Archive for the ‘Company News’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Google Your Family Tree Available For Shipping

Thursday, November 13th, 2008

On October 10, we announced in our newsletter that pre-orders were available for a brand new book called Google Your Family Tree by Dan Lynch. Now, WorldVitalRecords.com is happy to announce that Google Your Family Tree is available for shipping.

What is Google Your Family Tree?
 Google Your Family Tree is a book written for anyone who uses Google and wants to discover how to sift through these billions of information on Google to find relevant results specifically related to your family.

Google Your Family Tree is designed for experts in genealogy, as well as anyone who uses a computer. Both groups will find valuable information in the book. Click here to view the Table of Contents.

Google Your Family Tree is a soft-bound book containing 352 pages filled with text, numerous screen shots, tables, and other diagrams that combine to make this a must-have book for every family historian – hobbyist or professional.

How Can I Get a Copy of Google Your Family Tree?
 Google Your Family Tree can be purchased for only $34.95! To order your copy, click here, or call 1-888-377-0588.

What Are Others Saying About Google Your Family Tree?
 Many well-known genealogists and family history enthusiasts have been enthusiastic about the book:

“Easily the most important technology book for genealogists written in more than a decade. This is a must read for anyone using the Internet – for family history or any other reason!” – Dan Taggart, Co-Founder, Ancestry.com, Inc.

“Dan Lynch has done a splendid job of unlocking the power of Google, sometimes showing us how to use basic tools more effectively and other times by revealing lesser known features of Google. With Lynch’s book, mastery of Google has finally become possible.” – Halvor Moorshead, Founder, Moorshead Magazines, Ltd. Publishers of Internet Genealogy, Family Chronicle, History Magazine, and Discovering Family History

“This is a fabulous book and it’s going to become, I think, a standard in the industry. I just finished reading it today – it’s incredible. It’s up there with Elizabeth Shown Mills Evidence book…it will be in every major professional researcher’s library and hopefully most of the beginners…I think it’s a great book!” – Mary Slawson, Professional Genealogist and Host of KSL Radio’s “Relatively Speaking”

“Dan Lynch has written an excellent new book called ‘Google Your Family Tree.’ I have a pre-release copy of the book and can tell you that it is top-notch. Dan went the ‘extra mile’ to create a valuable book for online genealogists. I hope he sells a million of these books; it’s that good.” – Dick Eastman, Editor, Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter

“If you thought you knew how to use Google, think again. Lynch’s book will teach even experienced Google genealogists new tricks. It’s a must-have for any family historian (and anyone else) who wants to find information online.” – Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective

Posted in GoogleYourFamilyTree | No Comments »

EveryDay Genealogy Value

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

With the current state of the economy money is tight for most of us. In an effort to help, we have strengthened our commitment to provide what we are calling “everyday genealogy value.”

EveryDay Genealogy Value Means:

* We have lowered our subscription price.Our annual subscription is now priced at $119.95 for unlimited access, instead of $149.95 ($30 savings) and our U.S. collection is now only $39.95, instead of $49.95 ($10 savings).

* We have improved our site (see the New Site Design article in this newsletter). We made these changes to help you have a better experience using our site, and to make it easier for you to find your ancestors.

* New content. As always, we continue to add new and free content daily (Monday through Friday). Your subscription value increases every business day.

* We listen to your feedback. Your input is important at WorldVitalRecords.com. It’s so important that we have added a section on our site for you to share your thoughts (wvr.uservoice.com). You can also call our toll free number at 1-877-0588 (8-5 p.m. MST) if you ever need any assistance. We’re here to help.

Posted in Special Offers | No Comments »

New Site Design Streamlines Search, Brings More Subscribers

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008

Users benefit from improved search and browsing functionality, expanded collections, user feedback feature, and increased value 

PROVO, UT, November 11, 2008 — Finding ancestors recently became easier at WorldVitalRecords.com. The site has launched a new site design with improved search and browsing functionality, expanded collections, added user feedback feature, and increased value to users.

