2011-08-19 Shared Web Trees

collaborative genealogy

One Tree

Genealogy is a collaborative endeavour, but traditional research gets down in isolation. The results is a lot of duplicate effort by different people to find the same information over and over again. What if we didn't all work on our on our tree, but on a single collaborative tree? We would avoid duplication of effort, make much more connections, and end up with one tree for the entire world. That's the basic idea behind several web sites that invite you to collaborate on a single, shared genealogy.
These websites are all based on the same idea, but are far from identical to each other.

OneGreatFamily

OneGreatFamily (OGF) was founded in 1999 and came out of beta on 2001 Jan 24.
OneGreatFamily is a commercial service that does not offer free accounts. OneGreatFamily has a free FaceBook application, RelativelyMe, that allows you to get some idea what their product is like. OneGreatFamily does offer a free 7-day trial, which you must cancel in time to prevent a subscription. You may want to watch their demo video before signing up for the trial.
OneGreatFamily is larger than Geni.com; Geni.com has about 58 million profiles in the Borg Tree, and some 118 million in total. OneGreatFamily boasts 230 million profiles.
OneGreatFamily merges user trees into a single database, but does so smartly; each user has their own unique view of the shared database. Simply put: on Geni.com the last update wins, on OneGreatFamily you agree to disagree. OneGreatFamily offers both GEDCOM upload and download.

WeRelate

WeRelate claims to be The World's Largest Genealogy Wiki. It has about 2 million profiles contributed by roughly 26.000 users.
WeRelate is a free wiki sponsored by the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy, Inc. in partnership with the Allen County Public Library. When WeRelate was officially introduced during the 2006 national conference of the U.S.A. National Genealogical Society, it was a genealogy search engine for the web with a wiki component to help improve the search engine. However, the wiki proved so popular, that WeRelate changed to being wiki with a search engine. In 2008, the search engine was discontinued, and no one even noticed. WeRelate was already about nothing but the Wiki.
WeRelate does not position itself as an alternative or replacement for your genealogy software, but rather an add-on tool you use to share and collaborate with others. WeRelate is a true wiki, built with MediaWiki, the system used for Wikipedia, and just like on Wikipedia, you give up any copyright to your contributions, and anyone can edit your pages. You can share without allowing others to modify your work by creating user pages, intended for extra information such to-do list or an index of all your genealogy sites.
WeRelate supports both GEDCOM import and export that maps each profile to a wiki page. A tree is collection of pages. There are no private profiles. Living people will be removed. WeRelate has a matching step in its GEDCOM import process; its shows potential matches and gives you a chance to merge your data with what's already there. The GEDCOM upload is limited to small files of just 5.000 individuals, but you probably don't want to merge thousand of profiles anyway. WeRelate currently recommends uploading small GEDCOMs containing updated records only, but plans to roll out a re-upload feature.

SharedTree

SharedTree is both an online genealogy and open-source project; the SharedTree site runs the SharedTree software. SharedTree was started late in 2006 by Trevor Allred. The SharedTree FAQ states that the site is still in beta. The SharedTree project has not seen any updates since early 2008.
SharedTree supports both GEDCOM import and GEDCOM export. It is not clear how large SharedTree is.
The SharedTree project is open source project and everything you contribute to the SharedTree site becomes OpenContent, i.e. licensed according the Open Publication License (OPL). The SharedTree site is free, and makes money from donations.

Geni

Geni.com is a commercial company founded in 2006. Geni.com went into Public Beta on 2007 Jan 16, and came out Beta on 2008 Jul 23. Geni.com's stated goal is to create a family tree of the whole world!. Geni has about 118 million profiles, and about 58 million of these are connected into The Big Tree.

Geni includes profiles for living individuals, but your own profile and those of close relatives are private.
Geni was introduced as a site that was free use. However, after the introduction of the Geni Pro subscription, Geni reduced the capabilities of the free membership twice, in 2009 and in 2011. After the recent changes, only Pro members are able to initiate and complete profile merges. Geni's slogan is Everyone;s related, but Geni Pro users are more related than others.
Geni started without GEDCOM import, introduced GEDCOM import but disabled last year, because it created to many duplicate profiles. Geni does offer GEDCOM export. The GEDCOM export feature used to be somewhat limited for free users, but after the latest changes, isn't anymore. Users can use either Geni's own GEDCOM export or the AncestorSync for Geni Beta to download their data.

