Genealogy Collaboration Online

I have been thinking about how to effectively use the internet to work with other people in my family on the same line from different locations. I have thought about using a wiki structure. I am now thinking that it should be based on some widely used genealogy software such as Personal Ancestral File so that the web pages can be easily converted to offline editable forms.

The next consideration I thought about was ensuring the integrity of the information being added to the files. That is as easy to ensure online as offline if you limit the people who can contribute to the people you know who participate in genealogy offline already. The problem is that I expect the list of names to grow and converge with other lines so that new people would like to participate who I don’t know. If I open it up to unknown users I have to find a way to know if someone is playing a prank on me or really interested in adding to my genealogy file. Actually I know that very few people would waste their time playing a prank on my genealogy, but I do not want people adding information if the information is based on poor research. I think that the solution is to require logon credentials and only allow people to log on if they can prove a connection to the line. This will give them a vested interest in keeping the information as accurate as possible. The logins would be simple and not designed for security, but we would also be able to trace who was entering information and contact them if the information was consistently suspect.