2008

As Geni continues to grow, family trees also grow to span country borders. Does yours include speakers of different languages? Take this poll and tell us just how many different languages are spoken within your family tree.

When we initially released our GEDCOM Import feature, users could import GEDCOM files with up to 1,000 people in them. We have been increasing this limit since the initial release, and last night we increased the limit from 5,000 to 15,000. If you have a GEDCOM file with up to 15,000 people you can now use it to start a Geni tree. GEDCOM, an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication, is a specification for exchanging genealogical… Read the full story

Geni has been updated! We just released a number of performance enhancements. Although users who are part of larger trees will notice the greatest improvements, these changes should enhance the experience for all Geni users. NOTE: The first time you visit Geni after this update, we will need to take a moment to prepare your personal data for use. This should only take a few minutes and then you will be on your way! UPDATE:… Read the full story

Time Magazine has named Geni one of the top 50 websites of 2008! Here is what they say about Geni: For an exercise that’s all about family, researching your genealogy can be an oddly lonesome affair, filled with long hours spent sifting through records and making awkward phone calls to far-flung relatives. But Geni turns tree-building into a collaborative effort: the free site gives you the basic tools for diagramming your ancestry, and it also… Read the full story

As Geni continues to add new features to help our users stay in touch with their family, new parents in particular are finding Geni to be a convenient, efficient, and fun way of sharing their baby updates. Kristina Endraske, a 27 year-old first time mom, gave birth to Kaleb Dean Endraske on April 5, 2008. Kristina explains below how Geni helps her to share her experience with her loved ones even with her busy schedule…. Read the full story

If you live in Switzerland or France, use Geni (of course you do you’re reading the Geni Blog) and are available to be interviewed for a radio program please contact us at community@geni.com and give us your contact information.

June 27-29, 2008 39th Annual Southern California Genealogy Jamboree Burbank Airport Marriott Hotel and Convention Center Since this show is in our own backyard many Geni Team members will be in attendance–including names that you may recognize from their posts of our Forum. Please stop by our booth 501 &510 to say hi. JoAnne Rockower from the Geni Team will be giving an Introduction to Collaborative Genealogy on Saturday morning from 9:30 – 10:30am.

June is the month that we celebrate Dads and Grads, and we’ve added some new free gifts just for them! Dads This Sunday, June 15th, is Father’s Day in 51 countries around the world. Visit the Father’s Day Gift page to honor the fathers in your life with a personal message and one of these special gifts: Send a Father’s Day greeting to any dad in your tree Grads Do you have any recent or… Read the full story

Geni is looking for a customer service representative to help us serve our growing user base. If you are interested or know anyone who may be, you can find the job description on our jobs blog.

One of the biggest advantages of using the Internet for genealogy research is the ability to exchange information with other researchers or interested parties. To share genealogical information, genealogists often transfer electronic documents containing genealogical information. The most common way to do this is to send that information as a GEDCOM file. What does GEDCOM stand for?GEDCOM is an acronym for GEnealogical Data COMmunication. When saved, transferred or shared, this data usually takes the form… Read the full story

As Geni continues to add additional features, teachers are discovering that Geni is a great tool for students to learn more about themselves and their family through a fun and interactive medium. Sally Goerner, a sixth grade language arts teacher in Longmont, Colorado, describes her experience and those of her students while using Geni. Our sixth grade students are working on a memoir project called, “Writing Your Life.” There are many options available to students… Read the full story

Update: And we are back. Update (11:49PM Pacific): We expect the site to be back in about two more hours. Update: We are now down for maintenance. We don’t expect to be back for a few hours. I’ll keep this thread updated. Update: Looks like we are on for tonight. The site will be down for a few hours around 7PM PT tonight. We plan on performing some maintenance next Tuesday, May 13th, around 7PM… Read the full story

