What did your great-grandparents do? Where do they come from? Once you start a family tree, it quickly becomes an addiction. With the online program Geni you deploy your current family members and in this way a collective project is created, in which you even get statistical information such as the average life expectancy within the family!
Tip 01: Family project
Drawing up a family tree of your family is a job that will take you a while. By definition, a family tree is never finished. That's why it's best to choose a program that won't get you into a dead end because the project gets too big or because you can't export the info to other family tree software over time. Also read: Become a ghost on the internet.
We chose Geni because it is a web application that you can use on any computer without installing any software. That is interesting because the intention is to get your brothers, cousins and nieces warm about the family history, so that they also take care of some 'branches'. Register at www.geni.com by entering your gender, name, surname and email address. Moments later, you will receive a provisional password that you can then change into an easier one to remember.
Distant cousin and niece
Still great when you discover that you are a distant cousin of some historical figure! Geni also has its own tools for research in historical sources. For this, the program can consult the info in 150 million profiles, and that sometimes produces ironic results. Geni discovered that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have blood ties. The family tree expert shows that the family history of Donald and Hilary comes together 18 generations ago with the first Duke of Lancaster John of Gaunt (Jan van Gent) who was married to Katherine Swynford.
Tip 02: Settings
At the bottom of the family tree page are two interesting buttons. By default, the language is set to English, make working a bit easier by clicking here English to select. There is also the blue button Institutions. That does not refer to the preferences of the program, but to the layout of the family tree. In Settings you make sure that everything appears on the screen even more clearly. Here you determine the maximum number of generations that can appear in one window. Or how many descendants you want to see. The rest will temporarily hide the program. You gain a lot of space by, for example, only showing the names in the family tree, or just the photos.
Tip 03: Construction
The program encourages you to immediately add as many members as possible to the family tree. Press the button Pedigree and use the arrows to add a new family member. The structure is very logical. With the horizontal arrows you indicate family members at the same level (brothers, sisters, husband, ex-partner). You use the down arrow to enter children, the up arrow to add parents. Fill in the details for each person on the personal file. For example, you must indicate whether the person is still alive or deceased. Geni builds the family tree based on that information. The relationships are indicated with lines, ex-relations get a dotted line.
Tip 04: Chips
To make quick progress, you can start building the family tree by simply entering the names. Afterwards it is still possible to supplement the detailed information in the file. This is not limited to a date of birth and place of residence, but also the profession and hobbies. In the name box of a family, click the button edit. This information is of course privacy sensitive. Therefore, you can enter data privately or publicly. In the first option, only you, the members of your family group and the Geni employees will be able to read the info.
Free or pro
We use the free version of Geni. This allows you to use all the functions that we discuss here. In the free version you can add an unlimited number of members to the family tree and you have 1 GB of storage space for additional documents. One year of Geni Pro costs 119.40 dollars (approx. 105 euros). In this formula, the program itself looks for similarities with other family trees. Geni will then check whether the data of the persons also appear in someone else's profile. In addition, you are allowed to store an unlimited amount of photos, videos and documents about your family. You can try the pro version for two weeks, but for that you have to enter your credit card information. So stop the trial subscription in time, otherwise you will automatically sign up for a year.
Tip 05: Over to family
A joking variant of 'Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today' is 'Never do today what you can leave to others tomorrow.' To enter all the information as correctly and as quickly as possible, involve family members. Make sure that the e-mail addresses of the family members you want to appeal to are filled in and click on the button To invite. Meanwhile, Geni also keeps a list of all profiles that you can invite to this group project. The recipient will automatically receive an e-mail with the link to the family tree. Initially, that message is written in English, but you can easily adjust the text. When the invitees confirm the account, they can participate in the family history building. You in turn will receive confirmation that the invitee has accepted the invitation.
Tip 06: Add photos
Of course, photos give the family tree more appearance. Do not use high-resolution photos for this, because they load much too slowly and take up too much storage space. In this case, we've cut the heads from larger photos and reduced them to 200 by 300 pixel photo files. That is enough for the online display. When a family member in turn adds photos, you'll read about it in the project's edit history. Through the menu Family pictures you will arrive at the page where you can also save ordinary family snapshots in albums. Keep it correct and ask permission from the relevant people to publish the photos.