“Finding an ancestor within a collection that includes 1.2 billion names across more than 11,000 databases can at times feel like finding a needle in a haystack. That’s not the experience WorldVitalRecords.com wants for its guests and customers, which is why we have given WorldVitalRecords.com a facelift,” said Jim Ericson, VP Marketing, FamilyLink.com, Inc.

One of the major changes to the site is a new user interface, which allows individuals to access and navigate the site easier and faster. For example, with the old site, a search for content in Italy would mean searching individually through each Italian database to find results. Now, with one click, users can search all the Italian databases on the site. Another new feature is that individuals can now select the type of record they would like to search, with choices ranging from census records to family trees to marriage, birth, and death records.

The View All Databases link has also been improved. In the past, when users clicked this link, they would get an alphabetical list of the titles of thousands of databases. Users would have to know the title of the database to locate their ancestors. Now, when users click on the View All Databases link, they are able to easily select the record type they would like to view, in the place or location where they believe their ancestors’ records may be located.

These site changes also come as the company is getting ready to launch several new, premier collections to WorldVitalRecords.com, which include the American Genealogical Biographical Index (AGBI), the Brenner Collection of more than 4.5 million German vital records, the largest collection of international newspapers, and other key international collections. Meanwhile WorldVitalRecords.com continues to negotiate contracts for other notable collections from premier publishers, societies, and organizations.

The prices of annual subscriptions to WorldVitalRecords.com have also been reduced by 20 percent to address the increased financial pressures facing many genealogists. An annual subscription to unlimited site access to more than 1.2 billion names now costs an effective monthly rate of only $9.95.

“Tough economic conditions shouldn’t prevent devoted genealogists from tracing their family trees and discovering their roots online,” explained Ericson.

“These major enhancements, along with all the upcoming content additions, have already started to have an impact. The rate of people signing up for the site has doubled, which will benefit our users, as well as our content partners, and affiliates,” said Paul Allen, CEO, FamilyLink.com.

WorldVitalRecords.com wants to be as responsive to its customers as possible. To aid in this goal, WorldVitalRecords.com has added several new feedback features. Users can now provide feedback on the site, vote on the features they want the most, and view improvements that are currently in process. If they choose, they can also be notified when errors have been fixed, or when new features have been added to the site. The url to provide this feedback is wvr.uservoice.com.

Users can also communicate to WorldVitalRecords.com the content they want indexed as well. Using new content request features on the site, individuals can specify the type of content they want, and the countries in which they are the most interested. The url to provide this feedback on content is wvrcontent.uservoice.com.

“This is a great tool that allows the community to tell us what they want, rather than us deciding what is most important. Users will now determine the type of content we go after and scan. It’s a very organized system that puts our users in charge,” Allen said.

xxx

Media Contact
Whitney Ransom McGowan
Corporate Communications Director
FamilyLink.com, Inc.

http://www.worldvitalrecords.com

whitney@familylink.com

About FamilyLink.com, Inc.
FamilyLink.com, Inc. is a family of services that includes WorldVitalRecords.com, FamilyLink.com, WebTree.com, and the We’re Related and My Family applications on Facebook. The focus of the company is to provide innovative tools to connect families. FamilyLink.com, Inc. has more than 3.4 million unique global visitors each month and 27.3 million page views per month. WorldVitalRecords.com has more than 1.2 billion names in 11,000 databases. New content is also added every business day. We’re Related is one of the fastest growing social networks for genealogists. We’re Related is a family-based application on Facebook.com that allows individuals to find relatives on Facebook, connect with friends and family members, build family trees, and share news and photos. My Family is a great way for people to express themselves and to share interesting characteristics about their family with those they connect with on social platforms.

Posted in New Feature, Press Release | No Comments »

New Podcast For Genealogists

Wednesday, November 5th, 2008

A new podcast was recently launched for genealogists called Family History: Genealogy Made Easy. The podcast is geared to beginning genealogists, and yet includes motivational interviews for the more experienced researchers.

Lisa Louise Cooke is the author of the podcast, and her hope is that this podcast will reach out to the non-genealogist and show them that discovering their family history is possible and easier than ever with all the Internet advances.

Getting started is the hardest part, and following along with this weekly serial podcast will make it easier than ever to get started and reap rewards.The audio player can be downloaded here: Genealogy Gems News Blog.

