Geni is a New Free Genealogy Tracking Site

LOS ANGELES - A new genealogy tracking web site is born. Her name is Geni.

The proud father of Geni, a genealogy web site with a "six degrees of separation" mentality, is David O. Sacks, a former PayPal COO.

Geni is a Web 2.0 application that seeks to "create a family tree of the entire world." The site smartly combines the popular topic of genealogy with family networking and social networking.

Anyone can use Geni, and it is free. Sign up by entering name, gender, and your email. Next you add your parents and their email addresses. An email is sent to them asking them to join the tree...and they invite more family...and so on...and so on....

Geni.com touts itself on being different than other "conventional family trees" which do not allow for the addition of siblings,cousins and their families, like Geni.com does. In Geni.com you can change the gender of spouses, and add step-siblings. The trick is to add all of the parents first, by adding multiple spouses.

Proud father David O. Sacks has big plans for Geni as she grows up. Geni will become more rich with content as the company adds on additional networking features like photo sharing. Other premium serviceswill be added for "power users" which will contribute to future revenue. The company will also make money with advertising.

A double-edged sword of maintaining the privacy of family members, is that, each tree is so private, the network is not searchable. To add relatives to the family tree, family members will have to be known relatives. Geni.com will notify you when you add someone that already has a family tree. If this aspect makes Geni.com seem more like a fun social experiment. How many families will actually be connected?

Families serious about genealogy and family history might be disappointed that Geni.com does not provide records or research available to users. Students doing family history projects may find this site useful. Geni.com is still in beta.