Arcalife.com the Family History site announces full integration with FamilySearch.org. This integration further deepens the features and capabilities between the two sites.

arcalife.com was established as an online family history community where members can preserve their ancestry, scrapbook their memories, and securely share rich life content all in one place. arcalife has developed a wide range of tailored family history tools and services to allow members to capture their ‘past’ and ‘present’ life content for ‘future’ generations. 

The concept for arcalife.com was born from the most basic of human needs; to leave a lasting imprint of our lives and experiences. arcalife has developed a range of tools and services to enable members to research their family history, build a family tree, and securely share and collaborate with family members in building a ‘Digital Estate’ to pass to future generations.

FamilySearch is the largest family history organization in the world. Millions of people use FamilySearch records, resources, and services to learn more about their family history. For over 100 years, FamilySearch has been actively gathering, preserving, and sharing genealogical records worldwide. 

Aside from access to millions of free records, the integration will bring a host of new resources to arcalife members. Furthermore, FamilySearch members are now able to use arcalife.com to do more with their records, research, and family tree- including:

·         Add rich Media Content to Trees and Events - Photos, Videos,  Records, Documents, and Timelines

·         Synchronize Trees and Events Between the Two Sites

·         Make Family History Scrapbooks, Biographies, and Printed albums from memories, experiences and events

·         Print large size color Family Trees with a few clicks, up to size 36.1 in × 51.1 in

·         100% Secure & Encrypted, Gated Site for Storing and Sharing Family History 

 “…We’re excited about this new integration as our members will now have access to a wider range of records, and FamilySearch members can do more with their existing family history research on our site” says Paul Taylor, arcalife.com CEO.

We're so incredibly excited about our innovative creation of our family history Life Cube that we want to shower you with HARD COLD CASH!

We're running a family history contest that is open until December 1st 2009 - the details are really easy and the rewards are high....

LIFE CUBE CONTEST REQUIREMENTS:

1. Build a Life Cube on arcalife.com or sign up through the Facebook Application.(It's free and easy to sign up.)

2. Share your Life Cube on Facebook OR Twitter.* (Don't forget to make your cube "public" in arcalife so anyone can view it.)

3. Most important step to officially enter: Share your Family Life Cube with us at arcalife by either including @arcalife in your tweet or post your Cube link to the arcalife Facebook Fan Page - this way, we'll definitely see your entry into the contest. You will receive notice you have officically entered at this time.

4. Get 5 of your friends or followers to either Comment on your Life Cube post on your Facebook Profile Wall OR Re-Tweet your Life Cube tweeted link on Twitter.*

THE WINNING Family History LIFE CUBE WILL RECEIVE $500 CASH. And in true social networking fashion, the first FIVE people to comment on your Cube post on your Facebook wall or re-tweet your Life Cube tweet on Twitter will also receive a cash prize of $50 each. Everybody wins! (For those of you who link your posts Twitter-to-Facebook/Facebook-to-Twitter, not to worry - we have it sorted and can measure where you posted and your first five people to count for the win.)

* Rules Apply.

Judging and awarding the winning Life Cube is based on inspiration and creativity. Life Cube only takes a few minutes to sign up, upload and publish photos and videos.

Here are a few examples of published Life Cubes to get your creative juices flowin':

Don't forget to hit the "Animate" button for the full effect :)

Growing Up - Family - New Baby
Little League Hockey Team
Ancestry

Family history is such a popular activity these days. If all the talk of family trees, family history and scrap booking your memories has caught your attention but you don’t know where to start, here are some ideas to get you going.
 
You could start building a family tree or conducting a family history search, but probably the best thing you can do before you do anything at all is to think about what you want to get out of the pursuit of your heritage.  You can spend years tracing your family history, going back generation after generation through your lineage.  Some people find this alone a satisfying hobby and also get a great deal of fulfillment, knowing something about where they come from. The key question is this: do you want to spend all your efforts looking back, when some of the richest rewards are in your more recent history?
 
Within the living memories of your present day family, you probably have a wealth of fantastic history with which you can identify. Try picking a relatively recent ancestor, who seems interesting and whom you think you may be able to gather material about. This can be a motivational place to start researching your history, before you immerse yourself in family hsitory records and certificates.  Moving across your tree and fleshing out the details about an ancestor has the added benefits of allowing you to connect with living relatives today. This can aid your search later when you start to move back in time.
 
You may also want to think about capturing some of your own or your family’s living history and preserving it for the next generation.
 
These days researching family history is much more accessible than it used to be.  If you are starting out, there are lots of sites where you can start building your family tree and do family history searches for free.  A good one that allows you to build a tree, search records and flesh out an ancestor for free is right here at arcalife.com, of course. Or if you know where you are headed and have the money you can sign up for a paid membership at a site like Ancestry or FamilyLink. The paid sites do give you an extensive set of records to search and a tree, and are great for this, but they have less of the other stuff that allows for you to connect with your family in the past and the present.

Talking with Dennis Lankes yesterday on Startups Live TV gave me some renewed focus on our end goal with our family history site arcalife.com Our aim is to unite past, present and futures families using memories, experiences and stories as a timeless bridge. To do this, we’ll need support from the genealogy community for their insight and knowledge, as well as a mainstream recognition and groundswell of buy-in to our site. When you talk with people in the “tech biz” who see start-ups every day, it’s a real boost to hear that our family history site genuinely offers something new, different and fulfilling in the social networking and family space. Our membership is already expanding rapidly and the team has high hopes for a true explosion of interest. Our Life Cube application on Facebook is one of our steps in bringing our message to the world – your family history memories and stories are the most important thing you leave as a legacy, arcalife can help you do it right … after all, you only have one shot.