A neat service on web 2.0 are so-called RSS feeds. Like a news ticker they provide the feed title, a short text snippet and a link to the original page. This way you do longer have to search your favourite sites for news daily. You simply  subscribe to the RSS feed and you’ll automatically be informed of any changes.

When a website offers an RSS feed you find a little RSS icon on the right corner of your browser’s address bar:

To subscribe to a feed, you need an RSS reader. In Internet Explorer 7 or Mozilla Firefox such a reader is already installed, but furthermore there are a lot of free feed readers, such as Google Reader, Bloglines or My Yahoo.

On dynastree you can choose from the following feeds:

Blogposts

Blog comments

New / updated profiles in the tree *

Recent posts in the forum

*) For the family tree feed you have to log in and then click on the RSS icon in the browser’s address bar.

Your favourite genealogy site ( ) always tries to provide you with the best genealogy info… That’s why we’ve added a blogroll to our site to list some useful genealogy links for you. If you’d like us to add a site, please let us know in this post’s comments. We will check the page and add it as soon as possible. The blogroll can be found on every blog page in the right column.

We’ve added a neat little feature that lets you give your blogpost comments a personal touch:

Upload your avatar image to this site and your picture will always be shown whenever you comment on sites supporting this feature, including the dynastree blog.

We’ve added a neat little feature that lets you give your blogpost comments a personal touch:

Upload your avatar image to this site and your picture will always be shown whenever you comment on sites supporting this feature, including the dynastree blog.

If you like the dynastree design, this is for you! We’re now offering background wallpapers for your desktop. You can choose between two different images in four resolutions.

After choosing your desktop size, simply right-click on the image and click on “Set as Desktop Background…” and that’s it!

1. Mum, Dad, Child

1280 x 960 Pixel

1600 x 1200 Pixel

1680 x 1050 Pixel

1920 x 1200 Pixel

2. The Avatars

1280 x 960 Pixel

1600 x 1200 Pixel

1680 x 1050 Pixel

1920 x 1200 Pixel

It’s Monday and “Pollday” again. The last poll showed that almost half of you used the Christmas holidays for genealogical research and about 40% like to concentrate on the family during the holidays. And here comes this week’s poll: Do you have genealogical books at home for your offline family research? Tell the world about your genealogical reading habits.

We’ve added a new feature to share and bookmark your favourite blog’s posts: Now, you can add the post you’d like to share with others or to keep in mind by clicking on “ShareThis”. A small window opens with all the most common (social) bookmarking services. Furthermore, you can now post the blog entry to your profiles or blogs or send it to a friend via email. So spread the word…

*** UPDATE: The winner is JAMIE! Congratulations! ***

We’re giving away one of our high-quality poster prints for free!

To win a Panorama Print L (59.1 x 19.7 in, worth $ 49.00 / £ 35.00), simply write the most fascinating story of your ancestry in this post’s comments. Example: your great-grandpa was Walt Disney’s cousin and inspired him to draw Mickey Mouse.

The most most interesting story wins the poster, closing date is next Wednesday.

We’ll announce the winner here on this blog on Thursday (15.01.09).

… or in Russian “Czastlivogo Rozhdestva” because Russia celebrates Christmas today (after 40 days of abstinence). Our new Russian colleague has shown us an interesting trait of character of her fellow countrymen.

Christmas in Russia is eagerly anticipated particularly by women. First, because their husbands finally may have a drink with their buddies after the abstinence season and go out together,  so that the women finally have some time for themselves. On the other hand, and this is much more important, the ladies their enjoy the famous Russian “gadanja”, the Christmas soothsaying ritual that, according to a legend, was introduced by Slavic witches…

But don’t worry, most rituals are completely harmless … for women. The most popular “gadanja” are

• to conjure up the future husband
• bewitch an existing husband.

For women who do not exactly know where this man is, there is a famous ritual: go to the street at night and throw your left shoe as far away from you as you can. The direction in which the tip of the shoe points is the direction in which you have to go for your search. If the shoe has turned to one’s own house, prospects are not good for the next year…

The new year starts with good news: dynastree will soon be available in Russian, too! Не прекрасные ли это новости?!

The Russian platform will be called semyaonline.ru (Family Online) or семьяонлайн.ру in Cyrillic. Russian will be our 9th language and the 13th country version. The site will most likely be ready for launch by the end of January/at the beginning of Febuary, you can then finally invite all those Russian relatives to your family tree who cannot speak any of our other languages. Until then, you can follow our Russian blog and keep an eye on what our new colleague Anna is doing…