Startup #1

Concept: The Collaborative Genealogy Project
Business Type: free website
Focus/Features: extreme ease of use, attractive and simple interface

**This is not intended to be a social networking site!** (The social networking angle is played out).

Each family gets their own page on the site, with two main components.

1. An attractive and simple graphic of an oak tree with editable nodes. Any member of the family can edit these nodes, which include: full name, location of birth death/date, date of birth/death, and a small section (150 characters) for a brief note. If alive, can include current contact info also. If you want to associate husband/wife, you create each person separately and then you can use a drag and drop method to link them. Same deal with children. Drag and drop keeps it easy.
   
2. A simple message board underneath the tree only viewable to the family. Site will recommend that you keep track of your tree edits on the board, or have brief dialogues with family members concerning strategies to track down elusive relations.

Other features:

Since this is not a pay site, one could sell posters of completed trees to any family member interested. You could require Google AdSense, but give families the option to pay to turn them off.

Family members will publish their page to the public (excluding the message board and contact info). You could group different trees into ‘forests’ based on geographical location. Users can then browse their state, city, or neighborhood’s forest. Here you could integrate with Google Maps.