Geni’s 2024 Highlights: A Year in Review

Posted December 31, 2024 by Amanda | No Comment

Before the new year begins, we are taking a look back at 2024 on Geni and reflecting on what a great year we had. From reaching 190 million profiles in the World Family Tree to connecting and meeting new and old genealogy friends, it was a fun and exciting year indeed!

We did a lot of work behind the scenes to make Geni run even better. Early in the year we began sending new Source Assistant email notifications for when there are pending Source Assistant items to review. These notifications serve as a reminder that you may have exciting new information waiting to be added to the family tree.

Thanks to the request of our users, we also introduced a new tree legend to the family tree page. As we all interact with the family tree interface on Geni, we may encounter many icons and other graphical elements that give more information about the profiles presented in this view. The legend not only provides a list of all the icon and graphical elements found in the tree, but also a brief explanation and a graphic that displays its placement in the tree. You can click on the ? icon at the left of the tree page to view the family tree legend for yourself!

In 2024, we hit a new milestone in the World Family Tree – 190 million profiles connected! This accomplishment was made possible by Geni’s incredibly collaborative community and with the aide of our dedicated team of volunteer Curators. We are looking forward to 2025, which will see the World Family Tree hit 200 million profiles. We can’t wait!

While Taylor Swift had an amazing year as she finished the run of her record-breaking Eras Tour and released a new album, The Tortured Poets Department, we had fun discovering some surprising connections in Geni’s World Family Tree. We found that Swift is related to artist Post Malone, who was featured on The Tortured Poets Department‘s first single “Fortnight.” According to Geni’s World Family Tree, the musical collaborators are 10th cousins thrice removed!

Geni was also on hand at a couple of in-person genealogy conferences throughout the year. In March, we made our way to Salt Lake City, Utah for RootsTech, the world’s largest genealogy conference. It was great fun to meet new users and reconnect with longtime genealogy friends.

One of our favorite things about attending conferences is the chance to meet Geni Curators in person. This year we had the opportunity to meet curators from afar – Sandra Levien, who flew in from Canada, and Mona Magno-Veluz, who traveled all the way from the Philippines!

Curator Benjamin Schoenbrun was a big help throughout the year, not only traveling to Utah to staff the booth for RootsTech, but also spending time hanging out at the Geni booth at the IAJGS conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, helping to connect attendees to the World Family Tree. For the IAJGS conference, we removed the limitations of the Geni Pathfinder and expanded it to find any blood and in-law relationships between attendees. Those who registered for the event’s Pathfinder feature were able to receive a notification if a new relationship was found to another attendee. The change was a big hit! Attendees were very excited to learn how they were connected.