WikiTree

WikiTree is a free to use commercial site, that's Growing the World's Family Tree. WikiTree makes money through advertisements displayed on its pages.
Chris Whitten, the creator of WikiAnswers, started WikiTree in 2008 and went into public Beta on 2008 Sep 4. There never was an out of beta announcement, but it has been public for some years now.
WikiTree is still relatively small. WikiTree reached 1 million profiles on 2011 Mar 10 and 2 million profiles on 2011 Jul 22.

WikiTree advertises it GEDCOM import capability. WikiTree does not lack GEDCOM export capability, but it is only available when you are logged in. WikiTree does not limit the size of GEDCOM files, but suggests uploading small GEDCOM files only; if you have a large file, WikiTree would like you to upload no more than a small selection; a small GEDCOM containing just one or two thousand profiles is WikiTree's sweet spot.
The WikiTree software is based on MediaWiki, but it isn't plain MediaWiki anymore, it has been customised a lot. WikiTree isn't a plain everyone can see & everyone can edit wiki like WeRelate is. WikiTree profiles have privacy levels. You can include living individuals, you do not need to give up copyright to all your contributions, and you can keep your family photos private.
Once you're data is uploaded, you can neither overwrite it with a new GEDCOM upload, nor delete it all at once. You can delete it piece by piece, but that might delete the profile contributions other WikiTree users have made.
Each WikiTree profile has at least one profile manager. You are the manager of your own profile and the profiles you create. When profiles are merged, the managers of the merged profiles become the managers of the merged profile. Profile managers control a profile's privacy level and its Trusted List, which allows third parties to edit a profile.

AppleTree

A lesser-known site is AppleTree, a commercial company founded by Scott Mueller. It's byline is The World's Family Tree.. The AppleTree site was introduced in 2010. The site is still in beta but already has more than 44 million profiles.
The site is free to use and all content you contribute to AppleTree is dedicated to the public domain. You cannot delete contributed content from AppleTree.
AppleTree does not have any privacy features. There are no private trees or private profiles on AppleTree, all content is public. If you do not wish to publish information on living individuals, you should not contribute it.
AppleTree supports both GEDCOM upload and download. Profiles for living individuals are public, so you may to filter out living individuals before uploading a GEDCOM. Anyone can edit and update profiles, and all members can collaborate on building a world tree.
AppleTree makes money through on-page advertising and Pro memberships. Pro Uses get extras such as unlimited media storage and the ability to download high-resolution photos.

Gurganus

Gurganus is free website created by Ray Gurganus that has been around for several years. Gurganus is one man's labour of love, not a venture-backed company site, and almost no one has heard of it yet. There are less than half million profiles and only a few thousand members yet. The site does not look appealing, but does support features such as image upload and PDF reports. The FAQ clearly states that all uploaded content is public, but not that it is public domain. The site supports GEDCOM import but deliberately does not offer GEDCOM export.

programming interface

OneGreatFamily, Geni and AppleTree have an API that allows third-party access. The RelativelyMe application uses OneGreatFamily's GenealogyCloud API. AncestorSync for Geni uses the Geni API.
These APIs encourage creation of third-party products, such as mobile apps to access your data, and integration into existing desktop apps. This is something to consider when making a choice.

your shared tree

The most important thing to consider though, is whether adding your data to a shared tree is for you; you have be comfortable with the idea that it isn't your tree, but a shared tree, and that strangers will make changes to your the shared tree.

updates

2011-12-26: SharedTree gone

SharedTree seems to have disappeared. The sharedtree.com domain display information for the NGO Management Association Switzerland now. The link to sharedtree.com has been removed.

2011-06-11: KiN2

KiN2, a new FaceBook app by OneGreatFamily is in Public Beta.

2011-07-01: SharedTree back

SharedTree has reappeared. The links has been restored.

2011-07-01: FamilySearch Family Tree

FamilySearch Family Tree has finally become public.

2014-04-14: AppleTree

The AppleTree site is gone.