Websites invite whole family to fill in the tree
Issue date: 4/29/09 Section: Features
By Marvelia Alpízar
Staff writer
What can you do with a network of 321 relatives, some you have never met or some you have not heard from in years? Place them in a family tree.
I always thought family trees were for those individuals who had something important to show the world, like a scientist, a writer or a famous musician so nobody forgot them over the years. Genealogy always seemed to me a work similar to archeology: to reveal any information that Mother Nature has strived to keep hidden during centuries.
Recently I changed my mind, although not inspired by a sudden event that made me feel the necessity to investigate my family history. Instead, it was the simple curiosity to see how my roommate was building her own family tree. The best of all was to know that I would not have to use paper and pencil but the help of a Web site - Genoom (www.genoom.com). This Web site allows users to invite relatives to participate, turning the project started by a person into a family community work.
Of course, even with the help of the Internet, the beginning was not easy. My family, like the majority of the Latin families, has the special feature of being large. My paternal and maternal branches include parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins, even second and third ones. When it came to celebrating weddings, baptisms or birthdays, we never needed to invite anybody else. In fact, we used that occasion to turn it into a family reunion and to catch up on our lives.
As time went by, we grew and multiplied, as the Bible says. We married, had children and, little by little, we turned both familiar branches into family conglomerates that easily filled a phone book. For several years, I lost track of a great part of my family and only kept in touch with some of the closest relatives. By the time I came to the United States, I had already lost track of almost all my distant cousins with whom I played during my childhood.
Staff writer
What can you do with a network of 321 relatives, some you have never met or some you have not heard from in years? Place them in a family tree.
I always thought family trees were for those individuals who had something important to show the world, like a scientist, a writer or a famous musician so nobody forgot them over the years. Genealogy always seemed to me a work similar to archeology: to reveal any information that Mother Nature has strived to keep hidden during centuries.
Recently I changed my mind, although not inspired by a sudden event that made me feel the necessity to investigate my family history. Instead, it was the simple curiosity to see how my roommate was building her own family tree. The best of all was to know that I would not have to use paper and pencil but the help of a Web site - Genoom (www.genoom.com). This Web site allows users to invite relatives to participate, turning the project started by a person into a family community work.
Of course, even with the help of the Internet, the beginning was not easy. My family, like the majority of the Latin families, has the special feature of being large. My paternal and maternal branches include parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins, even second and third ones. When it came to celebrating weddings, baptisms or birthdays, we never needed to invite anybody else. In fact, we used that occasion to turn it into a family reunion and to catch up on our lives.
As time went by, we grew and multiplied, as the Bible says. We married, had children and, little by little, we turned both familiar branches into family conglomerates that easily filled a phone book. For several years, I lost track of a great part of my family and only kept in touch with some of the closest relatives. By the time I came to the United States, I had already lost track of almost all my distant cousins with whom I played during my childhood.
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