News

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.

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

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’.

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

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

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.

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

UPDATE: We are back up. You can now access the community sites The Geni community sites are down temporarily for maintenance. This is only the community sites, you can continue to access your Geni account. The following sites will be affected: Help (FAQ) Forum Wiki This post will be updated when we return. In the meantime, why don’t you take our latest poll.

Now that you have had a few days to play with the new features we released last week, we’d love to hear which new feature is your favorite. Please let us know by taking our latest poll. <a href ="http://www.polldaddy.com" >online surveys</a> – <a href ="http://www.polldaddy.com/p/215359/">Take Our Poll</a> Discuss this story

The Home tab is your new hub to view your latest Family News, Inbox, and Calendar on Geni. Family News Family News is your new way to keep up with your family and all of their activity on Geni. Family News displays all the recent activity in your Family group – new birthdays, photos, events, comments, discussions, changes to your tree, and more. You can also share your latest news with your family by quickly… Read the full story

The Timeline, located within the profile, is a new feature that shows a visual history of the events in a person’s life. Each event lives on its own page containing additional information, photos, attendees, and comments about that event. It is easy to create new events and add them to your Timeline as well as the Timelines of family and friends who were there. As a result, you, your family, and your friends can collaborate… Read the full story

Many of our users have asked for additional ways to share their Geni Tree with others. In addition to printing your tree and inviting your relatives to join your tree, there are now three new ways you can share your tree: GEDCOM Export: You can export your tree as a GEDCOM file. GEDCOM is a standard file format used to save, transfer, and transport genealogical information. Exporting a GEDCOM file will allow you to save… Read the full story

Profile Enhancements Recent Activity – The new Recent Activity profile module displays the most recent activity by that person. For unclaimed profiles the Revision History module will display the most recent updates for that person. Use the view all link for a full list of activity. Family Module – The Family module on the profile now displays the person’s Immediate Family, Ancestors, and Descendants in addition to their Family group. Additional Fields – Baptism (Date… Read the full story

We are down temporarily for some maintenance. We’ll be back soon!

Thanks to all of our users who nominated us, Geni is a 2007 Crunchies finalist in the ‘Best user-generated content site’ category! You can vote once a day until voting ends at midnight pst Thursday, January 10 using this link.

We recently gave you a preview of our upcoming Share Your Tree feature. We’re interested in where you plan to share your tree once this feature is release. Let us know by taking the poll below. Discuss this story

UPDATE: We are back up! UPDATE: We need to take another coffee break. We will update you when they are back up. UPDATE: We are back up! Temporarily, you will not be able to reach the following: Forum Wiki FAQ We will update you when they are back up.

Some time ago we received this comment from a user: “A major drawback of Geni to me is that the family tree is visible only once you log in. This means that it is harder to use or flaunt Geni as embedded in another website or to sell it to other people who don’t get to see how it looks until they agree to become members or I add them to my tree along with… Read the full story

UPDATE: We are back. Geni.com is temporarily unavailable. We’ll be back soon, I will update this post when we return.

The Open Web Awards and The Crunchies Awards are currently looking for nominations from users of various websites. If you feel that Geni fits any of their categories and deserves recognition, let them know! Open Web Awards The Open Web Awards, hosted by Mashable.com, are the first ever online, open collaboration awards event, to recognize the best online communities representing web 2.0. This unique approach to an online event is about communities, so we’ve taken… Read the full story

We will be down this evening for a very brief period while we perform some maintenance. This site should be fully operational again after a quick intermission.

There are already some great Facebook groups that our users have created (such as I Heart Geni.com, geni.com users! Let’s see how we are all related!, and Geni). Now, thanks to Facebook’s new ‘pages’ program, there is an official Geni page. Visit the page and add it to let all your friends know that you are a fan of Geni! Visit the Geni page on Facebook now Discuss this story

Define Your Family Group Your Family is the subset of your tree that you want to stay in touch with. This is the group you will share photo albums, birthdays, and news with. By default, your Family consists of all your blood relatives and their current partners (plus your spouse’s if you are married). You can now narrow your Family group by selecting the ‘circle of relations’ you wish to include. You can also add… Read the full story

Organizing your family photos is easier than ever with our new photo organizer. Featuring drag and drop simplicity, the photo organizer lets you easily: Create a new photo album (without uploading photos!) Move multiple photos between albums Tag people in multiple photos at once Add additional album details including date and location And don’t forget you can upload full resolution photos using the Simple Photo Uploader. This is a great way to upload documents and… Read the full story

Create a Cycle A cycle occurs when the same person appears more than once in your tree (for example, when two sisters marry two brothers). Cycles can now be created for nodes that are deceased and do not have email addresses. Use the ‘create a cycle’ link (found in the “more” link of the standard view or on the flipped node) to add the node to the Tree tray. Then drag the node onto the… Read the full story

Geni.com is down for a short time, we’ll be back soon! Check here for updates. UPDATE: And we are back!

