I think if it were possible for leaves to fall off, they would. It is the family site all over again, enthusiasm at first followed by apathy.

I guess I should just acknowledge that maybe my family just isn't "online inclined" and give up, but I think that it's such a great opportunity for us to capture our history and traditions, and to stay in communication despite some long distances.

I try not to be sad about it, and I don't mean to guilt the couple of my family members who read here, it's just a story to tell.

A story about my family, perhaps I'll also post it on Geni.

SB