Help Us Create One Great Family

Many people have asked why it is so important to OneGreatFamily to tie family trees together into one shared database. A key benefit of tying everyone together into one family tree is in understanding how you fit into mankind. Through OneGreatFamily, everyone can see that they belong to a large human family and how they are related to others.

The concept of belonging to a family is important to nearly all cultures and people. Being part of a family usually denotes entitlement to a certain level of love and protection. OneGreatFamily is extending the concept of family beyond two or three generations by bringing the entire human family together "under one roof." The desire to belong to a family unit remains a powerful force in today's society.

OneGreatFamily seeks to harness this desire to belong and understand one's relationship to the human family. Tying the human family together creates some other, less obvious benefits as well:

OneGreatFamily removes the "clutter" of duplicate records
When family trees are connected, OneGreatFamily removes any duplication. Once two records are merged, all pertinent information (including conflicting information and other variances) for that individual can be accessed through a common record. The continuous removal of duplication saves you time when researching your family tree. OneGreatFamily doesn't require you to wade through millions of records to find your ancestors. Further, once your ancestor is found, you will have access to ALL of the information related to that person available through OneGreatFamily.

You can see who else is researching your family lines
Tying family trees together allows you to see who else is researching your ancestors and to collaborate with others. Through the process of collaboration new relationships are discovered and friendships are forged.

You can see how you are related to other researchers
OneGreatFamily can take users beyond meeting and collaborating to see how they are actually related. You can click on a common ancestor and view his or her descendants to see where family lines have crossed and diverged over time. Discovering how you are related to others is a fun and exciting process that is made simple by OneGreatFamily.

You can find valuable information in collateral lines
No other service provides as much information as OneGreatFamily on collateral lines. Collateral lines are the lines of descendancy of your cousins. With each passing generation, these cousins become more "distant," however, following the collateral lines from common ancestors can help fill in gaps of your direct ancestral lines.

You realize that we are ALL part of OneGreatFamily
Working in OneGreatFamily can be awe inspiring as you realize how related you are to the rest of humanity. The poet John Donne's words ring true that "no man is an island." We are truly all part of OneGreatFamily . . . a family that is being brought together under one roof. Please take the time to make sure each of your ancestors has a room in the home we are building for the human family tree.

• Visit OneGreatFamily to grow your family tree the OneGreatFamily way.
• Subscribe to OneGreatFamily and find others looking for your ancestors.

Submit Everything You Know About Your Family Tree

OneGreatFamily is a remarkable service that continues to help people identify tens of thousands of previously unknown ancestors each week. Are you experiencing this success? Nearly 205,000 individuals in the OneGreatFamily database were merged together within the last week, and nearly 74,000 were identified as potential merges (or hints). What does this mean?

When merges take place or new hints appear, it means OneGreatFamily is growing and the information included at OneGreatFamily is becoming more accurate. This activity also means that people whose genealogies are included as part of OneGreatFamily are seeing their family trees continue to grow.

How can you make sure you are one of the people who benefits from this amazing growth and collaboration? We'd like to suggest two ways:

1. Submit your entire known family tree!
   
   The more information you provide to OneGreatFamily, the greater the chance of tying into other ancestral lines at OneGreatFamily. OneGreatFamily allows people to enter information directly into the Genealogy Browser or to submit a GEDCOM file to start or expand their family tree. With each additional generation you enter of your own family tree, you are increasing your ability to know if another member of OneGreatFamily is already working on your family tree. Identifying ONE common ancestor can result in adding THOUSANDS of additional ancestors to your family tree!
   
   Many people have been able find new matching data and meet distant relatives after entering only a few generations of their family trees . . . or even just a few ancestors; however, others with "less common" ancestors may need to supply OneGreatFamily with more information to get started. You are guaranteed further success over time as OneGreatFamily continues to enjoy phenomenal growth.
   
   
2. See your family tree to the end of each line
   
   OneGreatFamily only shows the first seven generations of your family tree as its default setting; however, you may actually have more than seven generations of data available at OneGreatFamily.
   
   You can identify whether or not you are seeing your entire family tree by recognizing "end of line" individuals. An "end of line" individual is someone in the OneGreatFamily family tree with no known ancestors. You can find them quickly because they are in red boxes as shown in the example below.

   

   If you see a line in your family tree that doesn't end with an individual in a red box, you are not seeing your entire family tree. The following instructions will help you change the preference for how many generations can be viewed in Genealogy BrowserTM. You can then expand the Starfield View (pedigree) to see your entire family tree at OneGreatFamily.
   
   

   Number of Generations Display on the Toolbar You will notice this drop down menu in the toolbar section at the top of Genealogy Browser. This convenient menu lets you quickly and easily set the number of generations to be displayed in the Starfield area. Many users have never changed this setting and so have never actually seen everything that OneGreatFamily has found for them. If you have never changed this setting, we strongly encourage you to play around with it. You can select a value off the drop down menu or just enter a value into the box. If you are on a high-speed internet connection, we would suggest you try starting with at least 50 generations. Dial-up users might want to start with 20 generations.

   Remember, the higher the number, the longer it may take to load your pedigree. Still, you could be surprised to see how much OneGreatFamily has added to your family tree, and it will be worth the wait!

You can view any and all information you have contributed to OneGreatFamily without subscribing; however, the ability to view details on individuals who have been added to your tree through the OneGreatFamily service is reserved for subscribers only.

• Visit OneGreatFamily to benefit from this remarkable genealogy service
• Subscribe to OneGreatFamily and see how many ancestors will be added to your OneGreatFamily tree.
  

You Gave Me A Family I Never Knew I Had

We enjoy hearing about the success our members have in building their family trees at OneGreatFamily. We appreciate Lynn for sharing her success with us.

Dear OneGreatFamily,

What a terrific program- and I love the new upgrades! I never knew my mother's family history, because her mother died early and didn't pass along much of anything. I only had a few family members left to help me get on the right track.

After slugging through various libraries, other online sites, etc., I come here and wow, do I find my mother's family- and every single one of them can be documented by my own research (which is important to my genealogy work.)

I love that others are following suit and documenting their own relationships with historical documents, as well as stories about family members being added to the research, as well as the Notes boxes. Some are even adding JPEGs of their relatives, which is really terrific. Finding photos of people who are related to you is the frosting on the cake! Thank you, OGF members.

Thank you, OneGreatFamily, for giving me a family that I never knew I had. I thought all that was left of my mother's family was one second cousin, her children, and one old aunt. I have tons of family members I would love to one day meet, although I will wait for an invite first.

Keep up the good work and keep improving the program.

Lynn

Have you had success using OneGreatFamily? Please let us know! Email us with your success story to be featured on our website.

• Login to OneGreatFamily and do your genealogy the OneGreatFamily way.
• Subscribe to OneGreatFamily and find success using our unique genealogy service.
• Visit the OneGreatFamily Learning Center for more helpful genealogy articles.
  

Family-Reunion.com

Summer is a perfect time to get together for a fun family reunion. Visit the web's most popular family reunion planning website - Family-Reunion.com. They offer such resources as planning software, a FREE newsletter, links to other reunion sites, and books that offer planning ideas. If you are planning a reunion, you can also announce it in their FREE reunion registry, or you can check to see if your family has already announced a reunion. Family-reunions are a great way to communicate with your family about your genealogy, so start planning your family reunion today with Family-Reunion.com!

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