myfamily.com 2.0 Beta Adds Online Family Trees from Ancestry.com

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A F SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT COURTNEY SIMMONS SONY ONLINE ENTERTAINMENT COURTNEY SIMMONS Courtney Simmons named director, Corporate Communications & Public Relations, Sony Online Entertainment. (PRNewsFoto/Sony Online Entertainment LLC)[JU] SAN ...

    BELLEVUE, Wa., Nov. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- myfamily.com, the leading
 private social networking service for families, today announced the launch
 of its Family Trees application through the integration of Ancestry.com's
 family tree service, enabling members to create and share family trees
 right in their myfamily.com sites.
     (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20071119/LAM061 )
     With this release, myfamily.com members can now create, share, print
 and publish an online family tree. Users can start a new tree on their site
 or upload an existing family tree from a GEDCOM file (a standard
 genealogical file format) to their myfamily.com site. Site members can then
 work together to add photos, videos, audio stories and other information to
 each profile on their family tree. This new feature links myfamily.com
 users to the wealth of digitally scanned historical documents and family
 history research tools provided by its sister site Ancestry.com and is the
 latest in an innovative pipeline of services and features recently added to
 myfamily.com as a part of an extensive redesign of the site.
     "The combination of myfamily.com's collaborative environment and
 Ancestry.com's one-of-a-kind tree-building tools creates the ideal online
 meeting place for families to share the present and discover the past,"
 said Michael Graff, general manager of myfamily.com. "This provides a great
 opportunity for families to create and preserve their family memories as
 they get together throughout the country this Thanksgiving."
     myfamily.com 2.0 beta offers free, customizable Web sites where
 families and friends can gather online to share the latest news, recipes,
 photos, videos and now family trees in a safe, private and media-rich
 environment. With a membership base of nearly 2 million members,
 myfamily.com has been the leading private family social networking site
 since its launch in 1998. Current myfamily.com 1.0 members who created a
 family tree on their original site will soon be able to migrate these
 existing trees into an Ancestry.com tree if they choose. For more details,
 please visit the Migration Center at: http://help.myfamily.com.
     "This integration of our two premiere services is a significant
 milestone and evolution of The Generation Network's mission to connect
 families across distance and time," said Tim Sullivan, president and CEO of
 The Generations Network, parent company of myfamily.com and Ancestry.com.
 "Combining the here and now with a family's past is a strategic and
 powerful combination, offering families an unrivaled opportunity to
 collaborate in a safe environment."
     The new myfamily.com site represents a full-scale redesign of the
 myfamily.com service and is now in open beta for users to try out. In
 addition to the Ancestry.com family tree integration, several new
 enhancements were released this week:
     -- Custom Themes - allows members to customize the look and feel of their
        sites
     -- Rich Text Formatting - allows members to change font, font size, color,
        alignment, indenting, add links and add emoticons throughout their
        sites
     -- Upload and Copy - members can post videos and photos simultaneously to
        multiple myfamily.com sites, especially helpful for young families
        sharing content with both parents and in-laws on two separate sites
     -- "As-it-Happens" Site Update Notifications - immediate email
        notifications sent to family members as soon as new content is added to
        their site
     One of the most popular new features of myfamily.com 2.0 beta is
 SnapGenie, a photo slideshow with voice narration that makes telling
 stories much more personal and captivating. Users can easily record their
 voice by calling a toll-free number and telling the story behind the
 pictures in their own voice.
     myfamily.com 2.0 free sites will be supported by advertising and
 commerce. Paid member sites will also be available for members who prefer
 an ad-free environment. Details of the subscription service have not been
 announced.
     About myfamily.com 2.0
     Since 1998, myfamily.com has been the best place on the web to connect
 and share with the most important people in your life in a private, secure
 environment designed specifically for the family. Myfamily.com 2.0 beta is
 part of The Generations Network, Inc., a leading network of family-focused
 interactive properties connecting families across distance and time,
 including Ancestry.com, Rootsweb.com, Genealogy.com and Family Tree Maker.
 In total, The Generations Network properties receive 10.4 million unique
 visitors worldwide and over 450 million page views a month ((C) comScore
 Media Metrix, March 2007).
 
 

SOURCE myfamily.com