RootsTech 2016 ~ My Interview with the Co-Founders of Twile

Kelly Marsden and Paul Brooks
Co-Founders of Twile.com
at RootsTech 2016

On Friday, February 5, 2016, I had the wonderful opportunity to interview Kelly Marsden and Paul Brooks, the co-founders of Twile.com.

Twile is an award-winning company based in Sheffield, England. At the RootsTech 2016 Innovator Showdown, Twile won the following awards:

• People's Choice Award ($10,000 cash)
• 3rd Place Judges Choice Award ($6,000 cash, $10,000 in-kind)

What is Twile? The "About Twile" section of their website includes the following:

"With Twile, you can create a rich, visual timeline of your family history, made up of milestones and photos, which everyone in your family can explore and contribute to."

Twile's mission according to their website:

"Make family history exciting and engaging for the whole family and preserve as many memories as possible for the future generations."

Here are some highlights from my interview with Paul Brooks and Kelly Marsden:

Jana Last: Tell me about how you got started.

Paul Brooks: We started Twile in 2013 in Sheffield in England and we launched our full product in April 2015, so a year ago. We spent a year and a half trying to work out how to build a timeline that would solve all the problems in genealogy. And we launched it last year. We spent a year trialing, experimenting, and where we are today is a pretty popular product.

Jana Last: Ya, I think it looks excellent. I was intrigued that you're talking about getting it FamilySearch compatible.

Kelly Marsden: Conversations will take place following this conference. Everybody's really excited.

Jana Last: I am so excited about that!

Paul Brooks: And the beauty is you will pull in your FamilySearch in a click and it will instantly create your timeline. Because otherwise, at the moment you have to import a GEDCOM file, which is okay, but a slow process, whereas if you can just push a button, then that's amazing. We've been here a few days and they've convinced us to get working on that as quickly as possible.

Jana Last: We'll look forward to the press release on that. So, you've talked about Who Do You Think You Are? Live, that you're going to that in April? Are you presenting? What are you going to do there?

Kelly Marsden: We'll have a stand there. We do have someone presenting on our behalf.

Jana Last: Anything else you want to tell us about Twile?

Paul Brooks: Just that we'd love everyone to give it a go and try it. Since we launched it the number one data that we've used to build the product has been feedback from customers.

Kelly Marsden: We want to encourage everyone to start recording their lives today, because today is tomorrow's history. So, let's not just think about Twile as being a tool for the past, but a tool for today as well.

Jana Last: I love that.

 ***end of interview***

I'm looking forward to when Twile will be compatible with FamilySearch. It will be wonderful to instantly create my Twile timeline using my FamilySearch Family Tree.

In addition to their website, Twile.com, Twile can also be found on the following social media sites:

Family History with Twile Facebook Group

Twile's Facebook Page

Twile on Twitter

Twile's YouTube Channel

Want to see what a Twile timeline looks like? Please check out the "Introducing Twile's Family History Timeline" video from their YouTube channel.

Thanks for reading!

Jana

© 2016 Copyright by Jana Last, All Rights Reserved