This Project sheds light on who we are as a civilization. It illuminates the world tree on Geni.com where some profiles in it are fictional. The persons' names are added to profiles in the tree. When we also read the links Connected to this Project one will get a meaningful Learning.

Contents:

• 1. Geni as Illusion ?
• 2. Fictional profiles
• 3. Profiles without written Sources
• 4. How to find profiles without written Sources
• 5. DNA genes and Genealogy
• 6. Phenomenology (psychology)
• 7. Phenomenology (philosophy)
• 8. Links
• 9. Literature

1. Geni as Illusion ?

One of the great values of Geni and its mission to create one World Family Tree is that it sheds light on who we are as a civilization. Some would argue that more and more our civilization has become less real and more illusion. Chris Hedges spells that out in his best selling book "Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle" (New York: Nation Books, July 2009). Geni seems to be an excellent case study about the principles of illusion that we accept massively in our society. Geni projects a semblance of reality but is embedded with fantasies that are anything but real. Starting from data that dedicated genealogists and family historians enter in the database Geni seems to invite the masses to connect their own spin, speculations and illusions into the realities of our families.

So if I enter the fictitious character "Merwig I, King of the Thüringians (c329-426)" and ask Geni for my personal relationship to him I get an email from Geni celebrating that Merwig I is my 42nd Great Grandfather. Hey, the "proof" purports to be right there in the details shown at Merwig I, King of the Thüringians (Fictitious Person).

So am I flattered? Am I amused? If all of my ancestors are not human beings but are characters from mythology am I fully human myself? Should I refresh what I learned in university half a century ago about the principles of sociology and epistomology? Should I be reading John Ralston Saul's award winning book "Voltaire's Bastards", a book which claims that we have degenerated into a society dominated by technology and a crude code of managerial efficiency and that we have become enslaved by manufactured fashions and artificial heroes, divorced from natural human instinct.?

Is Geni's value as a clever interactive game?

I invite other Geni users to tell stories of cases where the data in the Geni database seems to be fantasy rather than fact. I also invite students of phenomenology to comment on Geni as a phenomenological feature of our society.

- The Geni.com EDB program is allright for its aim to add all Our relatives names into and make familytrees. It is not this we talk about. We talk about the fictional profiles added by users of Geni.com to the tree.

2. Fictional profiles

Fictional profiles are often added to the world tree. Mostly it is because the person lived so long ago that it lacks written sources. The tree with profiles therefore is constructed out of what archaeologists and historians and linguistics has come up with. Also anthropology and human migration tell us something. One will never find the correct names or correct birth years of these persons.

How does the human brain work? We seem to think forward and make fictions where other things lack.

Claiming of descent from gods and legendary heroes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_from_antiquity

Geni has two projects for this:

• Descents from Antiquity
• Fictional Genealogy

3. Profiles without written Sources

Some profiles are linked to this project

4. How to find profiles without written Sources

How far can we go in the familysearching case ? Allways there will be a limit. Archaeologists have found remnants of human beings but we don't know their names. DNA genes and haplogroups gives us some answers. And HLA genes gives us some answers.

5. DNA Genes and Genealogy

A DNA Project tell a little about DNA Genealogy http://geni.com/projects/DNA-Primer-A-Portal-for-genetic-genealogy/10513

Genealogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogy

6. Phenomenology (psychology)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(psychology)

7. Phenomenology (philosophy)

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ph%C3%A4nomenologie

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(philosophy)

8. Links

Fictional Genealogy Project http://www.geni.com/projects/Fictional-Genealogy/8908

Working With the big tree http://www.geni.com/projects/Working-with-the-Big-Tree/12429

The World Tree http://www.geni.com/projects/Launching-Geni-s-World-Tree-A-Retrospective/2658

Geni.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geni.com

Genealogy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genealogy

9. Literature

Hedges, Chris 2009. "Empire of Illusion, the end of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle", New York, Nation Books

Hirsch, Herb 2010. "Book Review: Chris Hedges, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and The Triumph of Spectacle",
Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal: Vol. 5: Iss. 2: Article 8. Available at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/gsp/vol5/iss2/8

Loewen, James W. 1995. "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong". The New Press, New York.

Nietzche, Fredrich 1887. "On the Genealogy of Morality: A Polemic" http://www.inp.uw.edu.pl/mdsie/Political_Thought/GeneologyofMorals.pdf

Saul, John Ralston 2009. "Voltaire's Bastards".

Shirky, Clay 2008. "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations". https://uniteyouthdublin.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/here_comes_eve...

Zerubavel, Eviatar, 2013. "Ancestors and Relatives: Genealogy, Identity, and Community"