So this is really a site only for professional users?

The Pro doesn't mean the usual thing professional I think. At least I don't think the pro-users at Geni does earn any money on what they put in, do and use on Geni. I think I have bougth server space and system for the my and others family research. It's like beeing member in a club.

Michael,
Thanks for asking these questions.

The "Pro" label is to distinguish between those who have subscribed to Geni.com and who have paid an annual fee in return for access to greater functionality than an ordinary free member.

Members such as yourself are most welcome and should there be a function that you are prevented from doing (such as merging duplicated profiles from separate unrelated trees) there is always a Pro member available to do it on your behalf.

Non Pro members are restricted to capturing up to 100 family members but again, should you need assistance there is always someone willing to help.

I joined Geni just over a year ago and have had a great amount of help from others on Geni and the Curators (who also have greater functionality) and Pro members and indeed ordinary members have been a great help.

You will find Geni a very user friendly program aided by the friendly collaboration of other users.

Below is an extract which I normally send to new family members to assist them in navigating Geni.

Enjoy Geni - you will find that there are probably many of your ancestors already on it just waiting for you to view them.

________________________________________________

I chose Geni.com as the vehicle to share, due to the collaborative nature of it and also the ability to merge with distant trees where other remote descendants had also compiled their separate family trees, and where there were duplications of ancestors’ profiles in Geni.com.

The Geni.com application performs a scan across the millions of individual records captured by Family Tree Managers and suggests possible tree merges based upon similarities in Names and dates of birth and death, sibling and parents as well as children’s names. The possibility of a merge is communicated automatically to the respective tree Managers with an invitation to merge if agreed upon. Specifically for PRO users.

This has enabled the tree to grow and become a part of a “forest” including many bloodlines from around the world.

Navigation is very intuitive, and when you come across a green bubble above a tree box, clicking on it will take you down that branch of the tree.

It is important NOT to add someone to the tree until you have made sure that they are not already on the tree. If you want to add someone to a profile that has a “green bubble” attached to it, first click the bubble to reveal immediate ancestors, siblings and descendants – then check to see if they are not already on the tree.

Searching is possible by entering a Surname or First Name in the search box at the top right of the page and then selecting from the choices revealed or for a quick jump to someone in your immediate tree there is the tab “Go To” at the bottom of your screen.

However perhaps the easiest way to get a full overview of the Families and Surnames that are connected in the extensive Tree is to go the following route.

• To access existing Surname profiles go to the Banner Headings across the top of the Geni.com page.
• Click the header “Family”
• Then choose “Last Name Index” from the drop down menu.
• Choose the Surname you wish to access. (There is an indication alongside the Surname of the number of individual people with that Surname in the tree)
• Scroll down to the actual person.
• You can then “View Tree” by accessing the sub menu at the right side which will reveal the tree surrounding that person.
• OR you can access their personal details by clicking their name on the Left side.

In addition, by clicking on the name in the box in the tree will bring up the profile details of that person, and where the person has allowed family members to alter / update their details you can do so.

This is the easier route to modify or update the profile as it allows access to many fields as described below.

On the right of the profile once you open it by means of clicking the name in the tree box, is a field “Edit Profile” which will open the main profile for editing and also across the top below the incumbent’s name are ancillary fields such as Relationships (to enter Marriage / Divorce Dates and Places) Work, Schools etc.

“About Me” is a useful field in which all the snippets of news and achievements that a person has achieved can be recorded.

A Family Tree without Dates is missing critical data and also these facts get lost in time and need to be preserved.

Once you have your profile “open” on the screen (by clicking the “Geni logo” across the top) you will be able to view a sequence of ongoing activities happening, as well as by scrolling down you will see who has visited your tree and when and you will also be able to explore statistics associated with your tree.

For documenting your "nearby" relatives and family, being a Basic (free) Geni member is entirely sufficient.

As noted previously, to 'connect' into the "Forest" (a.k.a. "Big Tree") there needs to be one paying user within your family group -- but you should also know that ANY paying Geni member ("Pro"=paying) can be invited to "join" your family group to help you out. I have done that on a couple of occasions with folks I had no close connection with at all (67-degrees of separation!) simply so we could look to see if there was indeed a proper 'connection' with already-existing profiles.

Of course, I've also "joined the family group' with Basic users who are indeed cousins (within 4-times removed scope) -- some of which I didn't even know about before we "bumped common profiles".

I happen to like the "presumption of collaboration" encouraged by the Geni interface; there are a number of other sites which focus on preserving "your own family tree" ... and have limited, sometimes narrow, mechanisms for sharing and for "finding connections".

