Family Village Launches on Facebook

Funium, a Utah-based company, announced today its free Facebook game, Family Village, is now available. Family Village is the first Facebook game to help players explore their real family trees while building an online community. As players enjoy building fortunes, houses, businesses, immigrating family members and assigning jobs, Family Village matches inputted data with relevant real-world documents about the users’ living and deceased relatives. These include census records, newspaper articles, and other documents. Players can then examine the records, print them, or store them in their personal game library.

“Family Village is ready for players to immigrate real ancestors into their own personalized virtual village,” Funium CEO Jeff Wells said. “The game is easy to learn thanks to thousands of volunteer game testers already having fun and building on to their villages daily.”

More than 8,000 Facebook-game and family-history enthusiasts provided feedback during game testing. Their suggestions accelerated upgrades to the game, including an easy-to-follow tutorial, an enhanced family tree viewer, in-game challenges (or “quests”), a comprehensive villager appearance editor and improved interaction with Facebook friends.

Family Village integrates FamilyLink’s Facebook application, We’re Related, a top-300 social application. FamilyLink’s database provides Family Village players with access to billions of online historical records for a unique family discovery experience. Family Village will continue to integrate with other services in coming months.

To learn more, visit Family Village's official Facebook page.

Who Do You Think You Are?

More than 6.85 million viewers tuned in to watch the March 5th premiere of NBC’s new television series, Who Do You Think You Are? This episode featured actress Sarah Jessica Parker unraveling the story of her great-great-great-great-grandfather, John S. Hodge, a miner in the 1849 California Gold Rush. With the help of Natalie Cottrill of ProGenealogists and Josh Taylor of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, she learned of her descent from English immigrant Robert Elwell who died in Salem, Mass., in 1683. (This moment was especially interesting to me as one of Elwell’s twelfth generation descendants.) Sarah Jessica Parker also learned that one of her ancestors was accused of witchcraft in 1692. To watch this episode online, visit www.nbc.com/who-do-you-think-you-are/video/episodes/#vid=1206958

Looking for Lincoln

Genealogists have conflicting opinions about the maternal ancestry of Abraham Lincoln, a subject the sixteenth president himself admitted he knew little about. But who was Abraham Lincoln? “Today, he is more myth than man,” says Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. “Can we ever really know him?” Gates, the host and producer of the outstanding African American Lives, returns to PBS with Looking for Lincoln, a two-hour special. Among those joining Gates are Lincoln scholar Doris Kearns Goodwin, author Adam Copnik, and historian James Horton. Gates’s documentary is impressive, and it insightfully explores the man behind the myth. Looking for Lincoln premieres nationally on Wednesday, February 11, 2009 at 9 p.m. (Eastern) on PBS.

Ancestry of the Acting Astins

John Astin, well-known for his role of "Gomez Addams" in the The Addams Family, is the father of actors Sean Astin and Mackenzie Astin. Surnames found in the pedigree of this acting family include Varley, McDuff, Scott, Baker, Glackin, and Mackenzie. See our article about John Astin's British-American roots.

African American Lives Returns

The PBS television series African American Lives 2 premieres Wednesday, February 6, and after screening the four episodes, we’re happy to report this second series is as fascinating as the first.

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., returning as host and producer, presents the family histories of several celebrities. Featured in African American Lives 2 are poet Maya Angelou, author Bliss Broyard, actors Don Cheadle and Morgan Freeman, theologian Peter Gomes, publisher Linda Rice Johnson, athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee, radio host Tom Joyner, comedian Chris Rock, and the legendary singer Tina Turner.

Response to the first African American Lives brought requests from viewers asking for their stories to be told and genealogies traced. College administrator Kathleen Henderson, who was selected from more than 2,000 applicants, is featured in the new broadcast.

African American Lives 2 is outstanding. Once again, Henry Louis Gates brings compelling histories, surprising research discoveries, and dazzling results from DNA analysis. As stories in the series unfold, Chris Rock finds his great-great-grandfather, a black Civil War veteran, served in the South Carolina State Legislature, while Don Cheadle learns that his ancestors were enslaved by Native Americans—even after slavery’s abolishment. Reverend Peter Gomes is presented with DNA evidence suggesting a direct paternal ancestor was a Portuguese Jew. And Dr. Gates’s own personal research journey led to filming for this broadcast in an unexpected ancestral homeland—Ireland.

During my interview with Gates in 2006, we learned that our ancestral paths had crossed. Dr. Gates’s Bruce ancestors were owned—and later freed—by my ancestor’s cousin, Abraham Van Meter of Virginia. In African American Lives 2, Gates reveals to participant Kathleen Henderson that her ancestor was owned by an Abraham Van Meter of Kentucky, a cousin to the Virginian with the same name.

“Through even greater depth of research and more powerful storytelling, all of the stories in African American Lives 2 share a common threat—they show the value of knowing who you are and where you come from,” says Gates.

African American Lives 2 airs February 6 and 13 at 9:00 p.m. (ET).