Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Looking at Mundia.com Again - a Free Family Tree Site

I last looked at Mundia.com in April 2011 - see Another look at Mundia.com - FAIL!  

Rick Crume's article, titled "Family Tree Harvest," in the January/February 2014 issue of Family Tree Magazine spurred me to take another look at it.  The article points out that:

*  Mundia is free to add a tree or search for information in existing trees, but it is still in beta test [and has been since 2009]

*  You have to log in with an Ancestry.com username and password, but you don't need to be a subscriber.

*  Mundia has all of Ancestry.com's Public Member Trees, but not the Private Member Trees.

*  A user can set up a tree (via GEDCOM or one person at a time), edit a person's vital information, add photos to a person, etc.

*  Shaky leaf Hints appear, but you need an Ancestry.com subscription to see the records.

*  You can invite relatives to access your tree for free and edit it.

*  Searches show just the top 10 matches.

I wanted to see if anything has changed since 2011.  Here is the home page at www.mundia.com:


Since I have an Ancestry subscription, I decided to sign in with that account, so I clicked the "Sign In" button on the screen above (top right corner) and saw:


I entered the user name and password, clicked on "Sign In" and had to select one of my Ancestry Member Trees as the "primary" tree.  I picked one, and then saw:


I had to select myself, or declare that I wasn't in the tree.  I started typing my name (first name first) and was able to pick myself from the dropdown list provided.

Once I did that, the "Family" View in my family tree appeared and I could see the information in my tree.  There are six tabs across the top menu on the screen below:  "Your Home Page," "Family Tree," "Message Boards," "Gallery," "Messages," and "Find People:"


I decided to see what happened when I clicked on my grandfather, Lyle Carringer.  I clicked on him and saw:


The "Family" tab on the right-hand panel opened.  I could see my grandfather's name, birth and death information and then the family members - parents, siblings, spouse(s) and children.

I clicked on the "Edit profile" button by the person's name, and saw the fields to edit:


I could add or edit information only for the person's name, parent's names, birth date, birth place, death date, death place, spouse's name, marriage data, and marriage place.  No other Events or sources were available, although they are in my Ancestry Member Tree.  I could not add an event or source to the profile.  I could Save or Cancel the additions or revisions I made, or I could Delete the profile at the bottom of the panel.

The "Photos" tab is also available, and shows the photos that have been attached to the person in the tree:


There is an "Add" button next to the "Lyle Lawrence's Photos" label (green background), but when I clicked that, nothing happened (I received a Javascript:Void (0) note at the bottom of my screen).

At the top right of the screen is a "Search for a family member" field, so I entered another name in the field and nothing happened (I waited five minutes...what a waste of time!  I'll never get that back).

When I tried to "Invite family" by clicking in the button on the second menu line, I got:


That's frustrating.  The "Invite family" button doesn't work.  The icons for "Family List" and "My Tree Facts" don't work - but those are the tabs in the right-hand panel on the "Family" View.  The "Upload a Family Tree (GEDCOM)," "Print," and "Help" work.

I may explore some of the other tabs on the top menu the next time I visit Mundia.com.  I will try to search it as a Registered Guest to see what a non-subscriber can do in the site.

The takeaway here is:  Mundia.com is free, but it's limited.  It seems to load very slowly (I've been  waiting 3 minutes for it to go to the home page...I'm wondering why do I waste my time?), and has minimum information about persons.  I haven't tried to add a person yet...and probably won't!

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2014/01/looking-at-mundiacom-free-family-tree.html

copyright (c) 2014, Randall J. Seaver


3 comments:

Unknown said...

Totally ticked of I dont have the money to do proper searches and had dedicated a lot of time to my Mundia tree. Photos and all. Now the page is completely gone nothing no login page nothing at all.

Evita said...

Yep, totally ticked off and totally gone, no log in, no nothing, fits the bill, perfectly. I couldn't have said IT better.

Unknown said...

Another unhappy user......I get the distinct impression that Ancestry is a money-making commercial concern, seeking the public input, and then selling access to their data.
Good for commercial genealogists, but too bad for the amateur/pensioner who only wants to research a limited family block.
By the way - keep a close eye on your credit card, there is at least one genealogy firm who access your card, without notice as soon as you log onto their site.