I delight when I find two or three profiles which are obviously of the same person but each comes from a different "family viewpoint" and thus each provides different details (e.g.: one might know the birth date, another the death date, and maybe the 3rd provides info about spouse(s) and their marriage date(s).

@Michael Earl Lind - Many sites give an unrestricted access for only 14 days, and then you must pay. Geni gives you restricted access for unlimited number of days, and then you pay. Which would give you a better idea if a program is right for you?

There are some professional and semi-professional genealogists on Geni and there are many hobbyists. The majority of users fall in between. They are people who seriously want to build a family tree and who enjoy the collaborative nature of Geni.

You will find that most people on Geni are friendly and helpful. If one of your ancestors is already on Geni, request to be added as a co-manager and save your 100 free profiles for people who are not on Geni. Our Pro members (think premium or paid, not professional) have been extremely helpful to our basic members, completing merges, etc.

I do hope that you will stick around. It's a great program.

@MIchael Earl Lind
Just to give you a different viewpoint, I'm a Pro member; my membership ends in April and I won't renew. My personal tree has been messed up more times than I care to remember, first by basic members (most of us were basic then), and later by Curators, one in particular whose name I won't mention, who merged three different and totally unrelated families with the same surname. If you don't want non-relatives, or even distant relatives, messing up your data, I'd advise you not to join.

Really Janice,
For a PRO member you seem to be really uninformed. If someone "messed up" your tree - you can check who it was by checking on "Revisions" and then approaching that person.

Further, if you choose to keep your tree for viewing by Immediate Family only then mark your profiles "Private"

It is hardly accurate to put off someone wishing to join Geni because you have a personal gripe with some unknown person, and if the person is known but un-nameable, an approach to that Curator and their peers, could lead to the error being corrected.

It is like saying - Do not buy a certain make of Automobile, because when I encountered a reckless driver who drove into my Automobile, it was wrecked.
Was it the fault of the Automobile, or was it the other reckless driver's fault, and should the world then stop buying your brand of Automobile.

You get my drift.

Your gripe is not the making of Geni but someone who was careless or negligent, and if your profiles were Private, for viewing only by your immediate family, it could not have occurred.

Correct me if I am wrong.

@Janice: I understand you are disappointed with what others have done to "your" tree. I would like to compare that to my 'disappointments'.

I would here immideately tell: I like the overall system at Geni, even if still premature and needing much more technical develpoment.

One different way of thinking is that you speak about YOUR tree. I speak about me as one person with connections to many other persons. As MY parents have several children my sibblings can also say THEIR tree. And I have cousins and my mother have cousins and suddenly we come closer to that I am a part in a social effort to make a World/Humanity-Tree.

I have made mistakes. Others have made mistakes. So far it's just on a "value"-level there has been no solutions. But in 9 out of 10 mistake cases we have found solutions. That's a good result in a social context like Geni.

I do things in different places of the Worldtree where I am not related. But I am skilled in doing things that migth solve problems to others. Not all problems, but some or some part of it. In some parts of the tree there are a lot of closed profiles. Today I met a family from the end of1700:s til the beginning of the 1800:s and could not do anything due to "Privacy". That is in a part of the Worldtree were people have about 500-800 "Dataconflicts" since 2008! The conflict could be about spelling or anything. It's odd to see how growmups cannot say "we do like this until...".

That's kind of a "the least bad and most good" under these circumstances. It's a question of how one looks at social cooperation and both on what can I have and what can I give.

The new rules make it so if you are not a Pro user then you cannot even merge your tree into the World tree properly because basic users are not allowed to merge. Also take for example you invite one of your family members and they go on to Geni and add some profiles for their family so you can then join them to your tree... well you can't do that unless you are both Pro members. My advice is unless you are a Pro member you should not waste you time with Geni as the basic version is totally useless.

And if you chose to become a Pro-user then it's a QUTIE good system and a great lot of social possibilities. There are som many to collabirate with. You learn and get information from others. I found it very nice to be able to connect the younger generations in my relative group. As a Pro I have to be aware of the Basic users and think of there possibilities. Itäs easy to keep in contact in mail with them and keep tpgether the group. To many users it's not a qusetion of "do I want to buy this" or not. It's a question of that they cannot afford paying Geni. That's not Michaels problem I belive. So if you chose a Pro account I belive you will find it useful.

