More Amazing Discoveries Made Through Record Matches and Smart Matches™

We love hearing how valuable Geni users are finding their new Record Matches and Smart Matches™. Recently, we shared how Record Matches and Smart Matches™ have led to exciting new discoveries for many users. We’re happy to share even more amazing stories from users who have made great breakthroughs in their family tree. Check them out below:

Jennifer Lynn Young:

“So far Smart Matches have led me to 17 collateral ancestors (siblings of ancestors in my direct line), a photo for one gr-grandmother whose profile has been faceless up til now; and – the biggest thrill of all – Smart Matching connected me with a family tree on MyHeritage that may have given me the parents of a Scottish ancestor who has been a genealogical brick wall for fifty years! My great-aunt hired a researcher in Scotland to gather information on this family line in the Sixties, but they struck out. My family will be thrilled, and although I didn’t start out as a fan of SmartMatches I have to say I’m an enthusiastic convert now!”

Kris Stewart:

” I have had my Irish 3rd great grandmother in my tree for many years but could never find any info on her parents. Following a Smart Match the other day, I was able to contact a cousin who lives in Ireland. In her MyHeritage tree, she had the parents and additional info from the church records there in Ireland.”

“This ancestor was actually an ancestor of the great grandmother whose photo I found the other day through a Record Match. The Record Match led to a photo on the Canadian Headstones site. I had the name and date of death and I knew of the site, but had never searched that site for that particular ancestor before. Many other family members were also buried there, and came up in Record Matches in the tree as well. The time saved by being pointed in the direction of existing records without having to enter the name and info of each person into a search box is invaluable.”

Jason Wills:

“Thanks to record matching i just discovered my aunty is Estonian.”

“I had searched for the surname and drew a blank, and had heard my great aunt was “Croatian”, but straight away found the Smart Match, and that she was Estonian and now have a short link to Estonian Jaak Tulp through her.”

“Here’s her Estonian grandfather:”

Georgett Studnicka:

“You are giving me many matches (I love it!).”

Randy Schoenberg:

“I like to add new profiles to the tree. Now, as soon as I add a profile, I wait for the little blue circle to appear and tell me if there is a Tree Match to an existing profile on Geni, a Smart Match to a tree on MyHeritage or a Record Match to one of MyHeritage’s billions of records, including census data, birth records, social security death records and newspaper articles. The data is so comprehensive that it is hard to add more than a few profiles without getting a match to something helpful.”

Jaak Tulp:

“First of all i wanna apologize that i even thought first that RM and SM are somehow obsolete. I can say now for sure, that they are not. I hit a real gold mine – all of the added profiles are either pastors, professors, scientists, doctors, militarists and they are connected to me via the dearest childhood friend of my grandmother she played with in the castle of Karksi, Estonia. The father´s branch of bloodline of the friend includes also the father of “Õ” letter in Estonian alphabet Otto Wilhelm Masing a.s.o. So…thank you, thank you and one more time thank you. I´m thrilled and exited! After a while my collaborator found the connection point to existing profiles in Geni and merged them, but i have still lots of profiles to add and looking for the data extraction tool to save my fingers for clicking, not typing :)”

To read more exciting discoveries by other users, click here.

We always happy to hear more success stories. If you have a story you would like to share with us and possibly feature on the blog, please email us at community@geni.com .