As you probably know, you can use our comic avatars for your relatives’ profile image if you don’t have a picture (or if you don’t have a picture you like ). To be as appropriate as possible, we will add some new avatar pictures during the next few weeks, such as the nurse, the jogger and the surfer-dude.

Just as all other avatars, you can choose your favourite in the profile by clicking on “Edit portrait“.
So wait and see, there’s more to come…

Many users have already encountered the following situation: You’re entering your relatives’ data and, in the heat of the moment, you add children and parents and later on you notice that the child is an offspring of the father’s first marriage or the second wife you entered is the biological mother. Until today you had to delete the child completely and add it again with the right parents. So much the worse when you’ve already added the child’s own offsprings.

But these worries are gone now! In our example, Father and Partner 1 are the parents added for the child. Then you notice that Son’s mother is not Partner 1 but Partner 2.

In the child’s profile you will now find the new tab “Parents”. In the dropdown menu the current parents and all partners of the parents are displayed. Now, you just have to pick the correct combination, in this case Father and Partner 2. Then click “Save”.

The changes will directly be visible in the tree. If there are any descendants or partners attached to the child, they will be moved, too.

We’ve got a new feature for you as a late Christmas present: loads of new options for your tree.

From now on, you’ll find the “Settings”-icon next to the other icons in the lower right corner of your tree. A click on it offers lots of changes to your tree which we are going to explain to you in the next days (e.g. ***-kicking rotating nodes! )

But now to the first part of the settings: the “Tree style”. Until now, it has only been possible to show the tree in a standard view. The new feature offers three new styles. Here, they are presented briefly:

The first option is the “Vertical style”. Here, you see all profiles in a vertical format. In this view, the tree doesn’t go from left to right but from up to down. In the other two variants, you can choose whether you would like to display your relative’s “names only” or “photos only”. All other information (like the birthday) remains hidden. Of course, this setting effects the printing layout, too.

You’ve got mail!

Just in time for Christmas, we’ve got a new feature for you: the message system.

To open your mailbox, just click the tab “Messages”. Here you can send messages to the relatives in your tree. Just like in most other mail clients you can organize your mails in various folders (Inbox, Drafts, Archive… etc.).

To send a message just click “Write new message” on the left side and choose one or more recipients from your family tree. Then type in your message text and click “send”.

If there is no email address for the recipient of your choice, you can add it in the next step. The person will be invited to your tree automatically and can read your message after registering.

Soon, you will be able to write messages to persons in other trees and add them to your tree as “Family friends”. Stay tuned!

By the way: We will send you a notification when you get a new message. In case that you don’t want to get these notifications you can switch them off in your “Settings”.

You did it! We just reached 10 million profiles, time to celebrate! Get yourself a glass of champagne and let’s clink glasses on that. First of all: Thanks a whole bunch for your faith in us, keep inviting your relatives and make the community grow.

Apart from that, Techcrunch reported in detail today, we hope you didn’t encounter any difficulties as a result of today’s heavy traffic. We’re trying our best to improve the site’s performance and keep upgrading constantly.

We proudly present the localized version of Itsourtree.com for Brazil: www.meusparentes.com.br!

We always try to give consideration to local peculiarities, for example the differences between Portuguese in Portugal and Portuguese in Brazil. So from now on, you can invite your relatives among the 188,6 million people in Brazil! To access the Brasileiros’ site, just click on the little Brazilian flag on our page.

To invite a relative in Brazilian Portuguese, you have to change your preferred language in your settings and then invite the relative. That way, the invitation will be sent in Brazilian Portuguese. Afterwards, simply switch back to English in your settings to send and receive mails in English again. Of course, this technique is applicable to all other foreign relatives, too. If you want further information see here or contact us!

We recently updated the printing feature, which now allows you to choose from 3 different print modes.
The nodes in your printed tree can be filled with:

1. The name only
2. The person’s name and his portrait photo
3. The name, the photo and the personal dates

Of course, all other options such as printing in black & white, printing a cut line for easier fitting the pages together or adding an explanatory caption to the printout will still be available.

Welcome to itsourtree.com, your brandnew free base for the exploration and discovery of your family tree!

You always wanted to find out where your ancestors come from or try to extend your knowledge about distant relatives? Do you want to know whether you’re related to Becks? Or Posh? Well, here you might find out!

As we won’t charge any fees, you can sign up directly and feel free to explore the site, create your family tree and invite your relatives to help you work on the tree. Together, you might find out astonishing relationships and come to know distant relatives you didn’t even know about. No matter if you’re a beginner or already a hobby genealogist, our easy-to-use interface can by used by anyone.
Our website is available in German (verwandt.de), Polish (moikrewni.pl), Italian (parentistretti.it), Portuguese (meusparentes.pt), and Spanish (miparentela.es), because who knows, you might discover relatives in Italy you never knew about!

This blog will keep you up to date on the latest news, new features or funny stuff from the world of genealogy. Any questions? Check out our FAQs or simply email us to info@itsourtree.com.

Enjoy your family tree!