We are pleased to announce that there are now over 10 Million Profiles on Geni! These profiles were created by our 750,000 (and growing) users, who continue to build out their trees, invite family members, and document their family’s history on Geni. Here is an update on the size of top 100 trees: #1 Tree: 19,696 profiles#2 Tree: 19,139 profiles#3 Tree: 18,340 profiles#10 Tree: 10,002 profiles#100 Tree: 3,545 profiles#200 Tree: 2,433 profiles Congratulations to our… Read the full story

The Geni Team will be attending the Texas State Genealogical Society’s 47th Annual Conference in Tyler, Texas November 9 – 10, 2007.  If you’re in the neighborhood please stop by and say hi.  You can learn more here.

We have made some behind the scenes changes to the site that should improve performance for larger trees.  Because of these optimizations we have been able to make the following enhancements: Blood Relative Count – The User Stats on your profile now includes a count of your Blood Relatives and your Inlaws. These are also available in a list view. Relationship Limitations – The limitations on cousin and grandparent relationship descriptions has been removed (the… Read the full story

As of 3:30pm PDT, October 2nd, the site is back up and running.  Enjoy!

Tuesday, October 2nd, starting at 1:00pm PDT, geni.com will be offline to perform routine maintenance.  Sorry for the short notice, but we expect to be back very soon.

Group Messaging Now you can send a message to groups of your family and friends on Geni. You can add your own custom groups to these predefined groups we have created for you: My Immediate Family – Your current spouse or partner and your parents, siblings, and children My Family – Your third cousins and closer and their current partners and your current partner’s second cousins and closer and their current partners My Friends –… Read the full story

With our new ‘Build your tree from your address book’ feature, you can quickly build your family tree and invite your relatives to join Geni in three easy steps: Import your address book and we will help you find the family members you want to add to your tree. Once you have selected your family members, you or anyone in your tree can then drag these nodes to add them to your family tree. These… Read the full story

In addition to group messaging and our new build your tree features, we have also released the following additional enhancements: Photo Enhancements The Simple Photo Uploader now uploads full resolution photos, complete with JPEG EXIF data intact Click on a photo to view it in full resolution You can still use the Advanced Photo Uploader to quickly upload multiple photos Profile Updates Family Friends is now a tab behind your Immediate Family Your email address… Read the full story

We are doing some behind the scenes work on the site today, so later this afternoon there may be short periods of downtime, although we don’t expect any. We should be done with all of the work by the late afternoon.

There has been some discussion in our forums on including GPS information on photo uploads. I think this is a great concept and would be a great feature once more cameras have GPS capability – but I am curious how many of you actually have GPS metadata for your photos right now. Answer the poll question below and let us know! <a href ="http://www.polldaddy.com" >Free Polls</a> – <a href ="http://www.polldaddy.com/poll.asp?p=103808" >Take Our Poll</a>

We have been discussing ways to designate various spouse relationships on Geni, and would love your input. Specifically we are discussing late spouses, widows, etc. Please answer the surveys below – let your voice be heard! &lt;a href =&quot;http://www.polldaddy.com&quot; &gt;Free Poll&lt;/a&gt; – &lt;a href =&quot;http://www.polldaddy.com/poll.asp?p=96815&quot; &gt;Take Our Poll&lt;/a&gt; &amp;lt;a href =&amp;quot;http://www.polldaddy.com&amp;quot; &amp;gt;Survey Polls&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt; – &amp;lt;a href =&amp;quot;http://www.polldaddy.com/poll.asp?p=96817&amp;quot; &amp;gt;Take Our Poll&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt; &amp;lt;a href =&amp;quot;http://www.polldaddy.com&amp;quot; &amp;gt;Polls&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt; – &amp;lt;a href =&amp;quot;http://www.polldaddy.com/poll.asp?p=96812&amp;quot; &amp;gt;Take Our Poll&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt; &amp;amp;lt;a href =&amp;amp;quot;http://www.polldaddy.com&amp;amp;quot; &amp;amp;gt;Polls&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;… Read the full story

Last week we released some speed and usability enhancements to the people tagger and the Advance Photo Uploader. People Tagger (used for tagging photos and addressing messages) enhancements: The auto-suggest list now contains the 50 family members closest to you sorted by their relationship to you. The relationship is listed next to their name so you can easily identify each person, even with duplicate names. To select a person from the list, click anywhere on… Read the full story

I am pleased to announce the release of our newest user tool, the Geni User Wiki. The Wiki is now available at wiki.geni.com. This resource is a great tool for: Geni User Documentation Genealogy Information Tips and Tricks Thanks to a select group of Geni users that were invited to assist in seeding the wiki, there is already a great deal of useful information there. I expect that it will continue grow in value and… Read the full story