Just click the GET button on the player. It not only plays the new show, but also The Genealogy Gems Podcast, The Family Tree Magazine Podcast, The Family History Expos Podcast and Digital Photography Life. You can also subscribe free to the show in iTunes.

Posted in Our Friends, Special Offers | No Comments »

We’re Related Application Reaches 10 Million Users In Less Than a Year

Monday, October 20th, 2008

FamilyLink.com, Inc. builds the family graph with more than 50 million relationships

PROVO, UT, October 20, 2008 — In less than one year, FamilyLink.com, Inc.’s Facebook application, We’re Related, has been downloaded by more than 10 million users.

“When we first started We’re Related, some developers told us that people won’t use Facebook to connect with their family members. They said that Facebook’s target market was not families, and that the app would not survive,” said Jason McGowan, director, Social Networking, FamilyLink.com, Inc. “We have proven just the opposite by having an application that is ranked No. 9 in ‘most monthly active users’ on Facebook. People do want to connect online with their families, and now they have an easy way to do it.”

The We’re Related application allows individuals to find relatives on Facebook, share photos with their friends and families, and also collaboratively build family trees with family members on Facebook. Using We’re Related, individuals have the ability to define which Facebook users are their relatives.

Since the application was launched October 2007, more than 50 million relationships (of living people) have been defined on We’re Related. The most common relationship, by far, is “cousin, or cuz, or first cousin, or my cousin” (8.6 million). However, there have also been some funny relationships defined as well. For example, 1,925 people have been defined as “lover,” 4, 244 people have defined as “wifeys,” 2,683 people have been defined as “4th cousins,” 1,404 people have defined as “soul sisters,” 35 people have been defined as “doggy granddog,” and 35 people have been defined as “dog-n-law.”

“The Facebook platform has provided the opportunity for millions of connections to be made that may not have been possible otherwise. This fact is key to our success, because our goal is to connect individuals,” said Paul Allen, CEO, FamilyLink.com, Inc.

We’re Related has its largest audiences in the United States, Canada, and the UK. It has users from a total of 232 countries/territories and from all 50 states. Within the past 30 days, the application has had 6.5 million monthly active users and 450,000 daily active users. We’re Related has been the fastest growing application in the past few weeks, jumping from No. 23 to No. 9 (based on monthly active users).

McGowan feels that having this large number of defined relationships, with the resultant heavy flow of traffic, puts FamilyLink.com well on its way to “graphing the social family graph.”

“We have been able to leverage the social graph on Facebook, and other social networks, to build the family graph and make it easy to find and connect with relatives,” McGowan said.

Along with the 10 million current users, advertisers also greatly benefit from the We’re Related application.

“The staggering growth of the We’re Related application and the targeted advertising capabilities that growth has created provide an unprecedented opportunity for advertisers to easily reach millions of people who are connecting with family and strengthening those relationships,” said Nathan Gwilliam, Chief Revenue Officer, FamilyLink.com, Inc.

We’re Related can be downloaded at: http://apps.facebook.com/we_r_related

xxx

Media Contact
Whitney Ransom McGowan
Corporate Communications Director
FamilyLink.com, Inc.

http://www.worldvitalrecords.com

whitney@familylink.com

About FamilyLink.com, Inc.
FamilyLink.com, Inc. is a family of services that includes WorldVitalRecords.com, FamilyHistoryLink.com, WebTree.com, and the We’re Related and My Family applications on Facebook. The focus of the company is to provide innovative tools to connect families. FamilyLink.com, Inc. has 7 million unique global visitors each month and 30.4 million page views per month. We’re Related is one of the fastest-growing social networks for genealogists that allows individuals to find relatives on Facebook, connect with friends and family members, build family trees, and share news and photos. We’re Related has found success using Uservoice, an online forum for users, to determine new features that should be added to the site. My Family is a great way for people to express themselves and to share interesting characteristics about their family with those they connect with on social platforms.

