November 2010

Profile of the Day: C.S. Lewis http://www.geni.com/people/C-S-Lewis/6000000010556087217

Family Tree Tuesday – Paul Revere http://www.geni.com/people/Paul-Revere/6000000003938177401

We hope the long weekend gave many of you some extra time to get some rest and enjoy your families. And hopefully you were able to spend some time on your family trees, too! In case you weren’t near a computer much last week, here is a recap of everything happening in the genealogy world. The Genealogy Sphere Not enough people document their lives, archivist says (Grand Forks Herald) – A plea for more people to… Read the full story

To all of our users celebrating Thanksgiving today, we wish you the happiest of days! Enjoy your loved ones and savor the long weekend. Be safe and have a great day! We’ll be back on Monday 🙂 -The Geni Team

This week we interview Daniel Walton, one of our Curators and a very active member of the Geni community.  Daniel comes from a very technical background, and in addition to his duties as a Curator he has been helping us test some of our developer features. Tell us a little bit about yourself. How long have you been researching genealogy and do you recall when you first got bitten by the bug? I’m a Computer… Read the full story

Since we introduced Projects we have been adding new features regularly and usage has continually increased.  This morning, we reached the milestone of 600 Projects on Geni. Today we released the next major version of Projects. This release includes features that make it easier for Geni users to use projects for research and collaboration.  The Projects interface is similar, but there are many more features that we’d like to highlight. Suggested Projects We can now… Read the full story

Profile of the Day: Priscilla Sara Alden (Mullins) http://www.geni.com/people/Priscilla-Sara-Mullins-Mayflower-Passenger/304672972480005601

Family Tree Tuesday – Richard Gere http://www.geni.com/people/Richard-Gere/6000000002872157764

Note: We’re a day late with this week’s recap due to some wi-fi issues at the coffee shop, but amidst those issues I met my first Geni users out in the wild! Thanks to the two sweet ladies who stopped by my table and told me how much they like the service. I’ll make sure I have some goodies to give out next time I meet any of you. -George The Genealogy Sphere Ancestry.com’s Growth… Read the full story

Profile of the Day: John Alden http://www.geni.com/people/John-Alden-Mayflower-Passenger/6000000003454509677

Note: Beginning next week, Ask a Curator will no longer be a weekly feature. We like the Ask a Curator feature a lot, and we hope to bring it back on a weekly basis once we work out the logistics of doing so. In the near future, expect to see more Ask a Curator articles as interesting things happen in the genealogy community, and as we find interesting things to highlight on Geni. This week… Read the full story

Today’s Highlighted Profiles: Prince William & Catherine Middleton

Yesterday we released two enhancements to Projects:  an easier way to create Projects, as well as the ability to mark Projects as related.  The response to the release of Projects has been very encouraging, and we will continue to focus our efforts on making Projects as easy to use as possible. Start a New Project When you click on “Start a New Project”, you will now be shown a lightbox that allows you to quickly… Read the full story

One of Today’s Highlighted Profiles: George Armstrong Custer http://www.geni.com/people/George-Armstrong-Custer/6000000002963947585

One of Today’s Highlighted Profiles: Sitting Bull http://www.geni.com/people/Tatanka-Iyotanka/4196798959510123457

Cuisine is a very notable and important part of the culture of families, eras, cultures and locales.  Whether your comfort food is Grandma’s lasagna, your cousin’s curry or a breakfast at the restaurant t hat your great grandfather founded during the Great Depression, family meals are ingrained in us.  As many different holidays are approaching and many families will be congregating, now is a great time to start planning a recipe book that you can… Read the full story

This week we interview Amy Coffin, Genealogist extraordinaire. You may be familiar with Amy from her efforts at the WeTree blog, including her renowned series 52 Weeks to Better Genealogy.  In addition, Amy has a master’s degree in library and information science and is a very keen online genealogy researcher. You have a master’s degree in library and information science. We assume the skills that you learned while pursuing that degree are invaluable for your… Read the full story

Profile of the Day: Gwyneth Paltrow http://www.geni.com/people/Gwyneth-Martin/6000000010554089036

Profile of the Day: Rihanna http://www.geni.com/people/Robyn-Rihanna-Rihanna-Fenty/6000000008053140918

Family Tree Tuesday – Lady Lucy Christiana Duff-Gordon http://www.geni.com/people/Madame-Lucile/6000000002805481144

This Thursday, November 18th, Geni will be presenting at the inaugural Spotlight: LA Tech event hosted by TechZulu at the UCLA Anderson School of Management (map link).  The event is a “screening room for new technology homegrown in our region. It’s a gallery of great entrepreneurship.” TechZulu is holding the event to provide an environment for young entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts to network and meet with the creators of the most innovating local technologies.  In addition… Read the full story

Profile of the Day: Elvis Presley http://www.geni.com/people/Elvis-Presley/6000000003104470825

