Geni.com is a great way to build your family tree collaboratively with other family members. Since both Geni.com and Family.Show support the Gedcom 5.5 format, we can easily take the family trees built on Geni.com and display it in Family.Show. This post will show you how.
Here's How
- Build your family tree with Geni.com, get other family members to help
- Use the Geni.com export feature and download your family Gedcom file.
- Goto the GEDCOM export wiki.
- Click on Gedcom 5.5, the gedcom file will be sent to your email in a zip file.
- Expand the zip file
- Run Family.Show
- Click on "Import..." on the Welcome Screen
- Browse to the expanded zip folder and select "export-geni.ged" file.
- Click open and voila
Why would you want to import to Family.Show?
Find out additional information about your family
With the family statistics feature of Family.Show, you can gain new insight about your family that you can't get with on Geni.com.
For example, take a look at the last names Tag Cloud for the House of Black from Harry Potter. I can quickly glimpse that ere are a few Burkes, Crouch, and Longbottom in the tree. I didn't know that the Black family also have a Weasley and a Potter as in-laws in there tree! If the tree also included the Potters and Weaslys, we could've probably browsed the tree until we reached Harry or Ron.
The Age Distribution is another high level report that can be useful. You can quickly find the age range for the living members of a particular family.
Different visualization of the family tree
Geni.com is great for it's viral/social way of building family trees. It however presents family trees in a standard flat view. Family.Show takes a different approach in visualizing the family tree. The tree shape and size changes based on the selected person in the tree. Viewing a tree from your grandfather's perspective is very different from viewing it from your perspective. In a way, you're navigating the family tree instead of simply viewing it. Try clicking around the provided sample trees to test it out.
Bellatrix Black's Tree
Here is the same tree from Cygnus Black's perspective
A different way to view a person.
With the Photo and Stories feature, Family.Show provide a different perspective on a person.
