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Tuesday, February 9, 2016

100 Million Profiles now on Geni's World Family Tree




Geni.com is described as follows in a recent blog post:
The World Family Tree is the definitive family tree for the entire world. It connects millions of relatives in over 160 countries and across all seven continents. It is a truly global endeavor as millions of genealogists and family historians from all around the world collaborate on the family tree, continuously working to improve, enhance and preserve our shared ancestry.
On January 26, 2016, Geni.com announced that the program now had 100 million profiles. The actial number at the time of this post was 100, 448, 101. The Geni.com World Family Tree is a unified, curated family tree with an emphasis on accuracy and a lack of duplication. Here is an explanation of the process Geni.com uses to increase accuracy and decrease or eliminate duplication.
When visiting other genealogy websites, you will often find a seemingly endless number of duplicate family trees. A simple search for Apple co-founder Steve Jobs can result in hundreds of entries. However, when searched on Geni, you will find only one clean and accurate entry for Steve Jobs. Since the profile is designated a Master Profile, all subsequent duplicates that may be created will be merged into the Master Profile, ensuring all of the best information is collected in one place. Photographs, documents and sources can be added to the same profile for all to share and review. 
A common pitfall of other online family trees is the perpetuation of errors that seem impossible to rectify as they are copied across duplicate trees. What makes working in Geni’s World Family Tree extraordinary is that when a mistake is found, it can be corrected quickly and without the worry that the error will be repeated across multiple family trees, which can create a false sense of accuracy. As more people work together, the World Family Tree gets better and better as mistakes are corrected, existing profiles are enhanced and new information is found. 
To further ensure the accurate preservation of our shared ancestry, we introduced our team of volunteer Curators to act as stewards of the World Family Tree. Since 2010, Curators have helped protect and maintain the accuracy of the tree. These are users who are not only actively contributing to the World Family Tree, but are also well regarded by the Geni community for their helpfulness and genealogical expertise. In the years since we first introduced this role, our team of Curators has grown to over 190 volunteers from all around the world. Each curator brings with them a strong passion for genealogy and collaboration in the quest to connect all of humanity. Not only has their hard work helped to make Geni’s World Family Tree one of the most accurate online family trees around, but their boundless enthusiasm to help others has become a cornerstone of Geni’s collaborative community. Our Curators have been instrumental in helping to shape the World Family Tree into what it is today by spending countless hours merging duplicates, making corrections and assisting Geni users with both genealogical and technical inquiries.
In 2012 Geni.com was acquired by MyHeritage.com and records in the Geni World Family Tree appear in MyHeriatge.com's family trees as Record Matches.

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