Posted in Press Release, We're Related | No Comments »

Paul Allen and Dan Lynch Featured on KSL NewsRadio Genealogy Show

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008

Recently, Paul Allen and Dan Lynch from FamilyLink.com, Inc. were featured on the KSL NewsRadio Relatively Speaking Radio Genealogy Show with radio personality and genealogy author Mary Slawson.

Click on the links below to listen to Allen and Lynch.
Part 1: http://pandora.bonnint.net/audio/2008_10_05_relatively1.mp3
Part 2: http://pandora.bonnint.net/audio/2008_10_05_relatively2.mp3

Posted in Celebrations, GoogleYourFamilyTree | No Comments »

FamilyLink.com, Inc. Announces New Guidebook for Free Online Genealogy– Google Your Family Tree

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008

PROVO, UT, October 8, 2008 — FamilyLink.com, Inc. announced today the availability of Google Your Family Tree, a new book that teaches family historians how to unlock the hidden power of the Internet’s most popular search engine. Written by Daniel M. Lynch, the book received an enthusiastic reception in Philadelphia last month when it was unveiled at the Federation of Genealogical Societies (FGS) annual conference. Pre-orders for the book have been brisk, and it is expected to ship within two weeks.

“This book is well positioned to become the best-selling genealogy book of all time,” said Paul Allen, chief executive officer of FamilyLink.com. “It is the right content, by the right author, at the right time. We couldn’t be more pleased to be releasing this book this month as millions of people in the United States celebrate Family History Month.”

FamilyLink.com, Inc. and Lynch agreed to the deal in March of this year. “Dan has done an exceptional job documenting the hidden power Google offers to family history enthusiasts worldwide,” Allen said. “It is the first such book written specifically for genealogists by an accomplished genealogist and technology expert.”

Lynch was recently on the KSL NewsRadio Relatively Speaking radio genealogy show with KSL NewsRadio personality and genealogy author Mary Slawson. During the show, Slawson commented about the book, “I just finished reading it today, and it’s incredible. It’s up there with Elizabeth Shown Mills’ Evidence book. It will be in every major professional researcher’s library and hopefully in most of the beginners’ libraries. It’s a great book!”

Lynch began his career in the technology industry in 1984 and has also been involved in genealogy research for nearly 30 years. A frequent lecturer and writer, he began sharing his Google tips with fellow genealogists at the local and national level shortly after the search engine launched ten years ago. As the capabilities of Google have expanded, so too have its applications for use by family historians. “Google is easily the most important tool available for anyone engaged in family history research,” noted Lynch.

The book is 352 pages and sells for $34.95 (USD). To learn more about the book, or to reserve a copy, go to http://GoogleYourFamilyTree.com/.

About FamilyLink.com, Inc.
FamilyLink.com, Inc. is a family of services that includes WorldVitalRecords.com, FamilyHistoryLink.com, WebTree.com, and the We’re Related and My Family applications on Facebook. The company’s focus is to provide innovative tools to connect families. FamilyLink.com, Inc. has more than 3.4 million unique global visitors each month and 27.3 million page views per month. WorldVitalRecords.com provides affordable access to genealogy databases and family history tools. More than 30,000 individuals have subscribed to WorldVitalRecords.com. With more than a billion names in thousands of databases–including birth, death, military, census, and parish records–WorldVitalRecords.com makes it easy to fill in missing information in your family tree. Some of its partners include Everton Publishers, Quintin Publications, Archive CD Books Australia, Gould Genealogy, Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild, Archive CD Books Canada, The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc., SmallTownPapers®, Accessible Archives, Genealogical Publishing Company, Find My Past, Godfrey Memorial Library, Find A Grave, and FamilySearch. Investors include vSpring Capital and several angel investors.

# # #

Media Contacts:
FamilyLink.com, Inc.
Whitney Ransom McGowan
Director, Corporate Communications
whitney@familylink.com
(801) 377-0588 (Utah)

Daniel M. Lynch
(203) 459-4949 (Connecticut)
www.GoogleYourFamilyTree.com

Posted in GoogleYourFamilyTree, Press Release | No Comments »

WorldVitalRecords.com Announces New President and VP Marketing

Friday, October 3rd, 2008


Shown above (from left to right): Steve Nickle and Jim Ericson

Steve Nickle and Jim Ericson bring new vision and strong leadership to WorldVitalRecords.com

PROVO, UT, October 3, 2008 — WorldVitalRecords.com, an online genealogy service of FamilyLink.com, Inc., announced a new leadership team with Steve Nickle as the company’s new president, and Jim Erickson as Vice President, Marketing. Paul Allen will remain as CEO.