We are excited to announce that you can build your Geni tree from your GEDCOM file! Geni is now the easiest and best way to share your research with your family. Importing your GEDCOM is easy: Go to the GEDCOM Import page. Fill out the form and upload your GEDCOM file. Indicate who you are in your file. You’re done! Geni will import your GEDCOM file and build your tree for you. You can begin… Read the full story

This Sunday, May 11th, is Mother’s Day in the United States. Just in time for the celebration we have added custom gifts to help our user’s show their love for the mothers in their life. Visit the Mother’s Day Gift page to send Mom a message and one of these special gifts: This Sunday we will send the recipient a link to view your gift and message. We hope this helps make the day more… Read the full story

National Genealogical Society Conference Kansas City, Missouri May 14-17,  2008 Are you going to the NGS Conference this month?  Come visit the Geni Team at booth #225.  We’d love to meet you there and hear your Geni stories, suggestions for our site, show you our latest features or just chat with you.  

We recently released a number of new features and we are interested in what you think of them. Let us know by taking our new poll. <a href ="http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/545037/" >What is your favorite new feature on Geni?</a>  <br/> <span style="font-size:9px;"> (<a href ="http://www.polldaddy.com">  surveys</a>)</span>

You may notice a reduction in the number of people in your User Stats and Tree counts. This is due to recent changes in terminology. "People in My Blood Tree" (the number of your blood relatives and all of their partners) has replaced the "People in My Tree" (the total number of people you are connected to on Geni). All of the profiles and people that we used to include in your ‘Tree’ count are… Read the full story

We are getting very close to releasing our planned GEDCOM Import feature. To enable us in making GEDCOM Import as effective as we can make it we would appreciate it if everyone with a GEDCOM file takes this Poll.

UPDATE (2:35PM PT / 9:35PM GMT): We’re back, hopefully for good! UPDATE (8:25PM GMT): Looks like the site will be down for at least two hours. I’ll keep you all updated. We need to take the site down for some emergency maintenance. We’ll be back soon!

Family Timeline You can now view your complete family history with the new Timeline tab. The Family Timeline displays all of your Family’s events on one timeline to easily visualize the significant events in the lives of those most important to you. Use the Date Range, People, and Event Type filters to see how your paternal and maternal grandparent’s lives overlapped, what your family did from 1920-1928, and more! View your Family timeline Calendar Events… Read the full story

Post a Link Use Post a Link to easily share a link to any web page, such as an interesting news article, favorite website, or a YouTube video, with your Family. You can also post a link to a source such as a census record or grave image and add it to a relative’s profile. Posting a link is as simple as adding the URL to the Post a Link field on your Home page… Read the full story

‘Identify People’ in Photos Click the ‘Identify People’ button and then click on a person in a photo to tag them in place and identify who is who. When others view that photo, they will see the name of each person as they mouse over them in the photo. This is especially useful for large group shots such as weddings and family reunions. View your photos Invite Enhancements Because you have more fun when your… Read the full story

UPDATE (11:05PM GMT): We’re getting closer. We are hoping it will only be about one more hour. Stay tuned! UPDATE (7:25PM GMT): We have decided that it is more effective to take the site down completely to finish the work we are doing as quickly as possible. It may be a few hours before the site is back, I’ll keep you updated. In the mean time, why don’t you visit our Forums and meet some… Read the full story

UPDATE (1:45AM): The site is back up. Sorry it took a bit longer than expected. UPDATE (11:00PM): The site is down. We expect it will be back in 60-90 minutes. UPDATE: The latest estimate is that the site will go down around 10:30PM PT. Sometime after 10PM PST tonight (4/14/08), Geni.com will be down for approximately 1 – 2 hours for site maintenance. I’ll update this post once the site is down and we have… Read the full story

We are now using twitter as another avenue to keep our community informed. If you would like to follow us on twitter our user name is Geni.

UPDATE (9:55PM): And we’re back again! UPDATE (9:32PM): We need to flip the switch one more time. In a few minutes we will be offline again for a minute. UPDATE: And we are back!   We are about to take geni.com down for a couple of minutes… be right back!

