South African Geni Message Board

My first message board posting is a challenging one, but it may be appropriate to communicate on this as many users may be unaware of what is happening.

Geni is changing the previous Basic "free" model to a more commercially orientated one. So Basic users have lost some of the functionality that was previously available to them. Pro's have received some enhancements. Here are a few links for anyone who want to understand more:

Relevant News releases from Geni:

http://www.geni.com/blog/geni-pro-just-got-a-whole-lot-better-36966...
http://www.geni.com/blog/a-message-from-geni%e2%80%99s-ceo-369903.html
http://www.geni.com/blog/genis-ceo-on-geneabloggers-radio-tonight-a...
http://www.geni.com/blog/introducing-geni-plus-370136.html
http://www.geni.com/blog/todays-release-bug-fixes-370227.html

Public discussions
http://www.geni.com/discussions/99057
http://www.geni.com/discussions/100436

To summarise as I understand it today:

BASIC users seem to now unable to:
-Participate and build the tree out beyond their 5 Great Grandfather themselves. (Pro's are still able to help them with this)
-Initiate and do Merges (Still trying to understand this)
-Use search as they previously did

Tip for non pro's: For searching Google search is effective to use. Also play with the autopopulate in Search top right.

-Good news ;-) is that BASIC users ARE STILL able to:

Edit profiles managed by themselves or their collaborators

-PRO users can still give non pro's access to a profile by adding them in as a manager. So if you need access. Ask a Pro to add you.

-PRO users do now have full access to all public profiles outside family groups so they should be able to add non-pro's as managers there if needed..

PLUS has just been released, but I'm still not clear about benefits for this option.

For BASIC users, collaboration is now still an essential tool to gain access to profiles. 14 day trials could also provide limited relief.

More to follow as I get to fully understand the implications...

One thing I could add is that I feel that we are lucky in the South African tree as our forest is maturing quite nicely, so I do believe it is possible to support NON PRO users to fill in the blanks in their trees outside their family groups. I could imagine that this could be a much worse change for other parts of the tree.

I noticed a problem when entering place names for certain areas in South Africa eg if you enter Kakamas it gives you the proper "city" but displays it as
Lower Orange River, Beaufort West as Central Karroo etc and one must go back ro edit the proper city name. Surely this must be a bug?

No, not a bug.
Geni is an American programme and the Americans have little knowledge (or interest) in places outside the USA!
They make it equally difficult to add English placenames as well! I've written to them repeatedly about this!! My nagging on Ancestry.co.uk seems to have made the addition of English and South African place names a bit easier to enter.
Tombi Peck

There is indeed a bug on locations at the moment. Geni working on it... I will advise when I know exactly what the issue is.

Has something to do with the changes on the location for the revisions mentioned in http://www.geni.com/blog/todays-release-bug-fixes-370227.html

There is a lot of work going into this area at the moment...

Hi Mauritz,
I can't add a son or daughter to certain relatives as they say only child?

Catherine, im not clear where you are trying to add. Are you using tree view and then a yellow arrow.

Just to advise that I am making quite some changes to for instance the links on the projects. No offence meant if I've moved a link you made, but I'm trying to get and keep them organised.

The idea is to get a cascading project structure something as follows -

Global Project Index -->
* Portaal voor Nederlandse tale
* VOC * shared projects etc
* Welkom Cuzzins (as portal and project index):
* SV/PROG
* (SV Subs)
* Surname Index
* 1820 Settlers
* Boer War
* Concentration Camps
* Great Trek,
* Battles of ... Boer war etc etc
* Famous South Africans -
* Famous Rugby Players

Surname links have been moved to the Surname Index page. The idea is that in time all will know to go there to find them and that will keep the link lists on the other projects free. It's just not practical to link every project to each other - or every Surname to Welcome Cuzzins for instance. We may do so on occasion to showcase a new Surname project for instance, but a little organisation will help to keep things easy ;-)

Oops.. structure not coming out nicely.. So please refer here:

http://www.geni.com/projects/Global-Tree-Projects-Project-to-Struct...

Hey Mauritz and friends in SA.
I'm getting inspired by what you're doing, and you may have seen that we have a variety of parallel projects in their infancy regarding the Golden Ages in the Low Countries. Private is now focusing on Leiden, I'm going to try a structure for Amsterdam, and Private User is looking after the more cultural aspects through her museum-projects (plus, she's trying to establish Dutch/Scandinavian migration). Wouter De Boeck starts to tackle Antwerp's golden age (which precedes Amsterdam, where many of the leading families in the VOC had Flemish and Walloon origins). Besides that, we obviously also have so many people that are working every day on building out the family trees into the 17th century (which is highly relevant for SA immigration).
I just felt like giving you all this little update because I think it all connects nicely into what you're doing around SA !

I also need to mention Private User who has been working tirelessly on documenting New Amsterdam immigration. Perhaps less relevant for SA, but many of the SA immigrants are obviously related to New Amsterdam immigrants through their Huguenot/Calvinist origins (and their passage through Holland).

if necessary for the linkage to Dutch ancestors, please also use our initiative to document historic Dutch profiles by reading and linking to the project:

http://www.geni.com/projects/Ⓓutch-◦-Ⓓocumentation-◦-Ⓓepartment

Tx George! Glad if we can bring some inspiration. You are welcome to please jump in on the Tree Strucuture project and to help flush that out. Really what I came up with in consideration of your thoughts in http://www.geni.com/discussions/100423?msg=739207. Think it may work?

I like how it all ties together. New Amsterdam is on the same level for me as Cape of Good hope.. Will have a 1st go at trying to represent that in the proposed structure. One interesting challenge I'm facing is that projects share dual hierarchies. ie Famous South Africans is a Sub Project of Cuzzins, but also a sub project of Famous Humans Portals which breaks into Famous South Africans and Famous Dutch etc etc..

I suspect that we must try to differentiate between a meaningful historical flow on the one hand, and a range of meaningful topics that can connect to a lot of other projects on the other.
In New Amsterdam, there is a 'Notable Citizens' page for governors, mayors, aldermen, church leaders, etc. But, it's framed to that specific era - when New Netherland was a province. I think we'll do 'Notable Citizens' in Amsterdam, Leiden etc in another way, because in the Dutch golden age it is much more meaningful to split between merchant families, artists, scientists... each deserving its own chapter. But, in the end, one can think of tons of projects that focus on one thing or the other.
From the historical flow perspective, I totally agree with you: Cape Goede Hoop and New Amsterdam are part of the same historical phenomenon and go hand in hand with the Golden Ages in the Low Countries. (Like American exploration by the Spanish and Brazilians went hand in hand with THEIR golden ages).
As you may have seen, I have a placeholder project 'Dutch Revolt' that will be an attempt to frame Flemish/French migration to the North - along the breaklines between golden ages. I suspect that THAT is what we're also talking about with regards to emigration to SA and to the new world. I guess that we have been focusing in IMMIGRATION for SA and New Amsterdam - what may not have been done is EMIGRATION from Europe. These EMIGRATION flows actually happened when the Golden Ages where winding down (just like between Antwerp and Amsterdam). I think we'll need to think about ultimately attaching the historical flow for SA and New Amsterdam (and Indonesia, and Surinam etc etc) to some new 'Migration Projects'.
As always, just thinking out loud :-)

Show your thinking out loud ;-) cousin. Show it. http://www.geni.com/projects/Global-Tree-Projects-Project-to-Struct...

Mauritz, I'll attach you to the Golden Ages umbrella projects, like that you see how it's shaping up :-) I think it will fit in very nicely with the structure you show!