{"id":86125,"date":"2014-09-22T11:19:44","date_gmt":"2014-09-22T18:19:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/?p=86125"},"modified":"2014-09-22T17:52:28","modified_gmt":"2014-09-23T00:52:28","slug":"new-on-geni-multilingual-profiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/new-on-geni-multilingual-profiles-86125.html","title":{"rendered":"New on Geni: Multilingual Profiles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Geni\u2019s World Family Tree, now almost 80 million profiles strong, enables people of all nationalities and cultures to work together to discover their shared ancestry. One of the greatest challenges of creating a single family tree of the world is accommodating the many languages spoken by our international community. Today we\u2019re excited to announce that Geni\u2019s World Family Tree now supports multilingual profiles. This means you can enter names and biographies in multiple languages, and Geni will store them separately, and display them in your preferred language. No more confusion of tongues<\/a> as in the biblical Tower of Babel!<\/p>\n

\"image14\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Through the collaborative effort of millions of genealogists, our World Family Tree continues to grow every day. With branches extending all around the globe, we\u2019ve seen more and more profiles where names and descriptions were being entered multiple times, in different languages, into a single set of fields. In today\u2019s release, profiles have become multilingual and you can now enter profile names and biographies separately in any of the 75 languages that are actively used on Geni.<\/p>\n

If a profile name exists in the language you\u2019ve selected for Geni, you will see that name in your language. We\u2019ve also designed a sophisticated fallback mechanism for choosing which name to display when a name is not available in your chosen language.<\/p>\n

With these changes, a profile such as Charlemagne\u2019s<\/a> will look significantly better. Previously, if you wanted to enter Charlemagne\u2019s name in multiple languages, you were forced to put them all in the same field, leaving the profile with a messy mix of names in various languages.<\/p>\n

Charlemagne, before (English):<\/p>\n

\"image07\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Now name fields can be entered and stored separately in any language for any profile using a clever system that uses fallbacks to display the best information available.<\/p>\n

Charlemagne, after (English):<\/p>\n

\"image06\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Charlemagne, after (German):<\/p>\n

\"image09\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Charlemagne, after (Russian):<\/p>\n

\"image12\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Furthermore, the \u2018About Me\u2019 (biography) sections of your Geni profiles now also support multiple languages. You can enjoy this rich content in your native language, without having to scroll through similar information in foreign languages.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a closer look at how to use this new feature. First, you\u2019ll notice we\u2019ve designed a new form for adding profiles to your tree. \u00a0This form not only supports multilingual names, but is also designed to help you build your tree as quickly and accurately as possible:<\/p>\n

\"image11\"<\/a><\/p>\n

While most of the fields above should look familiar, there are some big improvements. \u00a0The header reminds you who you\u2019re adding, and you can click \u201cShow current family members\u201d to make sure you\u2019re not adding a duplicate. \u00a0After clicking the yellow arrows in the tree, the relationship and gender will be filled in automatically. \u00a0The first name field is highlighted in blue so you can start typing without having to click first. \u00a0The Save button is always visible at the bottom, so once you\u2019ve entered all the information you have you can submit the form without having to scroll down to find it. \u00a0And if you\u2019ve got more family members to add, just turn on the \u201cAdd another family member\u2026\u201d checkbox and you\u2019ll get a new form as soon as you click Save!<\/p>\n

Most important, however, are the new multilingual name fields! \u00a0English will remain the default language for names on Geni, however if a profile has a different name or character set in another language (e.g. Russian, Greek, Hebrew, etc.), you can add it easily by clicking the \u201cAdd Language\u2026\u201d button. \u00a0Doing so will display a language selection dialog similar to how you choose your own language for the Geni interface:<\/p>\n

\"image02\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You may have noticed already that the language subtypes are missing — an English name is English regardless of US or UK, similarly with Spanish, Portuguese, etc. \u00a0If you\u2019ve chosen to view Geni\u2019s interface in a language that uses a non-Latin character set, that language will automatically be suggested for you as a tab labeled \u201cAdd <your language>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Tip:<\/b> Names that are the same in English as in the profile\u2019s native tongue, such as Pierre in French (same as Pierre in English) or Hans in German (same as Hans in English), should be entered as the English (default) name. \u00a0There is no need to enter these identical names on multiple language tabs.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve enhanced the edit profile dialog as well to support multiple languages:<\/p>\n

