Creating a family tree for a school project can be streamlined by using an online service. Not only will this allow quicker construction of the actual tree, but it also provides an opportunity to stretch the benefits of the project across many different school subject areas including history or social studies, math, and computer labs.

Geni.com is a very comprehensive web-site to use in the family tree creation process. It contains all of the features and tools any person or student needs to create a virtual map of their lineage while maintaining a clean workflow and easy access. The focus of the project can remain on creating a family tree, not on using a web-site.

After signing up (which only requires first and last name, gender, and an e-mail address), the creation process begins immediately. The name provided at sign-on is automatically generated as the building block for the family tree. Adding additional family members is simplistic and the program allows a user to choose how they tie into the family (brother or sister, spouse, or parent) which automatically creates the proper connecting lines to other family members.

If a student happens to have a blended family with divorced parents, step-siblings, or deceased relatives, no awkward situations will occur as Geni.com has these possibilities featured within their system. Every child can have their family tree limbs sprout naturally instead of having to make due with a nuclear family mold.

In addition to the typical family tree, which is usually a history class or social studies project, Geni.com also provides tools which will allow the work to overflow into other courses. Take for instance, the statistics tab at Geni.com.

This portion of the web-site takes all of the gender and birth date information fed into the family tree and aggregates it into family statistics. Statistics are a fundamental part of math and the free graphs at Geni.com present information on gender distribution, average life expectancy, and number of children. This material can be incorporated into math lessons on reading graphs, ratios, and averages.

A final benefit to using Geni.com for a class project on family trees is the easy customization of the privacy settings. When children use the internet, an immediate concern is always privacy. Geni.com has privacy controls that allows any profile to have its sharing options toggled down to where only immediate family (people who are listed on the family tree) can access the member’s profile. This is an especially important feature as it provides solid protection of a child’s identity and limits access to information.

Considering the multi-curricular advantages to creating family trees utilizing technology, a virtual family tree is a valid choice when planning out a class project. Geni.com provides all of the tools any student needs to map out their family’s past while also providing privacy settings to protect user information.