The Greatest Family Collaboration Site...GENI, and you are invited!

I have been looking for a way to share family photos, history, events, and genealogy data for a while now. I have yet to have found a solution worth employing till now. Yesterday I came across this site http://www.geni.com/. It currently is in beta so it isn't perfect, but its free and offers far superior solutions than other services I have tried and been tempted to pay for and try.

I have imported what GEDCOM files I currently have and what I could find on familysearch.org. I have imported most of the following lines: Page, Lee, Brown, Davies, Emery, Cameron, Sheffield. Because familysearch.org doesn't report living persons information I attempted to enter as much as I know.

Most likely you have already received an invite from me to "View our tree" Follow the instructions below to get started and then come back and view my screencast here which will help you become familiar with our Geni tree.

UPDATED SCREENCAST COMING SOON

Geni invite instructions:

1. Click the link in your email to "View our tree"
2. Click YES to the question asked if you are a member of Michael Page's family. Note: Even if you are an extended family member click yes.
3. The next prompt asks if you would like to invite others to view our Geni tree this can be done at any time later so for now click skip
4. You are now taken to your spot on our Geni tree. If you have watched my screencast then you should feel comfortable navigating the Genie tree. Genie tree screencast
5. An email will be sent providing a temporary password for your account, a link to create a permanant password, and a link to view your profile.
   
6. This is the most important step. Take the time to finish your profile. Please take the time to include as much information as possible including dates, and photos. This may be a bit time consuming but will be greatly worth it.
7. Make our Geni tree grow by continuing to contribute and participate in it. This can be done by adding/correcting missing/incorrect information, contributing to family news, calendar, photos, profiles. Inviting other family members to participate in our Geni tree.
   

Below are the pros and cons I have found with Geni. Please comment about what you think of Geni. I want to know if you find it complicated or simple, useless or usefull. Also if you did not recieve an invite for some reason contact me and provide me with an updated email address.
Pros:

• It's FREE! Can't beat that.
  
• Our Geni tree can grow as big as we want it to. If you want to add your spouses family line, cousins, etc. please do. Remember the Geni tree is dynamic and will adjust to your family name.
• Quick and easy to use interface
  
• Personal profiles have a familiar "facebook" social networking style to them
• Personal profiles provide features such as, easy photo uploading, about me page, timeline of events, guestbook comments, & contact information
• Permissions can be managed to only allow family and friends to access our geni tree.
  
• It is easy to contribute your family history to the family tree.
• Logging onto Geni tree renames the family tree to yours and your spouses family line.
  "The purpose of this is not to label the single page that you're looking at, but rather to "brand" the Geni site with something that's specific to your family. Users who do not have a current spouse will see their own maiden name or last name. Users who are married will see their own maiden name or last name, a dash, and their current spouse's maiden name or last name. If you have multiple current spouses, all of them will be listed."
  

Cons:

• Even though navigating your profile and viewing the tree is very user friendly it does take some getting used to. I will be posting some training screencasts and tips for navigating the Geni tree.
  
• UPDATE: GEDCOM files can be merged into our tree. If you are interested in having your family file merged please contact me on Geni.
  
  Currently a GEDCOM can be imported into a brand new Geni tree that cannot be merged into an existing family tree. This means currently we will have to manually add information. If you have a large line that currently isn't in our Geni tree you may want to wait until direct GEDCOM import feature is enabled. Or send me the GEDCOM and on my spare time I will manually start importing it. What we wouldn't want to happen is to have multiple Geni trees that aren't linked together as it would complicate the purposes of our Geni tree. "Please Note: Importing a GEDCOM will create a new Geni Tree. If you already have a Geni account you must use a different email address for this import. This will start a new Tree which will not be merged into your existing Tree. We plan to enable GEDCOM Import into existing Trees in the future."

Pictures of Karlie and Janie

We went to Lee & Amy Dawkins house to celebrate Zane's birthday. Zane got some fun toys, and we ate some good food. Lee's sister Jenna (who unfortunately I don't have her website address) makes the BEST cakes and has done lots of weddings and such. She made Laura an awesome chocolate marble cake that didn't last long at all.

For those who don't know Lee & Amy also have their own photography business and are great. They took some time to take some photos of Karlie and Janie for us. Thanks as always for the wonderful job! To see some more of their works visit their website L&A Photography.

Laura's Birthday was Hypnotic

For those that don't know Laura just had her birthday. For Laura's birthday we went to see a hypnotist show at the Punchline, a comedy club in Atlanta. The hypnotist was Ricky Kalmon who actually lives in Atlanta but is hardly here as he tours around the nation. Some of his shows can be seen here. The show was surprisingly clean and very funny, it's a perfect date idea I guarantee you won't regret. We left exhausted from all the laughing and had a GREAT time together. Thanks to Kevin & Amy for watching Janie, and Cathy for watching Karlie.

Don ended up taking a friend to the show the next day and he ended up on stage hypnotized. They snuck some videos of it and have some clips posted below. So funny!

Janie Lee Page Blessing

Tomorrow we are going to bless Janie Lee Page at church. This post is dedicated to her.

Janie Lee Page
Born April 2, 2008

Janie was very excited to come into our family and we were blessed to have her 2 weeks early. She was born healthy and strong with BIG cheeks and light brown hair pile on top of her head. Our precious girl didn't hardly let out a peep when she was born and once her little eyes opened has just been wide eyed soaking everything in. It is funny how different siblings can be as Janie is more laid back and alot stronger than Karlie was. She is able to hold her head up by her own, and because of all that kickin' has legs that are small yet VERY strong. She also has very strong hands and when she grips onto something it can only be pried out.
Karlie is very curious of her younger sister and likes to try to talk to her and gently touch her. You can tell by her demeanor that she know thats her baby sister and can't wait to show her how to do new things as she herself learns them. She thinks its funny when we giver her a pacifier and gets so jealous when "her" blankie is use to cover Janie up.