Geneanet (previously stylized as GeneaNet) is a genealogy website with 4 million members. The database consists of data added by participants and is intended for all genealogists. The website is collaborative and the data added by the members are available for free to any interested people. An optional annual subscription provides additional search options and additional records.

History

In 1996, Jacques Le Marois, Jérôme Abela, and Julien Cassaigne launched a website for "using the strength of the Internet to build a database indexing all the genealogical resources existing in the world, available or not online". The former name was "LPF" (List of surnames of France). Geneanet has officially launched on December 2, 1996. The purpose of the site is, through the

family tree A family tree, also called a genealogy or a pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure. More detailed family trees, used in medicine and social work, are known as genograms. Representations of ...

s shared by the members, to match hundreds of thousands of records and genealogical data, to maximize the opportunities of finding common ancestors and growing the family trees. A search in this index can tell if a surname has been investigated by a genealogist (mostly amateur) in a certain place and a certain period of time. Over the years, Geneanet has developed new tools: an internal mailbox, some charts and lists print tools, a digitized library... The number of unique visitors par month has increased from 330,000 in 2006 to more than 1 million in 2018. In 2019, Geneanet has more than 2 million unique visitors per month and is called "heavyweight of the sector". In August 2012, the Geneanet database reached the milestone of 1 billion entries, then 2 billion in August 2015, and 6 billion in 2019. In September 2014, Geneanet launched a project for indexing soldiers in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. At that time, the site was hosting more than 530,000 family trees with 800 million individuals. Since 2015, Geneanet participated in the genealogical exhibition which held in the town hall of the 15th arrondissement of Paris In 2017, Geneanet signed a partnership with

FamilySearch FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization and website offering genealogical records, education, and software. It is operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), and is closely connected with the church's Family Hist ...

, allowing the LDS members to have a free Geneanet Premium subscription. In 2018, Geneanet took part in the debate about DNA tests for genealogical purpose. Since then, the site conducts surveys with its members (20,000 en 2018). On June 28, 2018, the CEO of Geneanet, Jacques Le Marois, was present at the Filae General Assembly, its main competitor, because the Trudaine Participations company (which more than 30% of the capital is held by Geneanet) has acquired 25% of the capital of Filae. Geneanet was acquired by

Ancestry.com Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites. In November 2018, ...

in August 2021.

Description

Geneanet has 3 million members, 800,000 family trees and 6 billion indexed individuals as of March 2019. The site proposes three levels of use (visitor, registered and Premium): the second level allows the user to create a family tree, and the third level is a paid service which allows the user access to collections added by genealogy societies among other things. Geneanet is a contributive, collaborative and freemium website. The site allows users to create a family tree with an unlimited number of individuals for free. A paid subscription allows members to more easily find information, to receive email alerts when new matches are available, to access a genealogy library with 3 billion indexed individuals, and to match their family tree to the database.

Features

The site Geneanet, based on

GeneWeb GeneWeb is a free multi-platform genealogy software tool created and owned by Daniel de Rauglaudre of INRIA. GeneWeb is accessed by a Web browser, either off-line or as a server in a Web environment. It uses very efficient techniques of relatio ...

, allows to calculate and display relationships between two persons in a family tree, and to highlight possible blood relationships. Some relationships between famous people have been relayed by the press. Since December 2015, Geneanet allows all the users to search the database through an advanced search engine which can perform queries by first name and last name, option which was reserved for paid members. In September 2017, Geneanet has launched a new matching option for finding common persons between the family trees of the members. Since 2018, Geneanet proposes a service to automatically create and print a family book from a family tree, through a partnership with the site Patronomia.

Geneanet DNA

On February 17, 2020, Geneanet launched "Geneanet DNA", a service which allow users who have taken a DNA test to upload their DNA data and to find new relatives for free.

Other sites and projects

Geneanet has launched some other genealogy websites: * GeneaStar, for finding relationships with famous people. Geneanet has also launched some mobile apps: * GeneaGraves: members are invited to take pictures of graves and cemeteries. * Now and Then: launched in 2015 with the purpose of taking pictures of present day scenes and superimposing them to old postcards.

References