The Genealogy Sphere On Genealogy: Be smart about tracking down needed records (broomfieldenterprise) – Julie Miller provides some guidance for saving time while searching for historical records. Nominate a Genealogy Blog for the 2011 Family Tree 40 (Family Tree Magazine) – Due to the popularity of last year’s Top 40 list, Family Tree magazine is at it again…hurry, go nominate your favorite genealogy blogs! What type of genealogist are you? (Atlanta Journal Constitution) – This… Read the full story

Today we are updating Projects and Public Discussions to include search features that make it easy to find relevant information within these features. Project Search You can now search for specific information in Projects including the Project name, text within the wiki text area, and Profiles that are associated with a Project.  To search Projects, simply type your query into the box and press Enter, or click the magnifying glass icon. For example, let’s assume… Read the full story

Each week, we ask our Curators some questions, and on Friday’s we post the Curators’ responses on the Geni blog. This week the Curators share some of their favorite stories from their family trees… My favorite is an ancestral cousin who wrote poems about her chickens, buried them with elaborate gravestones, and sold the poems to tourists. If it were up to me, she’d be the featured profile on the Martha’s Vineyard project 😉 I… Read the full story

Many genealogists use interviews as a means of research, and until recent years it was both difficult and costly to create audio recordings of an interview in digital format.  Now that cassette tapes and older formats are becoming more and more rare, it is as important as ever to begin transferring the audio from previous generations to formats that can continue to live in a world of iPods and mobile devices.  This is especially important… Read the full story

Profile of the Day: Louisa May Alcott http://www.geni.com/people/Louisa-Alcott/6000000002410619032

Profile of the Day: Katy Perry http://www.geni.com/people/Katy-Perry/6000000009745565676

This week we interview Grant Brünner, a Mac blogger and podcaster, as well as an avid Geni user.  In the near future Grant will be contributing to the Geni blog.  If you’re not familiar with Grant yet, this interview is a great starting point to learn about a talented member of our community. You obviously have a technical/technology background.  Was your fascination in genealogy (and specifically Geni) formed because of your intimacy with the web?… Read the full story

Last Wednesday’s interview subject, Dear Myrtle, sent us this press release yesterday regarding a project with the intent of making genealogy data a little bit more portable.  The BetterGedcom project “will be to develop an update/replacement for the de facto GEDCOM standard based on input from end users and developers world-wide. Long-term efforts will include standards for the sharing of genealogical information over the internet, for example,” according to Myrt. We can confirm that GEDCOM… Read the full story

Profile of the Day: Jean-Paul Sartre http://www.geni.com/people/Jean-Sartre/6000000003606454348

Family Tree Tuesday – Ravi Shankar http://www.geni.com/people/Ravi-Shankar/6000000008392165883

Profile of the Day: Margaret Mitchell http://www.geni.com/people/Margaret-Mitchell/6000000002991049353

Hi friends, this is our first edition of our Monday Recaps, where we review all the happenings of the previous week in the genealogy community and on Geni. We hope your weekends were fun and your Monday is peaceful. On to your links! The Genealogy Sphere Mormons agree to stop baptizing Jewish Holocaust victims (Denver Post) – Electra Draper covers the LDS pledge to stop the practice of baptizing Holocaust victims. Genealogy Resource: The Buddy… Read the full story

Each week, we ask the community to assemble a list of questions for our Curators, and on Friday’s we post the Curators’ responses on the Geni blog.  You can find the link to our current “Ask a Curators” discussion on the right-hand bar of the blog; feel free to ask any questions you’d like.  You can also follow the Geni blog project, which will enable you to be notified each time a new “Ask a… Read the full story

Profile of the Day: Akbar the Great http://www.geni.com/people/Jalaluddin-Muhammad-Akbar/6000000009777136574

Profile of the Day: Mary Ann Lincoln (Todd) http://www.geni.com/people/Mary-Todd-Lincoln-First-Lady/6000000002686579327

One of the most overlooked genealogy research methods is interviewing your extended family. Whether your goal is to simply create your own private tree, or to find a way to connect to the Big Tree, you shouldn’t ignore the intimate resources available to you. Many make the mistake of waiting too long to connect with distant relatives; they can’t share their knowledge with you after they pass away!  Plan short trips to meet with extended… Read the full story

Profile of the Day: Aurangzeb http://www.geni.com/people/Aurangzeb/6000000009796502784

This week we interviewed Myrt, a popular genealogist and the voice behind the DearMYRTLE blog, one of the Internet’s leading resources for novice genealogists.  Check out Myrt’s book Joy of Genealogy on Lulu. What originally piqued your interest in family history and genealogy?  Was there a point where it turned from a casual hobby to the serious hobby that it now is for you? You want the truth? A dump truck hit me, and I… Read the full story

Family Tree Tuesday – JFK http://www.geni.com/people/John-F-Kennedy-35th-President-of-the-USA/6000000002880912606

Geni announces the relaunch of the Geni Blog, including daily/weekly features and content for genealogists of all types, from hobbyists to advanced.