Highlights from IAJGS 2019

Posted August 8, 2019 by Amanda | No Comment

We’re back from Cleveland, Ohio where we attended the 39th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy. It was a blast to meet other Geni users, spend time with our great team of Geni curators, and connect with old friends.

The Geni booth was packed with people on the opening day of the exhibit hall and the SHARE Fair. Many people stopped by to learn how to get started on Geni and connect to the World Family Tree. We also had several Geni users stop by to let us know how much they enjoy building their family tree on Geni and working with others on the site.

Although the first day of exhibit hall was a short day, we still had many people working on their trees at the booth long after the official closing of the hall. In the evening, attendees had the opportunity to visit the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for the conference’s opening reception.

We provided free access to all our premium features at the booth throughout the conference and many users decided to take advantage of the opportunity to clean up their Merge Centers. Others were happy to take advantage of our 50% off conference discount on Pro, so they could continue their work at home.

It was fantastic to meet new users to started accounts at the conference because they had heard wonderful things from others. A woman stopped by because she learned from someone else that Geni had many Hungarian branches in the World Family Tree. After doing a quick search for an ancestor, she came across her grandparents, which then led to a profile for herself! Once she was merged into the tree, she got a better look at the information that had been added by a curator and discovered her grandmother’s maiden name, which she had never known about. She was amazed and very excited to get in contact with the person who added the information to find out more.

Others were very excited to get help fixing mistakes in their tree that has been plaguing them for years. Several curators were in attendance and made time in their schedules to stop by the Geni booth to lend a hand.

An attendee stopped by during the conference to ask us how to get in contact with someone on the site. It turns out the person had managed profiles that also matched her family. After the conference, we learned that she was finally able to contact the relative in Buenos Aires through Geni. She sent some photos to her relative who was able to help confirm the names of 24 people in them, proving that she had the right family!

Shared with the permission of Doreen Markowitz Schreiber

We always enjoy any chance we get to spend time with our team of volunteer curators in person. There were a total of 8 curators at IAJGS this year and we all had the opportunity to have dinner together. The curators were a big help during the conference and fantastic advocates of collaboration in the World Family Tree.