“I believe WorldVitalRecords.com is in a unique position to make a difference in the world of genealogy because of its dedicated and passionate employees to its unique perspective on how to partner with the rest of the genealogy community,” said Steve Nickle, President, WorldVitalRecords.com.

Nickle comes to the company with more than 20 years of executive and management leadership. He spent the first half of his career in financial services after earning a Financial Planning degree from BYU. The second half of his career has been spent primarily as an executive in small and medium-sized companies, including two Vice President roles at MyFamily.com — Vice President of Global Content Acquisition and Electronic Production, and Vice President of Marketing. Nickle also served on the advisory board of New England Historical and Genealogical Society (NEHGS). He has been involved in the genealogy space for the past seven years. ”

One of our goals is to become the world’s largest gateway to family and individual discovery and expression,” Nickle said. “With the current state of the economy, the desire to return to core values of family and connectedness is becoming more and more compelling to people. At WorldVitalRecords.com, we want to facilitate our customer’s desire to connect to their family and familyroots.”

Ericson has served in many leadership positions including VP Marketing for Agilix and Move Networks (a leading provider of Internet television services that provides streaming for ABC, ESPN, Fox, CW TV and Televisa). Ericson has also had genealogy experience as vice president of marketing at OneGreatFamily and as director of marketing and a product manager at Ancestry.com. While at Ancestry.com he launched Ancestry Family Tree, managed the MyFamily.com and World Family Tree online services, and launched the Ancestry.com affiliate program.

“What impressed me most with FamilyLink and the opportunity to work at WorldVitalRecords is the caliber of the team that is assembled here,” said Jim Ericson, VP Marketing, WorldVitalRecords.com. “I have a high level of respect for the entire team and have had the pleasure of working with many of these people before. I have confidence in our ability to do great things together to make a difference in the lives of our customers.”

Ericson is passionate about the values, traditions, and knowledge of families, and having that information shared from one generation to the next.

“Family history and genealogy provide us with a sense of identity and help us better understand ourselves. I enjoy the close connection people have with one another within the genealogy community, which is something you don’t often find in other markets.”

With the additions of Nickle and Ericson to the executive team FamilyLink.com is demonstrating its deep commitment to the area of family history research and discovery. The company promises to continue to expand its popular WorldVitalRecords.com service.

xxx

Media Contact
Whitney Ransom McGowan
Corporate Communications Director
FamilyLink.com, Inc.
http://www.worldvitalrecords.com
whitney@familylink.com

About FamilyLink.com, Inc.
FamilyLink.com, Inc. is a family of services that includes WorldVitalRecords.com, FamilyHistoryLink.com, WebTree.com, and the We’re Related and My Family applications on Facebook. The focus of the company is to provide innovative tools to connect families. FamilyLink.com, Inc. has more than 3.4 million unique global visitors each month and 27.3 million page views per month. We’re Related is one of the fastest growing social networks for genealogists with nearly 10 million users. We’re Related is a family-based application on Facebook.com that allows individuals to find relatives on Facebook, connect with friends and family members, build family trees, and share news and photos. My Family application is a great way for people to express themselves and to share interesting characteristics about their family with those they connect with on social platforms.

Posted in Leadership, Press Release | No Comments »

Dundurn Group Partners With FamilyLink.com, Inc. To Bring More Than 400 Genealogical and Historical Books Online

Monday, September 29th, 2008

PROVO, UT, September 29, 2008 —Dundurn Group, one of the largest publishers of adult and children’s fiction and non-fiction books in Canada, recently partnered with WorldVitalRecords.com to host more than 400 titles from its 2,000-book collection.

“We are keen to start doing business with WorldVitalRecords.com and look forward to a successful partnership with them,” said Beth Bruder, Vice President Sales and Marketing, Dundurn Group. “We have wanted to extend our reach into the field of history and genealogy and feel like this is the right fit.”

