Genoom Blog

Today is International Day of Families and this year the theme is “Mothers and Families: Challenges in a Changing World”. The worldwide observance of this day was first proclaimed by the United Nations in 1997 as part of the United Nations Programme on the Family.

This year´s theme focuses on the role of mothers for families and the secretary general makes the following commentary in his message:

Mothers play a critical role in the family, which is a powerful force for social cohesion and integration. The mother-child relationship is vital for the healthy development of children. And mothers are not only caregivers; they are also breadwinners for their families. Yet women continue to face major – and even life threatening – challenges in motherhood.

We salute all mothers around the world!!

The Startup 2.0 event in Bilbao recently ended and we are proud to announce that Genoom was given the 2nd prize award as one of the top 3 startups in Europe.

The competition began with 157 nominated startups coming from 15 different countries in Europe and we had the opportunity to present among one of the 11 finalists. The event was held on April 24 & 25th in conjunction with the Nonick Conference.

We are very happy to anounce that Genoom has been selected as one of the top 11 startups in this year´s Startup 2.0 event.  The event, held on Friday April 24, will take place in Bilbao as part of the Nonick conference.

If you plan to go, make sure you come and say hello to us!

This week we are excited to release the new Status Bar feature in Genoom. The Status Bar is a fun way to share information and tell your family what you´re up to.

Your Status updates will be displayed in the top area of your profile and show up on the activity feed of your family members. You can also choose who views your Status updates by clicking on “edit” once you begin typing in the box.

So, what are you up to?

1. The tradition of giving eggs at Easter time has been traced back to Persians, Egyptians, Gauls, Greeks and Romans, to whom the egg was a symbol of life.

2. Easter is a “moveable feast” celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon which happens on or after March 21, the Spring Equinox.

3. The first chocolate eggs were made in Europe in the early 1800s and still are one of the most popular treats associated with Easter.

4. 76 percent of people eat the ears on chocolate bunnies first.

5. The traditional act of painting eggs is called Pysanka (origins from the Ukranian word pysaty, “to write”)

6. According to the Guinness Book of World Records the largest Easter egg ever made was just over 25 feet high and weighed 8,968 lbs.

7. On average, every year 16 billion jelly beans and 90 million chocolate bunnies are made in preparation for Easter.

8. The name Easter originates from Eastre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess who symbolizes hare and egg.

9. Every year, the White House hosts an Easter Egg Roll on the front lawn. The tradition was started by President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878.

10. The world’s largest jar of jelly beans weighed 6,050 pounds.

This week we´re launching a new improvement and taking hiding branches once step further to avoid your family network from being too extensive with branches that you don´t have any relationship with (or little interest).

Therefore, from now on, all the branches of your non-blood relatives will be closed by default except for your current partner.

However, you can configure your family network and specify the branches of your non-blood relatives you would like to open or close. In other words, you have control of which non-blood relatives you would like visible in your network.

If your family tree has extended branches of your non-bloodrelated family with whom you don´t have any relation (or little interest), you can now configure your family tree to hide branches. Simply click on “close branch” on a non-bloodrelated member´s profile and that section of the tree will be hidden. You can just as easily “open branch” as well.

Closing a branch also means that you will no longer see the activity of the members of that branch in the activity feed of your network.

Have you ever wondered what a royal family tree looks like? We were curious ourselves and have constructed the family tree of the royal family of Spain.

Starting from the point of view of Prince Felipe, you can see his parents, Juan Carlos I de Borbón and Sofia De Grecia, including all family members up to Felipe V de Borbón ( Dec 19, 1683 – July 9, 1746). That´s 11 generations of royal history!

Did you know the royal family of Spain is also connected to the royal family of Britain – can you find the connection?

This week we´re happy to release a big improvement to the message center in Genoom to make communication with your family a whole lot better. Most notably, this includes:

• Organized message threads: Follow the sequence of conversations you´ve had with another person (or multiple people) in a single, coherent message thread
• Bulk action feature: This allows you to make bulk actions (delete, mark as read, mark as unread) to your messages ever so much easier
• New layout: The display format of your Inbox and Sent items has been modified for better usability and readability so you can quickly scan through your messages

We hope you find these improvements as useful as we do!

Using the List View is a great way to learn a lot of information about your family network.  In particular, the List View is an easy way to help you find out who in your network still has not been invited or registered on Genoom.

To find out which one of your relatives still need to be invited to your network, follow the following steps:

1) Go to your List View (click on the image below to view large size)

2) Select “Pending to be invited” from the drop box (click on the image below to view large size)

3) Click on Invite or Re-invite to send your relative an invitation (click on the image below to view large size)

Remember, you can also invite relatives from within your family tree by clicking on Invite on the individual data cards of each person.