Geni.com Helps You Keep In Touch With Family… No Matter Where They Live

Posted on 22 December 2009 by


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I come from a relatively small family…

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…but I married into a far larger family (and they all stay in touch)!

(It is so large, in fact, that two of my aunt-in-laws walked into a funeral I was officiating a few hours ago.) It’s hard to keep everyone straight. Fortunately somewhere along the line someone in the family signed us up for a service called Geni. Usually I don’t sign up for things like this but I did and I am glad I did. Why? Because it pings me with important dates, reminds me when someone has a birthday and generally keeps me in the loop.

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So, while I would not have forgotten it, it is nice that Geni reminded me that my brother-in-law turns 35 today! And it got me thinking, and now writing, about the service.

In a sense Geni it is like a closed Facebook system for just the extended family. It lets me know when there is a birthday or an anniversary taking place. It shows a family tree, lets people reach out to one another, let’s the family add a variety of events to a shared calendar and, in general, helps people stay connected.

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One of the nicest aspects of the service is that it gives you a clean, easily to follow calendar of events. It lets you share video and pictures, send greetings and look at a family timeline.

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It even gives you family statistics like… life expectancy (eek… just 61 as the average age?? Maybe there are some things you don’t want to know…).

The service offers both free and pro versions. The free one is rather full featured but the pro version removes add and adds a host of features.

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If you have family :) Geni.com is worth checking out. (Oh, and Rob, happy 35th brother.)

This post was written by:

- who has written 2793 posts on Gear Diary.

Having a father who was heavily involved in early laser and fiber-optical research, Dan grew up surrounded by technology and gadgets. Dan’s father brought home one of the very first video games when he was young and Dan remembers seeing a “pre-release” touchtone phone. (When he asked his father what the “#” and “*” buttons were his dad said, “Some day, far in the future, we’ll have some use for them.”) Technology seemed to be in Dan’s blood but at some point he took a different path and ended up in the clergy. His passion for technology and gadgets never left him. +Dan Cohen

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  • http://www.geardiary.com Judie Lipsett

    OK – I love genealogy, and I am all over this!! Thank you! :-) )

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  • wizbang99

    this website uses deceptive practice to get you to enter information. They then attempt to wrest control of the information from you. if you complain as i did, they suspend your account, and then use your own account to delete the complaints you made, thus giving the appearance you yourself deleted them, as if they were resolved. They then refuse to return or delete any information you have added such as personal family photos, and documents, and give your account to one of their stooges who now controls not only all the branches of the tree you may have laboriously added, but also your private and personal information. beware of this outift! I received a request to merge, complained about its deceptive nature, one day later exactly not only had my account suspended as retaliation for complaining, but my account is now being used by someone i dont know to manage private family material. These people are the worst sort, avoid them at all costs and by all means google them before you join.