David Sacks, CEO of Geni, stated, "Genealogists have been asking for the ability to import their GEDCOM files to Geni and now they can." He added "Genealogists who have extensive files representing years of research have been waiting for this feature to launch. Now they don't need to duplicate the work they had done previously." He continued, "Sharing their research with their family in a simple-to-understand Geni tree encourages others in the family to join in the fun and collaboratively build a scrapbook of the family for future generations."

Since Geni's launch in January 2007 as a simple tool to create a family tree, Geni has continued adding features and enhancements. Among these additions are enhanced privacy settings, unlimited photo sharing and tagging, birthday reminders, personal and family timelines, family discussion, virtual gifts, map and calendar.

Geni was a winner of the 2007 Webware 100 Awards, which named it one of the top 100 sites on the internet and one of the top 10 reference sites. It is by far the youngest site to receive this honor. It was nominated again in 2008 in the social (networking) category.