Geni.com - LinkedIn for your family

I have been using Geni.com since the beginning of February. It is a quite natural combination of genealogy and key components of the Web 2.0 buzzwords. Essentially it allows you to create an on line family tree and invite other to contribute from their viewpoint. I have spotted a few similiar sites, but Geni.com is the one I like the most so far. Even though there's a few features still on the wish list, the overall usability is quite good.

You might think of Geni.com as LinkedIn for your family, which might give the Swedish word "svågerpolitik" a new meaning...

The tree I started has now grown quite a bit, and have several contributors. Currently over 50 active users (of which I invited only a handful) and close to 1000 individuals in the total tree. And still counting.

Besides the fact that I now easily can refresh my memory of how the families of my and my wife's cousins looks like, I get an interesting overview of relatives I have never met, a few highlights can be mentioned so far:

• I invited two distant relatives to join the tree (we are related 8 generations back) .
• My colleauge Daniel also started with his tree at the same time. We recently found that there's a connection between our trees... I wouldn't call us related, but my brother-in-law is related to Daniel's sister-in-law ten generations back. So now we are eagerly awaiting a tree merge feature from Geni.com so we can join our trees.
• My brother and his wife announced their second pregnancy by adding the child-to-be to their branch of the tree. Then they sat back and waited for reactions...

So, all in all, try iy out - it's fascinating. Who knows, we might be related? (and if we're not you can always find me on LinkedIn (http://linkedin.com/in/myrberger))