Hello Cousin,

Hope your branch of the family is doing well.

We wanted to give you the latest on the Global Family Reunion, the biggest, most inclusive, most entertaining family reunion in history (all to benefit the battle against Alzheimer’s.)

The Global Family Tree continues to grow. We’ve now connected Beyonce to Brahms, and King George III to George Clooney.

If you haven’t yet been connected to the mega-tree, don’t worry: our awesome research team is working on it. (We’ve been delightfully overwhelmed with requests, but we’re plowing through them).

PRESS:
The Global Family Reunion has received some great coverage from our cousins in the media. Dr. Oz taped an episode about the GFR that will air in a few weeks.

And GFR host A.J. Jacobs continues his column in People magazine where he interviews a notable relative each month. The latest installment: Jim Bob Duggar, the father of 19 and star of the reality show “19 Kids and Counting” on TLC.

(Fun fact: If all 19 of their kids have 19 kids, and the pattern continues, there will be 2 billion Duggars in nine generations).

A.J. also spoke at the delightfully-named World Domination Summit, and his speech is now online. The WDS is a great conference held in Portland, and contains no shortage of Portlandish touches (put it this way: There was a unicyclist in a kilt with a bagpipe. Oh, and he was playing Star Wars theme music. And there were flames shooting out of the bagpipe).

NEW SPEAKERS AND ENTERTAINERS:
We continue to book wonderful speakers and entertainers to make sure all our cousins are properly entertained and enlightened.

Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings will be writing the Ultimate Family Trivia Quiz for the Global Family Reunion. We’ve got humorist Andy Borowitz of the wildly popular Borowitz Report and Maud Newton, who wrote a cover story on genealogy for Harper’s magazine. We’ll also be offering a family storytelling workshop by the group Writopia.

BRANCH PARTIES :
The Global Family Reunion will have simultaneous parties around the world with a live-stream of the talks and entertainment. In addition to some we announced last month — the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah and the Midwest Genealogy Center in Independence, Missouri – we’ve added a bunch more locations, including ones in Germany, Hungary and Australia.

If you want to be involved with or know more about Branch Parties, check out our Branch Party FAQ!

UPCOMING:
We’re thrilled to announce that A.J. will be a keynote speaker at the biggest genealogy conference in the world, RootsTech, held in Salt Lake City, Utah, February 11-14, 2015. Another keynote speaker there? Donny Osmond, who is A.J.’s aunt’s third cousin four times removed’s husband’s granddaughter’s husband’s great nephew.   

And don’t forget cousin Morgan Spurlock will be filming a documentary about the Reunion!

PARTNERS:
Our family of partners grows! We’re excited about teaming up with the Federation of Genealogical Societies, an umbrella group of several hundred societies around the world. We’ve also joined forces with the culinary website Food52 to launch a Global Family Reunion recipe contest.

VOLUNTEERS:
We have hundreds of volunteers working to connect people to you and the Global Family, to spread the word via social media, to coordinate activities and food for the event, to reach out to societies and organizations to get them involved. We want to thank them all, whether they are first cousins or 14th cousins.

TO DO:
–If you haven’t sent in the names of your grandparents and great grandparents (along with birth dates please!) then shoot an email to us at info@worldfamily.us.

–Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Global-Family-Reunion/223798427785665

–Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GlobalReunion15

–Check out all the different ways you can be involved in this epic event!

–Let 10 of your family members and friends know about the Global Family Reunion.

Stay tuned for more updates coming soon!

Your Cousins,
AJ Jacobs and the Global Family Team


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