UPDATE 11:50 PM And we are back. The first time you return to Geni it may take some extra time to load. After that everything should be back to normal. Thank you again for your patience. UPDATE 10:30 PM Our maintenance cycle is almost complete! We expect to bring Geni back online shortly. Thank you for your patience. At 9:30 PM PDT, Geni will be taken offline for maintenance. We expect the site to be… Read the full story

Business Wire March 28, 2008 The 2008 Artistry of Genealogy Awards (AGA) were announced today by The Photo preservation Center (PPC) to showcase outstanding genealogy websites and recognize excellence in preserving family history through genealogy. Geni received the award for Best Value/Free Genealogy Sofware App. Read the article here.

To help you navigate around your tree we have introduced some new terms. This page will help you understand. Tree Your Tree is all of your blood relatives and their partners. Forest Forest page Where Trees and the Forest is Used Map Search List View Privacy Currently, anyone connected to you on Geni, whether a blood relative, an in-law, an in-law of an in-law, and so on, can navigate to your part of the tree…. Read the full story

Yesterday over at A List Apart, one of the most influential web design sites, Luke Wroblewski told us that Sign Up Forms Must Die. We were very pleased that he used Geni’s new user experience as a positive example. Here is an excerpt: Let’s look at another example. Geni is a web service that allows anyone to set up a family tree and share it with family and friends. What’s the first thing potential customers… Read the full story

UPDATE: And… we’re back! In a few hours we will need to take the site down for maintenance. We expect the site to be down for no more than 30 minutes. I’ll keep this post updated once the site is down.

In a few weeks we will release a number of new features on Geni that we are very excited about. Recently we previewed our upcoming Family Timeline feature, and also let you know about some upcoming privacy enhancements. Today I’d like to preview another upcoming feature, Posted Links. With posted links you can share any web page with your Family and Friends on Geni. Not only is this a great way to share your favorite… Read the full story

Join the Geni Team May 2-4 in London at The National History Show and Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE.  You will find us at Booth #360 in the Grand Hall, Olympia, London.  This is the second year for this event–it is by far the largest genealogy show in the world with over 20,000 attendees expected. You can learn more by Clicking Here.

The current issue of TIME Magazine asks Is Shrink-Wrapped Software Dead? In the article they use Geni as an example of a fun, free, online alternative to traditional, ‘shrink-wrapped’ software. From TIME Magazine, March 17, 2008: Learning about your heritage is fun for the whole family on Geni.com, which lets you invite relatives to help flesh out the family tree.  Since all data are stored on Geni’s central servers, anyone you’ve given access to can… Read the full story

What: Computerized Family History and Genealogy Conference When: March 14-15, 2008 Where: Brigham Young University, Converence Center, Corner of 9th East and University, Room 2277, Booth 17, Provo, Utah Come join the Geni Team at the Computerized Family History and Genealogy Conference in Provo, Utah.  You’ll find us in the Conference Center, Room 2277, Booth 17. Please stop by and say ‘hi’ to the team.You can find the schedule here. You can discuss this on… Read the full story

Did you know that when you add a new profile to Geni, you are the ‘Profile Manager’ of that profile? This means that you have additional control over who can edit and search for these profiles. Here are the default settings for Managed Profiles: What do these settings mean? Who can edit? Choose ‘Only Me’ if you don’t want to grant anyone else access to edit these profiles. Choose ‘Entire Tree’ to allow others in… Read the full story

PC Magazine listed Geni as one of 157 Best Free Software Hot Apps in its March 2008 issue. It was listed in the category ‘Games/Fun’.

