Newbie Question – which to install

hi!

first, let me say, that i’m brand new to wordpress, and though it’s very intuitive i am still a bit confused on the core “theaming”conventions.

i’ve installed all themes that i had the ability to download from geodirectory, with thoughts that i would then preview and see which one i like the best.

Whoop – works fine when activated, though i don’t love it.

Geo 1280, Bold and Travel all give me the following: The parent theme is missing. Please install the “genesis” parent theme., which i’m assuming means i have to, aga, BUY the genesis in order to get them to work, so no thanks.

now i’m left with GeoDirectory Framekwork Child and
GeoDirectoryFramework – the previews for these looks identical – and i want to give it a try, but which one do i activate? child or the parent?

thank you all!