\"image04\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Notice that we\u2019ve also added a cool feature here: when you edit a name in a new language, it will show you how it has been entered in your language or English, below each field so you can quickly translate it. If a name has not yet been entered in your language or English, it will show you the name in the first available language.<\/p>\n

How will I know if a profile has names in other languages? <\/b><\/p>\n

Take a closer look at the Charlemagne example above. \u00a0If you\u2019re using Geni in German, you\u2019ll see something like this to the right of the profile photo:<\/p>\n

\"image13\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Note that the large-format name will be in your chosen language, if available, and names in other languages are listed below, in a smaller font. \u00a0The \u201chover cards\u201d you sometimes see when holding the mouse above a linked name have also been updated to show multilingual names, as well.<\/p>\n

How does Geni display a profile that doesn\u2019t have a name in my preferred language?<\/b><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve developed a fallback system for choosing which language name to show you. \u00a0If a profile does not have a name in your chosen interface language, we\u2019ll first check to see if there\u2019s an English name. \u00a0If so, that\u2019s what you\u2019ll see. \u00a0Otherwise, we\u2019ll choose the first available language to display. \u00a0Certain name fields will be paired together as part of this selection process: \u00a0we won\u2019t mix first name and middle name from different languages, nor will we mix last name and maiden name from different languages. \u00a0However, if a profile has a first or middle name in one language and a last or maiden name in another, we will combine these in order to show you as much information as possible.<\/p>\n

How will I know if a profile has a biography in other languages?<\/b><\/p>\n

If a profile has a biography in multiple languages, you will see a new language selector to the right of the About Me heading. \u00a0Simply select the language in which to view the biography:<\/p>\n

\"image00\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How do I search multilingual names?<\/b><\/p>\n

Searching is automatic — whenever you use the \u201cquick search\u201d bar at the top of every Geni page, or the individual name fields on our advanced search form, Geni will match your query against all languages of all profiles. \u00a0This applies to matching, too, so you may discover Tree Matches that match only in certain languages.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve also updated our merge comparison interface to show you the multilingual details:<\/p>\n

\"image01\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(click to zoom)<\/em><\/p>\n

We have updated all of Geni\u2019s functionality to take advantage of this new feature: searching, tree matching, family tree charts, data exports and more have all been enhanced to recognize multilingual names. And we are in the process of automatically parsing all existing, mixed-up name components to move them into language-specific fields wherever possible — we\u2019re confident our enormous, active Geni community will help sort out the profiles where we were not able to do this automatically.<\/p>\n

The World Family Tree has never looked better now that everyone can view their relatives\u2019 profiles in their native language without the mess of other languages cluttering the same profile.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a nice example showing multilingual profiles in action.<\/p>\n

Geni\u2019s biblical tree before the enhancements:<\/p>\n

\"image08\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(click to zoom)<\/i><\/p>\n

After (English):<\/p>\n

\"image10\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(click to zoom)<\/em><\/p>\n

After (Hebrew):<\/p>\n

\"image05\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(click to zoom)<\/em><\/p>\n

After (Arabic):<\/p>\n

\"image03\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(click to zoom)<\/em><\/p>\n

Just like Wikipedia supports multiple languages, so now does Geni only in a rich, structured form – names and biographies can be provided in individual languages, while dates, relationships and other non-language-dependent information need only be entered once, and are automatically displayed in localized form.<\/p>\n

We feel this is a significant step forward in globally collaborative genealogy. By enabling users to enter and view the names and biographies of their relatives\u2019 profiles separately in multiple languages, without combining them into the same fields, our global community can now view the profiles in the tree with ease in the language of their own preference. As custodians of the World Family Tree, we believe this latest enhancement helps bring all of us closer to realizing the goal of building the definitive family tree of the world.<\/p>\n

Check out your multilingual family tree<\/a> now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Geni\u2019s World Family Tree, now almost 80 million profiles strong, enables people of all nationalities and cultures to work together to discover their shared ancestry. One of the greatest challenges of creating a single family tree of the world is accommodating the many languages spoken by our international community. Today we\u2019re excited to announce that Geni\u2019s World Family Tree now supports multilingual profiles. This means you can enter names and biographies in multiple languages, and… Read the full story<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":86126,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[171],"tags":[4915,1961,261,6185,531],"class_list":["post-86125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-company-news","tag-announcement","tag-feature","tag-geni","tag-mulitlingual-profiles","tag-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86125"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86125"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86207,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86125\/revisions\/86207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.geni.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}