Some of the Dundurn titles include The Genealogist’s Internet, 100 Canadian Heroines, Christian Names in Local and Family History, DNA and Family History: How Genetic Testing Can Advance Your Genealogical Research, Maps for Family and Local History: The Records of the Tithe, Valuation Office and National Farm Surveys and Strangers at Our Gates: Canadian Immigration and Immigration Policy, 1540 – 2006.

The Dundurn Collection online at WorldVitalRecords.com contains a variety of records ranging from maps, to immigration records to introductory guides to guides for researching family history online.

“WorldVitalRecords.com collects a variety of content from many recognized family history and genealogical sources,” said Yvette Arts, Director of Content Partnerships, FamilyLink.com, Inc. “The Dundurn Group databases are a great example of rich content that covers areas of research, that are not usually included in ordinary genealogical collections.”

Media Contact
Whitney Ransom McGowan
Corporate Communications Director
FamilyLink.com, Inc.

http://www.worldvitalrecords.com

whitney@familylink.com

About Dundurn
Established in 1972, Dundurn Press evolved from a small publisher of Canadian history, politics, and biography to one of the leading Canadian trade publishers of Canadian non-fiction, as well as literary fiction, drama, poetry, art books, and junior fiction and non-fiction. Dundurn Press publishes 80 new titles per year and many of their books have won or been nominated for many prestigious awards, including the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Translation, and the Silver Birch Award. For more information visit www.dundurn.com.

About FamilyLink.com, Inc.
FamilyLink.com, Inc. is a family of services that includes WorldVitalRecords.com, FamilyHistoryLink.com, WebTree.com, and the We’re Related and My Family applications on Facebook. The focus of the company is to provide innovative tools to connect families. FamilyLink.com, Inc. has more than 3.4 million unique global visitors each month and 27.3 million page views per month. We’re Related is one of the fastest growing social networks for genealogists. We’re Related is a family-based application on Facebook.com that allows individuals to find relatives on Facebook, connect with friends and family members, build family trees, and share news and photos. My Family is a great way for people to express themselves and to share interesting characteristics about their family with those they connect with on social platforms.

Posted in Dundurn Group, Press Release | No Comments »

FamilyLink.com Social Genealogy Site Changes Name To FamilyHistoryLink.com

Monday, September 22nd, 2008

You may have noticed recently that FamilyLink.com has changed its name to FamilyHistoryLink.com. If you go to FamilyLink.com, you will be see a page that asks you to update your bookmarks/favorites, and also provides a link for you to go to FamilyHistoryLink.com.

FamilyHistoryLink.com is the exact same website as FamilyLink.com, the name has just changed.

For those who have never visited the site, FamilyHistoryLink.com is a free social networking site designed to help individuals collaborate on their family history with family members, friends, and local genealogists throughout the world. Currently there are more than 103,000 members on FamilyHistoryLink.com.

Using FamilyHistoryLink.com, you can easily connect with other genealogists to find information on the surnames you are seeking. For example, type in the surname you are searching on the site and immediately receive access to all other genealogists on the site who are researching the same surname. You can also narrow your search to the people you want to find by distance, country, county, state, city, zip code, online status, experience, age, and more.

You can also search FamilyHistoryLink.com for researchers that live in or are researching a certain location. For example, after typing in the research location, search results display a city page that displays all the FamilyHistoryLink.com members who live within up to 100 miles from the research location. The search results also display those who are researching the same location.

FamilyHistoryLink.com also has a feature that allows you to upload your family tree. Using the Family Tree Viewer, you can view up to twelve generations of your family tree. The pedigree files display in five formats: standard, compact, box, text, and ahnentafel.

Note: The former website, FamilyLink.com, should not be confused with FamilyLink.com, Inc. FamilyLink.com, Inc. owns and operates a family of services that includes WorldVitalRecords.com, FamilyHistoryLink.com, WebTree.com, and the We’re Related and My Family applications on Facebook.

Posted in FamilyHistoryLink, FamilyLink, This is Us | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »