February 2019

This week the Geni team will be heading to RootsTech 2019, the world’s largest genealogy conference. The conference will be held on February 27 – March 2, 2019 at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Over 300 sessions for all experience levels are available for attendees. If you’re unable to make it, there will be several sessions will be live streamed for free. This year, RootsTech has lined up an exciting group of keynote speakers, including Emmy award-winning… Read the full story

Today we are pleased to announce the return of the GEDCOM Import feature to Geni! This has been one of the most requested features on Geni and we’re excited to finally make it available to everyone. GEDCOM is a standard file format used to save, transfer, and transport family tree information. Long-time users may recall that Geni previously allowed users to start a tree using their GEDCOM files, however we disabled this feature in 2011… Read the full story

Today we remember “The Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin on what would have been his 57th birthday. Irwin was born on February 22, 1962 in Essendon, Victoria, Australia to Lyn Hakinsson and Bob Irwin. His parents started a small Queensland Reptile and Fauna Park and so naturally Irwin grew up around the park’s wildlife. By the age of nine, Irwin was handling crocodiles himself. He later worked as a volunteer for Queensland’s East Coast Crocodile Management program…. Read the full story

GeneaVlogger and Geni curator Jarrett Ross recently released a very helpful video on how to navigate your way around the Flash version of the World Family Tree on Geni. The very thorough video goes over the many options and shortcuts you can take if you are trying to find your way around the tree. For the past year, we have been working on new improvements to the HTML tree, including the recently released new and improved pedigree view. We also plan to… Read the full story

To celebrate Valentine’s Day, we asked you to share with us your favorite family love stories for a chance to win a free 1-year subscription of Geni Pro. The stories could be anything from an anecdote of how your grandparents first met, a memorable proposal, or even the story behind a sentimental photo. We enjoyed reading some wonderful and funny stories ranging from first date woes to contemporary stories of finding love online. Entries were submitted through email, Facebook, and… Read the full story

After the success of MyHeritage LIVE 2018 in Oslo, Norway, MyHeritage, Geni’s parent company, will be hosting the conference for a second time! Today MyHeritage announced that MyHeritage LIVE 2019 will be held on September 6-8, 2019 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. We had a great time participating in the conference last year and we look forward to doing it again in Amsterdam. Check out our highlights from MyHeritage LIVE 2018. In addition to a plenary session from MyHeritage’s Founder and… Read the full story

On this day in 1911, Ronald Reagan, the 40th President of the United States, was born. Reagan was raised in a small town in Illinois. His father nicknamed him “Dutch” as a small boy because he thought his son resembled a “fat little Dutchman.” Before entering politics, Reagan was a successful actor. He began his entertainment career in radio before transitioning to film. During World War II, Regan served in the U.S. Army Air Corps. Disqualified from combat due to… Read the full story

On this day in 1723, John Witherspoon, a Presbyterian minster and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born. Witherspoon was born in Gifford, Scotland on February 5, 1723 to the Reverend James Alexander Witherspoon and Anne Walker. Before emigrating to the American colonies, Witherspoon was a prominent Presbyterian minster in the Church of Scotland. In 1768, he sailed to New Jersey to become the 6th President of the College of New Jersey, which is today… Read the full story

Since we first released the new HTML version of the family tree, we have made great progress bringing the important features of the Flash tree to the new version. Today, we are excited to announce another exciting update – a new and improved pedigree view is now available on the HTML tree! You can switch to the pedigree view by clicking on the pedigree icon at the bottom right corner of the tree page. The… Read the full story