We would like to give more people the chance to test our premium services, free of charge and with no obligation. As announced, we recently added a lot of new features, like the four lists you can now create from your family tree as a PDF-file. Click here to see a summary of all premium features.

So, what is required to receive the premium subscriptions you can give away to your readers? It could not be much easier: just write an email to press@dynastree.com, include your blog’s URL and your name, and we will supply you with the voucher code your readers can redeem to get the free premium subscription. If you can edit your blog’s posts after publishing, please create a posting about the give-away before writing to us and then enter the voucher code once you received it.

Don’t miss out on this great offer! The comparison chart below shows the advantages of a premium subscription:

Finding an ancestor or a missing link you have been researching for a long time is always a rewarding moment for any genealogist. Oz Arey, a resident of Berea (OH), was able to trace his ancestry back to  the 1600s. That would already be quite a success, but it gets even better: Arey can prove that one of his direct ancestors, Stephen Hopkins, crossed the Atlantic Ocean aboard the famous colonist ship Mayflower. He boarded the ship in England in 1607, and was later among the colonists who reached Cape Cod in 1620 and then founded the Jamestowne colony.

This proven link made him eligible for membership in the Descendents of the Mayflower Society and the Jamestowne Society. Both are very exclusive societies, so all the hard work and long genealogical research really paid off!

Organizing a big family reunion with relatives you discovered during years of research might be one of the most rewarding experiences for genealogists, especially if those relatives from abroad did not even know about your branch of the family. The Gerstenberger family just celebrated their fourth family reunion in Marina del Ray (CA), about 60 Gerstenberges from Germany and North America attended. They have started the tradition of family reunions in the small village of Gerstenberg in Germany, the first reunion was attended by 90 family members.

Four branches of th family have been confimed so far, they are located in Germany, Iowa, Kansas, and Minnesota. The family hopes to trace back its history to the 1200s soon, using DNA, which was collected from the attendees by Duane Gerstenberger of Arizona, a physician. He has also written a book about the lineage of more than 3000 Gerstenbergers in the U.S.

Congratulations on such a success!

The only person who was a bit confused by all those Gerstenbergers was the reception clerk at the hotel – imagine the look on his face when the first Gerstenbergers arrived, and the system gave out that name so many times

We gave you an introduction to our new document upload last week. Now, we would like to know if you have already used it to upload documents – you can upload any kind of document, family records, letters, or official records. There is no limit in terms of file ending either, you can upload and share whatever you want.

As announced earlier this week, you can now test our premium subscription for 14 days. The trial subscription is completely free of charge and comes with no obligation – no strings attached!

If you subscribe now, you will get 14 days on top of the subscription you choose – e.g. 44 days instead of 30, if you choose a 1-month premium subscription! You cancel your subscription at any time during the trial period of 14 days – we will not bill you before those 14 days are over.

Here’s an overview of the subscription prices:

• 1 month:     19.95 USD

• 3 months:   39.95 USD

• 6 months:   54.95 USD

• 12 months: 74.95 USD

A premium subscription includes a lot of interesting additional features (such as the newly added PDF-lists you can create from your family tree), see the comparison chart below:

As announced two days ago, we added an interesting new function to dynastree: the document upload. You can now upload all kinds of documents, like digitalized old family records, birth certificates, letters – whatever you would like to share with your family and relatives! There is no limitation to what kind of document you can upload, the function lets you upload PDFs, Microsoft Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, and much more!

You can find this new feature in your personal profile page, just scroll down until you reach it:

(Click on the image to enlarge it)

To upload a document, follow these steps:

1. Click on the “Select” button and choose a file to upload from your computer, and click “Open” in your browser’s dialog
2. You can now enter a title for the document in the field on the left (the file name will be used if you leave the field blank
3. Now click on the “Upload” button to complete the process, it might take some seconds or longer to upload the docment, depending on its file size

Your relatives will receive a notification (given that they activated this service under “Notifications” in their settings) about the upload and can then access the files.

Here’s a short introduction on how to create one of the four new PDF-lists we now offer within the premium subscription, the whole creation process is more or less self-explaining

To order a list (they are included in the premium subscription, you can order as many as you like at no additional charge!), go to “Shop” and choose “Family Tree Lists” from the green menu bar at the top:

(Click on the image to enlarge it)

There are four lists to choose from:

1. List of ancestors – choose a person from your tree and receive a list of all ancestors, put in order using the internationally accepted Kekulé-system (it gives increasing odd and even numbers to each male and female member of each generation).
2. List of descendants – choose a person from your tree and receive a list of all descendants.
3. Family list – choose a person from your tree and receive a list of all family members and relatives, sorted by the families they belong to.
4. Birthday list – lists all birthdays for the members of your tree, in chronological order

You can decide which information (e.g. denominational, or the notes you entered) will be included, and also the number of generations that will be included. A neat feature: colored maps with all locations you have entered for yourself and your relatives will be appended at the end of the list, the zoom level is adjusted automatically, depending on how far the locations are spread.

Examples of each list can be found on the right side.
Click here to see an example for a list of descendants (it might take a short while to load).

We have deployed a new version of dynastree today, with lots of new features:

• A free 14-day trial subscription to our premium services! Check it out, completely free of charge, and with no obligation. You can cancel the subscription at any time during the trial period.
• 4 different types of lists created from your tree, delivered as PDF-file. Choose between list of ancestors, list of descendants, birthday list, and family list! You can download as many lists as you like with this premium feature.
• You can now upload any kind of document to share with your family
• The number of hints for each profile in your tree is now displayed
• All family pages are now listed
• Since dynastree has to generate revenues at some point, we are now displaying ads on the site – the premium subscription of course remains ad-free

Today, we would like to know how much time you spend on maintaining and expanding your tree on dynastree. Are you just surfing by every now and then, or are you spending half a weekend working on your tree each week?