Did you know that Ancestry.com bought We’re Related, the Facebook app?
We’re Related was formerly owned by FamilyLink.com, Paul Allen’s company. MyHeritage.com bought most of FamilyLink, but the We’re Related Facebook app was not included. (See “MyHeritage acquires FamilyLink.com and WorldVitalRecords.com!”)
In March 2012, Ancestry.com purchased the We’re Related Facebook app (according to a document Ancestry filed with the Federal government).
A search for “Ancestry” on Facebook revealed that there is also an Ancestry Facebook app. The app offered to help me build my family tree in minutes using my Friends list.
The app had a hard time building the Insider’s family tree, choosing Drew Smith as my most likely relative. (I knew the Genealogy Insider was a distant cousin, but who knew about Drew?)
I asked a friend with more family than I have to try it out. It was slick. In just a few minutes I… I mean he… had 12 people in my tree. Granted, all were living, but even dead people have to start somewhere. Siblings, spouses, parents, nephews/nieces, aunts/uncles all fell into their proper place with minimal effort.
Ancestry then asked for missing parents and grandparents. This is important as it allows the Ancestry hinting engine to start finding records of your Ancestors. Ancestry then saved the newly created tree and took me to the regular member tree page.
People added to the tree this way are linked to their Facebook accounts so profile picture changes are reflected in your tree. I could not find a way to add additional people from Facebook once the tree was created. No doubt that will come in the future.
I think this is killer cool technology and look forward to using it more.
Check out http://www.ancestry.com/facebook or www.relatedonfacebook.com, and www.wererelated.com. You must have a Facebook account, must login, and must grant the Ancestry app permission to access information about you and your friends.
Maybe it means that we're closely related philosophically?
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