Well, it’s been just over a week since we started letting users into our beta, and between the feedback we got at RootsTech and now what our beta users are telling us, we have a great sense of what you like about Treelines and what you’d like to see improved.  Many of you were loud-and-clear about wanting to work on your family tree apart from writing stories.  So, we’ve given you what you asked for:  a full Tree Browser on your My Stories page!

• Click on your username in the top-right of the homepage
• Scroll down and behold:  your trees!

You can browse and search your tree here, as well as update the information you’ve recorded for people in your tree. We’ve also added yellow flags with the number of stories you’ve written about each person. Click on the flag to see the list of stories!

We at Treelines strive for constant improvement of our site, so this update is the first of many we’ll share with you about new features we’ve added to the site.  We have some really big things in store for next month, but you’ll keep seeing small improvements along the way.

We’ve gotten a bit more press in the past week as well!

• James Tanner posted more extensively about Treelines over at Genealogy’s Star.  He writes that we’re a “visual photographic narrative program unlike any you may have seen before.”  Yup!
• Lynn Palermo mentioned us as one of the “wonderful new tech apps” helping people share their family stories.  Also true!

• And most exciting of all… this morning Marcus Smith interviewed Tammy on BYU Radio!  We compared notes on the ancestors who first got us interested — for him, Jerusha Lord, and for me, Bernhardt Hepps (such names!) — and went on to discuss why family history can be so personally affecting and how Treelines’ story-centric approach makes it easier to bring those to transformational moments to our families and esp. the younger generation.

If you missed Tammy’s interview, make sure you follow us on Facebook or Twitter for our most up-to-date information so you don’t miss the next one!  🙂

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Tammy shows off Treelines in the RootsTech Demo Theater.

What an amazing week it’s been!  Treelines has now officially launched, and though the site is invite-only right now, our first users are starting to write and share amazing family stories we’re having so much fun reading!  If you’re not on our waiting list, please go here to give us your email address.  And if you already are, please be patient —  your turn will come soon, promise!

The week began with a great profile of Tammy by Joanne Wilson, founder of the Women Entrepreneur’s Festival.  Energized by this awesome article, we were off the next day to Salt Lake City to launch at RootsTech!  And what an exhilarating launch it was!

The moment during Friday’s keynote when Treelines was announced as the winner!

Friday morning we learned that Treelines won first place in the RootsTech Developer Challenge, and from there things got crazy!  Our booth was inundated for the next two days with people wanting to find out more about our now award-winning storytelling platform, and Tammy did a number of interviews with people looking to learn more about Treelines and her own journey in genealogy.

So far the feedback has been quite positive!  Here are some of the highlights:

• “This looks like a really useful program for telling stories and linking them to persons.” —Randy Seaver, Genea-Musings
• “Welcome to the new genealogy metaphor…  This is the type of innovation that I came to RootsTech to find.”  —Michael Maglio, The In-Depth Genealogist
• And finally, here’s an interview Tammy did with DearMYRTLE:

It was wonderful meeting so many of you in person and hearing how Treelines’ storytelling platform is the tool you’ve been looking for all along.  We look forward to having all of you as part of our growing community of family storytellers.

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Since last year we’ve been building a family storytelling platform that is going to rock the genealogy world.  We’re so excited to unveil it at RootsTech next week — not only to get your feedback after you start using it, but also to read the family stories you share!  We’ve already gotten some early validation — Treelines is a finalist for the RootsTech Developer Challenge!  As a result, we’ll be demo’ing Treelines Friday afternoon as part of the finalist showcase.

But that’s only one of the times we’ll be presenting.  Here’s our full schedule:

• Thursday, 3/21, 1:45 PM: Genealogy Industry Web 2.0 Report Card
• Friday, 3/22, 4:15 PM: Telling Your Family Stories the Treelines Way!
• Friday, 3/22, 5:15 PM: Developer Challenge finalist presentation
• Saturday, 3/23, 9:45 AM: Timeline Creation Applications
• Saturday, 3/23, 11:40 AM: Introducing Treelines (in the Demo Theater)

When we’re not speaking, you can meet us in Booth 236.  Come by to sign yourself up for early access to the site and get a personal introduction the groundbreaking family storytelling platform that awaits you.  In just a week you’ll be able to write and share family stories your relatives actually want to read.  Get excited!

