Partnership Combines Largest, Most Accurate Online Tree With Billions of Records
WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA – September 29, 2011 – Geni, the collaborative family history community home to the largest, most accurate “World Family Tree,” today made documents from both the Archives.com and GenealogyBank.com records databases available quickly and easily to Geni members through profile-based alerts.
Traditionally, genealogists have been forced to manually re-enter vital information, such as names, dates and locations, on every site they visit for every person in their family tree. Geni now automates this process by automatically searching record partners’ collections any time one views a relative’s profile on Geni. When matches are found, an alert will appear with links to records from each provider. If a member wants to view any of these records, they can view the profile’s results in each database with one click, saving them valuable research time.
“We recognize the importance of source records when building a family tree. Documenting sources is even more important in a collaborative environment like Geni,” said Noah Tutak, Geni CEO. “By providing records from the person’s profile, first with partners Archives.com and GenealogyBank.com, and with many others to come, we can save genealogists from spending their time conducting separate searches on the many genealogy databases available.”
Archives has compiled more than 1.5 billion historical records, including vital (birth, death, marriage, divorce), census, newspaper, obituary, military, and immigration. Recently, the entire U.S. census became searchable on Archives.com, including more than 500 million records, and three million images. Archives also offers a seven-day free trial, so users can try the membership risk free.
“It’s almost overwhelming the number of public records that are available. The tough part is finding the ones that are relevant to your family,” said Joe Godfrey, director of product at Archives. “Highlighting applicable documents to Geni members directly on their profile pages is a great way to save what most of us don’t have enough of… time.”
GenealogyBank is home to more than 5,700 fully searchable U.S. newspapers from 1690 to the present and over one billion genealogy records, including obituaries, birth and marriage notices, passenger lists, military records and much more. Over 95 percent of the newspapers on GenealogyBank cannot be found on other genealogy websites. GenealogyBank adds millions of records every month and offers a 30-day trial, making it easy for users to find first-hand accounts about their ancestors.
“We’re excited to help Geni members discover the stories, names, dates, places and events that have played a role in their family history,” says Ross Allred, director of GenealogyBank. For decades, family historians had to travel across the country to hundreds of libraries to access these newspapers—now they are instantly available to Geni members 24/7 with a click of a mouse.”
About Archives
Archives.com is a leading family history website that makes discovering family history simple and affordable. The company has assembled more than 1.5 billion historical records in a single location, and makes them available at a price that’s up to 80 percent less than the leading competitor. Archives also partners with other leading family history websites to provide integrated record collections, discounted memberships, official certificates and other special promotions. Archives.com is free to try for seven days, allowing anyone to explore the benefits of membership without risk or obligation. Archives.com is owned and operated by Inflection, a fast-growing data commerce company.
About GenealogyBank
GenealogyBank.com, a division of NewsBank inc. is one of the largest and fastest growing searchable newspaper archives online for family history research. More than one billion genealogy records have been added to the site since it launched five years ago, to help people discover, preserve and share their family history. The website provides genealogists with access to full-text, fully-searchable newspapers published in all 50 states. The website also provides access to hard-to-find pension lists, military records, land claims and other helpful records including free access to the Social Security Death Index. GenealogyBank.com is owned and operated by NewsBank, inc., one of the world’s premier information providers for more than 35 years.
About Geni, Inc.
Geni is an online community of casual and expert genealogists working together to create a single World Family Tree. Members can invite relatives to help them build their family tree with no limit to the number of people, documents, photos or videos added. They can then discover how they are related to celebrities, historical figures and other members of the World Family Tree. Privately held and based in Los Angeles, Geni’s financial backers include Founders Fund and Charles River Ventures. It was founded by David Sacks, the original chief operating officer of PayPal and founder of Yammer, Inc.