There's a right way and a wrong way to
share your family tree online ...

Most genealogy applications claim to have the ability to put your family tree "online", but not all online family trees are created equal.  Chances are, you use your current genealogy application because it allows you to easily input information about your family tree.  That's good - it's doing what it's suppose to.  Like most genealogy applications, it probably also has dozens of other features.  Each genealogy application has it's own unique strengths and weaknesses.  Most of them focus first on inputting and storing your family history.  A secondary focus may be to allow you search databases of information.  Somewhere down the list it also claims to publish your family tree.  The point is, it's ability to publish your family tree online isn't what it was built for.  It's a secondary feature.

There is an application that was built specifically for storing your family tree online.  It's called PhpGedView.  It was created back in 2002 by a guy named John Finlay who wanted to put his family tree online.  Since then, a lot of people have contributed their time and talents in enhancing PhpGedView to make it the powerful genealogy application that it is today.  The best part is that the software itself doesn't cost you anything.  However, you may need to pay a few dollars a month to a web hosting company to "host" your family tree.  Let me tell you a few reasons why PhpGedView is so much better than other genealogy software when it comes to putting your family tree online, then I'll tell you how you can get it.

First, it's worth noting that while PhpGedView does a fantastic job of displaying your family tree, it also has powerful tools that allow you to edit your family history, right from your web browser.

Online Collaboration

This means that means that you can have a group of people working on the same family tree at the same time from anywhere in the world.

User Access and Permission Control

PhpGedView gives you the ability to create as many users as you would like.  You can grant different users permission to do different things with your family history data.

Privacy Controls

You may be concerned about privacy.  Don't worry, PhpGedView will only let logged in users see information on living people.  You can also configure other security settings to restrict access to various sections of information within your family tree.

Charts

The PhpGedView charts system is very powerful.  It can display your family history data from a number of different "angles".  There are too many to describe them all here, but they are extremely useful.

Optimized for Search Engines

You may wonder why it's important to have your family tree optimized for search engines.  Here's why, and it's one of main reasons that PhpGedView is better than other genealogy applications that claim to have the ability to publish your family tree.  With the growing popularity of the internet, more and more people are using search engines to research their family history.  PhpGedView will present your family tree on the internet in such a way that internet search engines such as Google will be able to "crawl" your family tree and allow others to search for content within your family tree.  There have been countless examples of people using search engines to research their family history and they've "stumbled" across someone's PhpGedView site and been able to connect with a long-lost relative.  In many instances, these people are given access to PhpGedView and are able to start contributing their research as well.

Don't get rid of your current genealogy software ...
Before you consider getting rid of your current genealogy software, keep in mind that most people who use PhpGedView use it in addition to their desktop or other genealogy software.  While it can serve as a replacement, it doesn't need to.  Sometimes it's more convenient to edit your family history from your desktop application (when you don't have internet access), and other times, you'll want to edit it online.  You can use both and get the best of both worlds, and it's simple to keep them in sync.

There are two ways to get PhpGedView.
1. If you already have a web hosting account somewhere, and you're comfortable installing and configuring a PHP/MySQL application, you can head to phpgedview.net, download it for free and have at it.

2. If you don't have an existing web hosting account, or if you don't want to deal with the hassle of both installing PhpGedView yourself here's another option.