Vanessa Waite – Page 4

Family Beach Days through the Ages

by Vanessa Waite • June 11, 2015

Here at Family.me, we are all about family memories. But what did our past family members do for summer? While the times have changed and the way families communicate has shifted, one thing is certain… they celebrated the summer with family beach days.

Here’s a little glimpse of what family beach days looked like in summers past:

Late 1800s:

Image source: ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com

Starting back in the late 1800s, your great, great grandparents were wading at the shoreline in full-coverage bathing suits difficult to distinguish from normal everyday clothing.

Early 1900s

Image source: http://www.gallimauphry.com/beefcake.htm

More than 100 years ago, short-sleeve bathing suits became a trendy new way to soak up the sun. A family lounging on the shores of Martha’s Vineyard in 1905 sported these “newer” designs.

1920s:

In the roaring 1920s, your great grandma and her girlfriends headed to the beach decked out in Hollywood-inspired bathing suits and suits like those pictured above.

1940s:

Family beach days in 1942 started to look a little more like they do today! Women still sported one-pieces and the men showed more leg than the women! The “Bikini” was designed and coined in this decade, but the revealing two-piece was slow to be adopted.

1950s:

Image source: therepublicofless.wordpress.com

Beach day picnics were a popular pastime. Shorts were a little longer for the men and women’s suits start taking a little more shape.

1960s Beach games:

Teenagers and surfing culture took over the beaches. Bikinis are widely adopted and men’s trunks got smaller and tighter! The sandy beach parties from this decade are widely popularized in movies and television.

1980s:

Neon-colors, high-waist bikinis and bright sunglasses were all the rage. Who can forget the highly popular colored Zinc oxide stripes on the face?

2000 and beyond:

In 2015, bikinis and trunks still rule the beaches, sometimes with throwbacks to vintage styles such as the high-waisted, pin-up look and the classic wayfarer sunglasses. One-pieces with fancy cutouts are also getting widely popular. Men generally stick with larger swimming trunks, but the length is slowly beginning to creep up the leg again!

One can only wonder what our great, great grandchildren will be wearing to their family beach days. With the dangers of sun exposure perhaps the trend will go back to fully-clothed? Who knows!

Discover Family.me with FamilySearch!

by Vanessa Waite • April 10, 2015April 10, 2015

Since returning from RootsTech in February, we’ve been focused on making your Family.me experience even better. As we work on cleaning up existing features and creating bigger and better new ones, we’re also paying close attention to what our community is saying.

We’ve heard some feedback from our users needing additional clarification on how to connect their FamilySearch trees with their Family.me accounts, and we’re listening!

We hope to make that process a bit easier to follow in the future, but for now, we wanted to make sure everyone can easily enjoy the service right away.

If you’re already a FamilySearch.org member, and want to connect your tree to use all of Family.me’s great tools, follow these easy steps.

1. Head over to https://www.family.me/

2. Click on the “Sign Up” button.

3. A new window will appear and there you’ll see the “Connect with FamilySearch” button at the bottom.

4. When you click on this option, a window will pop up prompting you to enter the login credentials for your FamilySearch account.

5. After you’ve successfully entered your FamilySearch information, the external window will close and direct you back to Family.me. You’ll then see a fun bird hopping across the screen letting you know that your FamilySearch tree is importing.

6. Once your FamilySearch information has imported, a notification will appear noting that the import was successful and you can begin enjoying your FamilySearch tree within the Family.me site.

If you’ve already created a Family.me account, or would like to have a Family.me account separate from your existing FamilySearch account, you can still import your FamilySearch tree from within the application. Here’s how!

1. If you already have created a Family.me account, simply login to Family.me and skip to step 4 below. If you’d like to create a NEW Family.me account, go ahead and do so through the “Sign up” button at www.family.me.

2. Once you’ve created a new account, follow the prompts to enter your two parents.

3. After you’ve done this for both parents, you can select “Skip Tutorial” at the bottom.

4. Upon skipping the tutorial, a new window will slide up from the bottom of the screen with additional options. Click on the white “Invite” button.

5. Then simply select the “FamilySearch” option that is third from the right and follow steps 5 & 6 as noted above!

Family.me Fun Fact: Whether on the go or at home, Family.me is available anywhere you are! You can either download our apps (on both iOS and Android) or simply go to the website on any computer or device and create away!

RootsTech Video: Reimagining the Family Tree

by Vanessa Waite • March 10, 2015

We we honored to have our CEO, Harrison Tang, lead a workshop during the developer summit at RootsTech last month. In this session, he focused on key features for reimagining the family tree and getting younger generations involved in genealogy. His tips on game mechanics and instant gratification were discussed heavily throughout the entire conference.

Take a look at the half-hour session by clicking on the image below!