According to our research, Tamm, Saar, and Mägi are the three most popular last names in Estonia.
They’re all beautiful names, but my favorite is Pikknurm, which in Estonian means “Long Lea” (thanks Andrus for translation).
Welcome to our family of last names, Estonia.
Have you voted already about how often you are in touch with your mum? If not, do so now, it will only take a second. You scroll down a bit, you’ll stumble upon the poll in the right sidebar (looking like that pic here), tick on the right radio button and click vote. And don’t cheat 
By the way: You can see the results as well, by clicking on the small results button below the vote field. Any you can start comparing it to the results in other languages, like Russian for example where the preliminary results are very different already.
We are looking forward to the final analysis in the next weeks!
When I have heard about the Barcamp at Lake Constance I knew straight away that I wanted to go there. After all I grew up only 20 kilometers from the lake.
Finally the barcamp took place yesterday and today at the brand new venue of Zeppelin University. Some of the top bloggers and internet thinkers around Germany, Switzerland and Austria were present, like Robert Basic, Jan Theofel and obviously the organiser Oliver Gassner. I gave a session on the internationalisation of webservices, talking about Kindo and some of our experiences while getting this service live in 16 languages!
Thanks for the huge attendance and good feedback! Hope I will see some of you guys again soon. And maybe some of you barcampers gave Kindo a try
About us:
We’re an Internet startup based in Putney, west London, funded by some of London’s best business angels and VC-firms. We’re currently around 15 people, but are looking to expand.
Kindo is “where families get together, build their tree, and grow”. Our objective is to help our members to better get to know their family, and what they’re up to. The site launched only in october 2007, is growing fast and available in 15 languages. Visit kindo.com to get the full story.
About the job:
Your job will be country manager in a specific market. It includes localisation and translation of our webservices, corporate blogging, public relations, community outreach and creating, planning and realising additional marketing activities.
You have:
We offer:
Check out http://kindo.com/blog for more information.
We are interested in what websites you have started, been involved in, designed or promoted or simply your favourite sites on the net. To apply send your CV and your weblinks to: mario @ kindo . com
Brazil will celebrate the centenary of Japanese immigration on June 18th, it is 100 years after the Kasato Maru ship arrived in the port of Santos with 165 families.
Since 1908, the Japanese family in Brazil grew a lot. Within seven years 3,434 families have moved, with World War I having a major impact on immigration. Between 1917 and 1940, immigration registers 164,000 Japanese immigrants, most of them working on coffee farms in the state of São Paulo.
A hundred years after the arrival of the pioneers, Brazil has the largest Japanese community outside Japan, with more than 1,5 million Nikkeis (Japanese descendents born in Brazil) living here. Most of them still live in São Paulo, within the Liberdade (means Liberty) neighborhood, close to the center of the city. Immigrants from other oriental countries, especially Chinese and Korean, are also here. This makes Liberdade a quick journey to the other side of the world, without the need for plane travels.
I love going to Liberdade to visit the supermarkets, they sell amazing stuff right from the other side of the world. Food, beverages and cleaning products, among other things, that come straight from Japan and that does sell a lot in São Paulo. It isn’t hard to find a very good place to eat, but it’s always better to ask a Japanese friend for the hot spot.
For Portuguese (or Japanese) speakers, check online all the tips for the centenary – and share with your family at Kindo.
Kindo just launched in Danish! Our last name research pages for Denmark have been live for quite some time now, and finally we have launched Kindo in Danish! It should soon be available via http://kindo.dk as well.
The new language was made possible by Aske and Brian who have translated the whole website voluntarily. Brian had got it rolling and Aske finished it off. Thanks a lot for your help guys!
The new Danish version takes our language toll to 15! The Kindo family is spreading the globe
It’s an interesting fact that something like mother’s day exists in almost all parts of the world (even in Arabic cultures), but has very different origins. Kids and the husband giving gifts like flowers to the “mother” is very common in lots of different places as well.
A whole lot of countries will celebrate mother’s day next Sunday (as always on the second Sunday in May), the 11th of May. That includes the United States, most of the countries in Central Europe, most of the countries in South America and many others from all over the globe, like China, India, Australia or Japan (find the full list of countries here). However, the UK and Ireland have had their mothers day already this year: it’s traditionally three weeks before easter.
The mother’s day tradition in the UK roots in the Christian tradition of visiting one’s “mother’s church” annualy. But people were worshipping mother’s even earlier, like with the Cybele festival in ancient Greece. The jews celebrate their mother’s day in the month of Shewat, the Arabs generally on vernal equinox, the day when the sun is exactly above the equator.
On Kindo you look up what your mum has written in the “personal” section of her profile! Then you can go to our gifts page and find find her the perfect present for mother’s day!
photo credit: houghtonabout
My grandparents all died far too early. But as a child I had two lovely grandmas, and I often took the train with my mother or older sister to go and visit them. I really enjoyed seeing them and have learned a lot from them. 
One grandma was called “Oma Stuttgart”, which is the German word for granny and the city where she lived (Stuttgart), as that was an easy distinction between the two for baby Mario
The other grandma was called “Oma Käthe” – well otherwise kids don’t get the difference between grandma and grandma.
This is much simpler for the Swedes. They actually have two words for grandma: “farmor” and “mormor”, something like “mumsmum” and “dadsmum”. So “Oma Stuttgart” was my dad’s mum, my farmor
This is pretty clever and actually works like that for most of the family relationships. There is four words for “grandchild” (which is “barnbarn”, a “kids’kid”), two for grandsons and two for granddaughters:
Maybe a bit confusing for those who want to learn Swedish, but it’s a great system isn’t it?
If you don’t sit next to a nice Swede like Martin (I do), you can learn more Swedish family vocabulary here.
When we’ve built a site for families in 14 different languages, we can see how much of the most important things in life are similar for us humans all over the word: Strong family ties, the way we gather for holidays, how food has a central role when we meet up etc… Still though, there are small funny details that vary a lot. See for instance the blog posts from last December, when Kindo users from all over the world contributed with stories how their families celebrated the season’s holidays.
When we earlier launched our Family-Polls here on the blog, it was because we were curious to see if there were other similarities or differences between countries. The first poll was about how geographically spread out our families are. Now for a while, a new one has been up. This one is about a very important person - our mums!
How often do YOU call your mother? Maybe she is the one that calls you… Maybe even a bit too often? 
Click here in the poll a bit down here on the right side, and you’ll be part of the unique international poll.
The result will be up in some weeks!
Researchers from the New England Historic Genealogical Society found out that there are family ties between Barack Obama and Bratt Pitt, as well as between Hillary Clinton and Pitt’s partner Angelina Jolie. The Guardian was only one of the several newspaper reporting on this today.
Kindo’s graphical version of Barack Obama’s family tree is still one of the most comprehensive way’s of showing this family data. We will obviously update the Kindo family tree according to the new data asap, but you can go and browse there already now!
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