New: Create a Branch

We’re excited to announce a new feature to help you create an unconnected family tree branch on Geni. If you want to build the family tree for a person not yet on Geni and you don’t know how the person is related, you can now easily start an unconnected branch of the tree and work towards finding its connection to the World Family Tree.

There are many times when you may have information about a person or family, but do not yet know how they are connected to the existing family tree on Geni. In the past, users would often add a fake relative to an existing person in the tree and then remove the relationship to split the tree.

With this new tool, everyone can easily create unconnected branches for profiles not yet on Geni for free.

To create a new branch, click on ‘Research’ at the top of the page and select ‘Create a Branch.’

This will open a page for you to start an unconnected branch of the tree. You will see that the page is similar to the form for adding new relatives in the tree. Simply add the information for the unconnected person and click ‘Save.’

Once you have saved your information, you will be taken to the tree for the newly added profile. You can continue adding profiles to build out the tree until you or others finally discover how this branch connects to the World Family Tree.

To locate this branch again, type the person’s name into the Search box or browse the list of profiles you follow.

A word of caution:

If you already know where a person belongs in the tree, you should go back to the tree and add them onto one of the existing profiles.

Before creating a new branch, you should always do a quick search to make sure the profile has not been added to Geni. Keep in mind that adding duplicates of existing profiles creates more work for you, your collaborators and Geni curators. Valuable time will then need to be spent merging all the new duplicates instead of working to  improve and expand the World Family Tree. Please use this responsibly!

If you have an unconnected family tree that you want to build, go create a new branch now!