As Geni continues to add additional features, teachers are discovering that Geni is a great tool for students to learn more about themselves and their family through a fun and interactive medium. Kelly Tenkely, a K-5 Computer Teacher at Cherry Hills Christian School, describes her experience and those of her students while using Geni. Genealogy can be a dry subject for students, the old paper and pencil method of genealogy projects didn’t engage my students… Read the full story

Sometime around 8pm PST tonight (Tuesday, February 26th, 2008) Geni.com will be down temporarily for maintenance. The site may be down for 30-60 minutes. We’ll keep this post updated during the maintenance. UPDATE: Not sure how much longer it will be… stay tuned! UPDATE: And we’re back! Discuss this story.

We are proud to announce that Geni has once again been selected as a finalist in the 2008 Webware 100 Awards by the editors of CNET Webware.com. Last year we won the award in the Reference category. This year we have been upgraded – we were chosen from more than 4,600 user-submitted nominations as a finalist in the Social category. The winners in each category are selected by popular vote. Here is the official announcement… Read the full story

There is a helpful post today over at Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter on cousin terminology complete with a helpful Cousins Table . If you have ever been confused by relationship descriptions such as "third cousin, four times removed", you may want to read What Is "Second Cousin Once Removed?".

Recently we released our Timeline and Events features. The response has been tremendous and you have told us that you want more! Based on the feedback that we have received from each of you, we will soon expand this feature with a new Family Timeline. The Family Timeline displays all of your Family’s significant events on one timeline. Want to see how your paternal and maternal grandparents lives overlapped? Interested in one timeline for all… Read the full story

For much of North American and Europe, today is Valentine’s Day. Geni is the easiest way to share your Valentine’s thoughts with those you love. Here are some ideas to help make this day special for your family. Post News Let your family know that you are thinking about them by posting a quick “Happy Valentine’s Everyone!” as your Latest News. Next time your Family logs in to Geni they will see your message on… Read the full story

Because we enable our users to connect with their family through marriage as well as blood relations, our users have discovered and connected with relatives far beyond the traditional genealogical limitation of blood relatives. However, as trees continue to grow in size, the relationships between distant people become less and less relevant. In the next few weeks, we will make some changes to enhance the privacy and performance of your tree, while preserving your ability… Read the full story

What: Family History Expo 2008 When: February 8-9, 2008 Where: The Dixie Center, 1835 Convention Drive, Booth 309, St.  George, Utah Come join the Geni Team at the Family History Expo in St. George, Utah.  You’ll find us in the Exhibit Hall at booth # 309.  Please stop by and say ‘hi’ to the team. You can find the schedule here.

Did you know that your Family group determines whose stories you see in your Family News? Adding additional people to your Family group is a great way to stay in touch with them. Let’s see how to easily view who is in your Family group and add the people you want. View your Family group You can view who is currently in your Family group by selecting the ‘My Family’ list view. Click the My… Read the full story

The response to the new Timeline and Events features on Geni has been tremendous. You may have noticed stories about your family creating new events in your Family News; perhaps you have added some events to your own Timeline. Here are a few quick tips to help you get the most out of this feature: 1. Add yourself to events: Wherever you see an event click on the name of the event to view the… Read the full story

We know that many of you already have a ton of photos on other photo sharing sites, and you would like an easy way to share these photos with your Family on Geni. We would like to find out which photo site(s) you would already use so we can determine which sites to support. Please let us know by taking our latest poll. <a href ="http://www.polldaddy.com" >polls</a> – <a href ="http://www.polldaddy.com/p/236592/" >Take Our Poll</a> Discuss… Read the full story

One year ago today Geni.com was launched to the public. The entire Geni Team would like to thank all of our users for a tremendous year – your feedback has been vital in helping us develop Geni into the product it is today. In one year Geni has grown from an easy to build family tree to the best way to find and stay in touch with your family online. What better way to reflect… Read the full story

In our continuing series of Guest Bloggers who are introducing subjects of interest to the Genealogy Community, we welcome Diane Haddad, Managing Editor of Family Tree Magazine who gives tips for interviewing Grandparents. When I was 8 years old, my teacher sent my class home with a list of questions and instructions to ask an older relative about his or her life. I called my grandma, told her “you’re the oldest person I know,” and… Read the full story