Familybuilder Exceeds 10 Million Family Tree Profiles on Facebook & Bebo

The following announcement was written by Familybuilder:

-- Launches Family Tree Application on MySpace --

New York, NY -- April 3, 2008 --  New York City-based Familybuilder™, the fastest growing genealogy application on the Internet, today announced its members have created over 10 million family tree profiles within its Family Tree application on Facebook and Bebo.  The company also announces it has launched its popular Family Tree application on MySpace, enabling MySpace members the ability to easily build and access their family trees online.  Familybuilder now maintains presence on all the top social networks on the Internet.

Familybuilder is fast becoming the Internet's favorite social tool for people interested in genealogy and family history.  Unlike stand-alone online genealogy services, Familybuilder is positioned to leverage the social graphs of multiple online social networks at once to help people find and communicate with relatives, build family trees, preserve family history, track family activity and more.

In February, the company received its Series A investment of  $1.5 million dollars, led by London-based DN Capital.  The company plans on using the investment to expand onto additional social networking sites and to roll out value-added services to its registered users.

"We're thrilled to now be able to offer our Family Tree application to the 100 million-plus people who use MySpace," said Ilya Nikolayev, CEO of Familybuilder.  "We also would like to thank the 2.5 million people who are maintaining their family trees and managing their family relationships online.  It's amazing to learn of all the family connections that people are making with the Family Tree application. We're thrilled to see these millions of family trees come to life."

About Familybuilder
Familybuilder™ (formally iFamily™) is a leading software application development company focused on building family-oriented applications within online social networks.  The company's flagship product, Family Tree, is the leading social genealogy application on Facebook and Bebo.  Family Tree can be found on Facebook at http://apps.facebook.com/familytree, on Bebo at http://apps.bebo.com/familytree and on MySpace at http://myspace.familybuilder.com or via the company's website at http://www.familybuilder.com.  New York-based Familybuilder launched in June 2007 and is privately held.

Trademarks belong to their respective owners.

Comments

[Christine]

It's interesting to hear what FamilyBuilder has to say about its own service. But what is your opinion? It seems many sites claim they're the "fastest growing". What I need to know is whether it's worth my time to check them out. What do you think? "Familybuilder is fast becoming the Internet's favorite social tool for people interested in genealogy and family history." Is there any truth to this?

[Allan Hirsh]

I am interested in Jewish Genealogy.

I use Jewishgen which is complete Jewish genealogy research. Would you be able to add to what I have.

I now have 16 family trees. One each for each of my 8 great grandparents and one each for each of my wife's 8 great grandparents.

I have over 17,000 names in these trees. Regards, Allan Hirsh

[Linda Moeller]

I am not a fan of using any genealogy software on social networking sites. The clueless children who frequent these sites often post personal information about themselves--now they can easily expose their extended family to the prying eyes of those not interested in family history but in "mischief."

[Bruce Johnson]

Looks like these are finance guys - not genealogists!

[Bill]

I am somewhat new to genealogy but quite enthusiastic about it. I installed the familybuilder.com application on my Facebook account and entered 5 paternal generations. I found it to be quite sluggish, crashed a lot & had problems going back and making corrections. I too noticed the principals have no genealogy background. The concept is very appealing.

[Nancy West]

I tried to install Familybuilder on my MySpace account and met with nothing but error messages. Is this really going to work?

[Nora Nell Thompson]

I would like to be able to use MySpace, and I did open up an account. I have kids and grandkids on there, but even though I am considered quite computer literate, I just can't get the hang of it.

It would be cool to be able to put all my hard work out there for anyone in the family to see. I am hoping to instill a love of genealogy in some of my family, if not all.

Since I don't have my 11 year old grandson around close to show me how to do things on MySpace, I don't know if I am going to be able to use FamilyBuilder. Maybe some of you can help me.

Nora Nell
noranell1@gmail.com

[Neal]

So far, I have not seen any of the online family tree facilities that I would recommend using - from the "build your family tree online" to Rootsweb WorldConnect. The online tree builders I have tried were painfully slow and awkward to use. Further, it is very important to examine the terms of service and mechanics to determine privacy and if they can appropriate your data. Also, does the facility provide the capability to save your tree on your own computer, such as through a downloaded gedcom? Otherwise, if their system crashes or they go out of business, you could lose all your work.
I do not recommend WorldConnect, because Ancestry absorbs all those submitted trees they get for free into its own proprietary OneWorldTree that they charge people $155 per year to view. You have completely lost control over your information.
FamilySearch reportedly has developed a new online family tree facility, but it will not be available to the public for a while. That may be worth considering. But for now, it's best just to use a family tree program on your own computer. Personal Ancestral File can still be had for free.