Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Exploring FamilyLink.com

After discovering that FamilyLink.com is a very highly ranked genealogy website, I decided to explore it some more and try to understand WHY it is highly ranked. A high ranking implies that a lot of people go to the site regularly.

http://www.familylink.com/ changed their web site in recent months - now the site looks like a Social Networking and Family Tree web site. Here is the home page, which comes up if you enter the URL (If you access it from Facebook (and presumably other social networks that have the FamilyLink application), the first screen is the second one blow with your name on it - you are already logged in):



If you are not registered for FamilyLink, then you must register - for free - in order to use the site. If you are already a member, then you can sign in to the site. After you sign in, the "Home" page (in the menu bar) looks like this:





There are six tabs on the menu bar - for "Home," "Relatives," "Profile," "Memories," "Events" and "Tree." The right sidebar in the screen above shows "Notifications and Requests," and a "To-Do" list, and "Possible Relatives." The main part of the screen shows recent Facebook status lines from my "Relatives" already in the system. These "Relatives" were in the We're Related" application on Facebook before We're Related morphed into FamilyLink several months ago.

The "Relatives" tab shows the persons included in my "Relatives" list, and the "Profile" tab provides a way to add or edit information about myself in FamilyLink.

The "Memories" tab screen is shown below:



On the "Memories" page, you can answer questions about yourself or your "Relatives" in order to share information with the family members invited to share FamilyLink with you (your "Relatives."

The screen below shows the "Events" tab page:




On this page, you can create a custom page to share an event, make an announcement, upload photos, etc. The "Relatives" will be able to view it and add comments or photos to the page. There are a number of custom page templates already made for you in the middle of the screen - all you have to do is click on one of them and fill in the blanks. I have not done any of these tasks yet in FamilyLink because of a lack of time. If the site works well and quickly, then I will probably add more content to my site, add more relatives, etc.

My expectation when I first saw the "new" FamilyLink three months ago was that the Family Tree data that I had entered over the past year into the We're Related application on Facebook would be included in the "new" FamilyLink" application and web site. My expectations have not been satisfied yet. I will discuss the "Tree" tab in the next post in this series.

So far, FamilyLink looks like some of the other Social Networking sites that have family trees - it is visually attractive, informative, inviting to new contacts, members can invite their relatives to join and participate, etc.

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