Genes News
Welcome to the new Genes Reunited blog!
- We regularly add blogs covering a variety of topics. You can add your own comments at the bottom.
- The Genes Reunited Team will be writing blogs and keeping you up to date with changes happening on the site.
- In the future we hope to have guest bloggers that will be able to give you tips and advice as to how to trace your family history.
- The blogs will have various privacy settings, so that you can choose who you share your blog with.
Official Blogs
The British Newspaper Archive
Read about historical events at the time they were happening. Perhaps you'll discover your ancestor in their local newspaper?
Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE – Saturday, day 2
Last week, we were at Who Do You Think You Are? LIVE - team members at Genes have written about their experiences of the event. Rachel tells us all about Saturday.
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I’m Rachel, I work on the customer support team and I came along to the show on Saturday. It was a freezing day outside and initially cold inside the exhibition hall, but fortunately the body heat from the crowds of enthusiastic genealogists soon warmed everyone up!
The Genes Reunited stand looked brilliant this year. We had one large open space with pods for our members to do look ups, a couple of tables for members to sit down and discuss their family history, an area for members to have their photos scanned, a ‘live request’ area where people could post their searches on our message boards and the missing persons board where our members could pin up details of living and deceased relatives they are looking for.
I had a brilliant day and spoke to so many members. As my day job is to answer our member queries, I was able to help lots of visitors to the site with any problems they might be having. What was so lovely was meeting the members face to face, hearing about their family history and their research journeys and sharing their excitement when we located a new piece of information. When I found a 1911 census record for one lovely lady, she burst into tears and hugged me – it was really special. Some of the stories I was told were fascinating. One member chatting to me explained how her husband was related to Hilary Clinton! Another gentleman approached me with a book he’d written about his search for his Canadian Ancestry, gave me a copy of his book and explained how using Genes Reunited had connected him to his cousins in Canada. There was also a really touching story from one lady who explained how she and her brother had been given up for adoption, and 10 years ago she’d managed to trace her brother via Genes Reunited to the US. Sadly, he’d since died but she’d had 6 years of getting to know him and he’d formed a relationship with her children too.
I was also fortunate enough to meet one of the members from the boards – Karen from the Desert. She came along to say hello as she’d been helping out on the live WDYTYA request boards on Friday.
We also had a post box for our members to post their feedback regarding Genes. There were loads of brilliant ideas from members, from suggestions for the tree, to new records members would like to see, to general feedback about the layout of the site. It was great hearing what everyone thinks and talking these suggestions through with members.
I had a fascinating day and really enjoyed talking to so many interesting people. I hope to see you again next year!
- Rachel