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  • Geni
    • Main contributor: Mike Stangel
    The Geni logo
    The Geni logo.

    Geni is a US-based genealogy and family social networking site owned by MyHeritage. On Geni.com, users collaborate on a single interconnected family tree of the world rather than each user maintaining their own site / family tree. Geni's World Family Tree connects hundreds of millions of profiles and over 5 million users.

    History of Geni

    Geni was founded in 2006 by David Sacks (former Chief Operating Officer of PayPal[1]) and Alan Braverman (Xoom, Eventbrite). Launched in January 16, 2007[2] [3], Geni.com quickly gained popularity among genealogy enthusiasts for its easy-to-use tree interface that included not just ancestors but aunts and uncles, cousins, and more. By July of that year Geni users had input over 5 million profiles[4].

    In 2008 Geni released its relationship path search feature, which allowed Geni users to see how they are related to any profile in their connected family tree. Also in 2008 Geni introduced tree merging, the mechanism needed to build what's now known as Geni's World Family Tree[5]. By the end of 2010 this one single tree had grown to 50 million interconnected profiles.

    Geni released its crowd-sourced translation tool in 2009[6], and within a year the site had been translated into 20 languages[7]. Today Geni is available in 75 languages[8].

    In 2010 Geni formed a team of curators who would take stewardship of the historical parts of the shared tree to ensure that those profiles are kept accurate, well-sourced and free from duplication. Geni's curator team now consists of over 250 volunteers who are an invaluable resource for our users and the quality of the World Family Tree.

    Geni was acquired by MyHeritage in November 2012[9] and within a few months Geni users were able to enjoy MyHeritage's extensive collection of records and family trees, by matching those to Geni profiles and allowing users to confirm those matches as source citations on Geni.

    In 2014 Geni introduced multilingual profiles[10], a groundbreaking set of features designed to allow users all over the world to enjoy shared profiles in their own native language and to view names as they are known in their own country.

    In 2016 Geni partnered with Family Tree DNA to bring their large database of Y, Mitochondrial and Autosomal DNA matches to Geni's World Family Tree[11]. Users can link their FTDNA account to Geni and have their DNA results mapped to the Geni tree, including propagation of DNA haplogroups throughout the tree and tools to help users solve the riddle of conflicting DNA results.

    Geni enjoyed worldwide recognition in 2018 with the publication of an article in the prestigious journal Science[12] by MyHeritage's former Chief Scientist, Dr. Yaniv Erlich. Dr. Erlich's work (dating back to 2010) used public data from Geni's World Family Tree to discern trends in marriage and migration in Europe and North America over the past few centuries, as well as the role of genetics in human longevity.

    In 2022 Geni released Source Assistant, the culmination of years' worth of work in enhancing the value that MyHeritage Record Matches bring to Geni. This easy-to-use tool enables users who confirm record matches to their Geni profiles, to extract profile updates and even additional family members and add that information quickly and seamlessly to Geni.

    Today Geni offers a thriving community of amateur and professional genealogy enthusiasts as well as volunteer curators around the globe. The World Family Tree is increasingly becoming the "go to" source for historical genealogy information, no matter how obscure or common.

    Features and services of Geni

    Geni offers a broad range of features surrounding the construction and maintenance of the World Family Tree:

    • The shared World Family Tree itself consists of hundreds of millions of profiles in a single interconnected tree that also connects over 5 million Geni users to each other.
    • Once connected to the World Family Tree, Geni's relationship path search tool allows users to see how they are related to each other, to historical figures, or to notable living people.
    • Public discussions and private inbox messages facilitate open communication among all Geni users.
    • Geni's Record Matches, Consistency Checker, Source Assistant, Source Citations and extensive Revisions system all work in concert, with the goal of making the World Family Tree the most accurate and well-sourced collaborative tree in the world.
    • Projects are user-generated pages (and associated profiles) that organize genealogical figures logically rather than just how they are connected in the family tree; there are tens of thousands of projects covering places, events and organizations all around the world.

    Integration of Geni with MyHeritage

    Users of Geni and MyHeritage benefit from both sites. Geni users' profiles are matched against billions of records and countless family trees through Record Matches and Smart Matches™, which can then be used as source citations and even to update and build the World Family Tree. At the same time, MyHeritage users have access to the Geni tree both as Record Matches on MyHeritage.com[13], as well as powering back-end services such as the Theory of Family Relativity™, which shows MyHeritage DNA users how they are likely related to their matches[14].

    See also

    Explore more about Geni.com

    1. ↑ https://www.businessinsider.com/yammer-ceo-david-sacks-bio-2012-6
    2. ↑ https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-webscout5aug05-story.html
    3. ↑ https://techcrunch.com/2007/01/16/geni-launches/
    4. ↑ https://techcrunch.com/2007/07/02/geni-5-million-profiles-in-5-months/
    5. ↑ https://techcrunch.com/2008/09/03/genis-quest-toward-one-world-family-tree/
    6. ↑ https://www.geni.com/corp/press/geni-goes-global-with-20-new-languages-and-a-crowdsourced-translation-tool/
    7. ↑ https://www.geni.com/blog/twenty-languages-one-tree-1351.html
    8. ↑ https://www.geni.com/blog/new-on-geni-multilingual-profiles-86125.html
    9. ↑ https://www.geni.com/blog/geni-is-joining-the-myheritage-family-78424.html
    10. ↑ https://www.geni.com/blog/new-on-geni-multilingual-profiles-86125.html
    11. ↑ https://www.geni.com/blog/geni-adds-dna-to-the-world-family-tree-94127.html
    12. ↑ https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aam9309
    13. ↑ https://www.myheritage.com/help-center?a=How-do-MyHeritage-and-Geni-operate---id--Nm0jyU1pRt692lHVJxHFhA
    14. ↑ https://www.myheritage.com/help-center?a=How-do-I-use-the-Theory-of-Family-Relativitytm---id--U50tvJSFTlCLb8TGwn-WxA


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