Post by Abby Glann
Hello Cousins!
So far, we’ve interviewed our family, put together a pedigree chart so we can easily see our tree, and we’ve started on those family group sheets which help keep track of all the little details associated with our various families. I hope you’ve got a binder or something for all this-it starts to add up with time!
So, what next?
In my own research I always get excited when I can get a little help from a friend…or a cousin, right?!!!? How do we go about doing that? Well, though there are still a lot of things we can do on our journey to finding our cousin connection, a great place to start looking for help and to share/store our family tree is on a collaborative family history site. Two sites in particular are helping AJ in his quest to connect the world in a giant Kum-By-Ya circle, and those are WikiTree.com and Geni.com. Both are fantastic places where you can add your family and then work with others to get some help in connecting you to the big old family tree.
WikiTree is a collaborative site, 100% free, that focuses on working together on our shared ancestry using tools like their G2G forum where people can ask for help on research, merging shared ancestors to meet the site goal of one profile for each person, and connecting cousins via Projects and Categories.
Geni is a collaborative site, with two levels of membership, a free one where you can add your tree and start looking for connections, and a paid membership that allows you to get more involved in merging and making connections. Members can work with other cousins to find connections, and join one of their projects. They have great resources in their Projects and Message boards .
There are so many things on each site to help with your research, and we’ll make sure to cover those tips as we come to them. For now, just join-that’s it. Pick a site, and set up your account, add your parents if you get the time.