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One of the great surprises of my genealogy research is that it turns out I am not the first person in my family to live in New York City.  You might say that I should not have been so surprised, but I began with decent proof that all of my great-grandparents were in Pennsylvania going back about a century.  And so they were.  But go back just a smidge before that, and half of them began their American lives in NYC!  One was even born here, and a number of their parents never left.  But after 1922 when the last gggp died, everyone from my direct line was gone and would be for the rest of the century.

Select jobs my family has performed in New York City:

• glazier
• peddler
• dealer in milk, eggs, and “butter”
• tailor
• bookbinder
• driver
• clerk
• milliner
• traveler in the theatrical industry
• mailer at a magazine place
• founder of an Internet start-up

Yes, this post is the official announcement of Treelines’ upcoming launch at RootsTech 2013, March 21-23!  You can meet me and learn all about Treelines in Booth 236.  I’ll also be speaking a few times, which I will update you about later this month.

But we are launching!  We are launching!  We are launching!  And very, very soon!!!!!!

If you’re not already on our waiting list to be one of our first users, please click here to add yourself to the list right now!

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Earlier this week we quietly unveiled our logo, which you can see at the top of this page.  We’re so excited by how well it captures the feeling of our brand and even ties closely to how the forthcoming site will look and function.  Please be patient, though — it will be a little while before we’re ready to reveal all!

Behind the scenes, the first iteration of the storytelling tool that will be at the heart of Treelines is complete, and over the next few months we will be previewing it for a select group of genealogy friends and colleagues.  We’re looking forward to hearing a ton of feedback so we can make the public version we’ll share with you later this year as amazing as it can possibly be!

While it’s gratifying to see months of hard work come together, the best part of this journey so far has been speaking with so many of you about your family histories.  The father who wants his girls to understand how they are descended from both Francis Scott Key and the senator who proposed that the Star-Spangled Banner become our national anthem.  The married couple who discovered they are distant cousins, connected through numerous Mayflower passengers, Revolutionary War officers, and even Salem witches!  The Vietnamese immigrant who shared with me a couple of binders tracing her family back to the 13th century.  The new friend whose great-grandmother killed her husband because she thought “life would be like a song” with her lover.  The old friend whose great-uncle was separated from his family when he immigrated and ended up alone in Uruguay.  And many, many more.  All of these stores inspire us as we work to make Treelines the best possible tool for capturing and sharing these priceless family stories.

If you want to be the first to hear when we do start opening our doors, please join our email list using the form at the top-right.

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The second-ever Genealogy Idol competition is this Saturday, and I am competing! I just finished putting my presentation together, and I’m excited to tell you about two of my great-grandfathers, the tax code felon and the synagogue founder, plus my secret to making great genealogy progress without ever having to leave my apartment.

Register here to watch and vote from the comfort of your own home! Or, if you’re lucky enough to be attending the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree in person, please come to this session!

Saturday, June 9, 11 AM Eastern, 10 AM Central, 9 AM Mountain, 8 AM Pacific. Please vote! I could really use your support! Sign up now!

Update:  Congrats to Tessa Keough, who won!

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Treelines are storylines for your family tree. We aim to become your go-to tool for curating and sharing the amazing family stories you’ve uncovered. Intrigued? You can read much more on our About page.

When will we open our doors? Your guess is as good as ours. Hopefully sooner than the amount of time it took the State of Pennsylvania to fulfill to Tammy’s last request for a death certificate search. (Yes, Pennsylvania Department of Health, Division of Vital Records, we are calling you out.)

But for now we’re adding our voice to the ongoing discussion around family history. We hope you’ll add us to the genealogy blogs you’re already reading and keep an eye on our front door – we’ll open it soon enough to welcome you inside.

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