I agree with you Janice. Mine is messed up in some areas. and I have gone over and over it with people who refuse to change things. I have given up. Not a pro. If I could afford to become one I don't believe I would. Most of my into back a thousand years, is already in there , as I put it in myself years ago but since the changes can't add any more. I even removed several more recent profiles, not that important to anyone except me , so i could add more but it won't let me. I was in there twice and finally was able to get myself merged into one me and now for some reason it thinks I have more then 100 people. Well, in a way I do as most were added before I briefly left , so when i finally stopped being a split personality the system won't let me even re add what I took out. I probably will remove as much as I can without doing harm to my co managers and eventually turn everything left back over to the person I did that too the first time I left. I absolutely can do nothing at this point! What a shame. It was just fine the old way and some well meaning person or persons went and messed up everything.

Maria, the problem is, in my opinion, no one should have to ask anyone to do his or her work or entities for them. We should be able to do it your self because then technically it's not us doing the acturally work., which is not fun or satisfying.I like doing it myself if at all possible. Then is anyone wants to add to it on their own that's fine with me. But I want to do it myself!!!!!!

Judy, I quite agree! All the Curators were up in arms about the changes in membership levels that happened last fall. When you can complete your own merges, do your own searches, resolve your own conflicts, it is a more satisfying experience.

I hope you find some way to not leave, Judy. You have done so much work already and have such history with Geni. When I win the lottery, there's about two dozen people that I'd give lifetime Pro memberships to, just because they've been valuable, not only to me, but to the Big Tree itself.

Marie , that's a kind though. You made my day. I just feel like it's useless to be in Geni and I enjoyed really enjoyed working on Geni! All I want to do is basic stuff like add everyone I can. I'd put everyone I removed to make room for others, but it won't let me return the profiles nor put new in. To me Geni is useless , except for maybe meeting people with like interest and discusions. Pretty soon they will cut that off too. When I first started years ago, at the library , cause that's where I first encountered Geni. Figured it was safe to play around with seeing that it was on the library Gen. sits list. Also used Roots, to look up trees. That's where I accidentally found one of the people involved with writing Plantagenet Ancestry. I contacted him on a profile he had, that I also had, I had gotten all my info( that part of the tree from Doug Richardson at the NEHG in Boston. At that time I didn't know he was involved in the book. Didn't even know there was a book! He was interested in Taylor, James Taylor who was Tres. of The Mass Bay prov., as it was called at the time. He is my 7 times great grandfather( if I counted that correctly) Anyway, the other gentleman first name Kim, was very nice and we were in contact for awhile and discovered I had meet Doug a couple times . So Kim sent me 80 pages of the book and they credited me in the book. I only gave them a very small amt. but they credited me, which I thought was really nice! Anyway so that's my good experience I had with Roots. Not all is good but that was. I still have what he sent. The only other places I ever got credited for anything was pictures in a book about Lake Quannapowitt , in Wakefield and an up coming one by the same people on Breakheart in Saugus, because I happen to be the only one with an extensive collection of pictures of Breakheart Farm from 1901 to about 1919. So Doug ( diferent Doug) and Alison are using a large amt. of them in the book. Couldn't get Breakheart interested enough to do anything with them and I don't have the money to publish . So at least this way they are out there. My cousin who has written a family book on her side self published but she's well off. I am not. That's life!

I have to make comments here. Im a cousin of Agnetha Åhrberg, Judy and others, this is not a site fore proffs. I Been seeeking in my roths in 16 yeres
now. I found Geni 12 years a go. And im still have a lot to learn about Geni. When I have Problem I have a lot of reletives and friend on Geni to ask for help. Agnetha is one. ANother Is my cousin Roy, And Johan Anell. Don´t hang up on problem. We got all problem from time to time.Geni is built on coperation. And use it then. We offen have curators on line. who is willing to help.

Getting help from others is wonderful but that's not the point. We shouldn't have to or be forced to, which we are. Help is there when we need or want it. But we still should be able to do things ourselves. That's why more and more people are leaving.
There is fast becoming a mass exodus from Geni and of course Geni's there to make money. They have to make money or they can't keep the site going.

I have enjoy this site very much, yes i have problem, yes i been merge with tree that may or may not been correct, yes i have area I need help with, but i have tie in to lose cousin, I never even knew, thy have help me a lot on filling out the tree. even been tie in (correct or not correct ??) back to Christ time.\
So to let you all know now, If you don't want your name and family tree name's add to the work done in the L D S temple then don't tie in to my tree. Put I need all the help I can get to fill in missing tree limbs and branches. My family didn't leave deep rut's to follow

Judy@I'm swedish and have learnt from americans the sentence "There is no business that is a free business". As an economist I know there is nothing in the world you can use as free without either know that someone else or you self pay for the using. Even gifts to you are at cost to the earth. In Sweden we are used to "free" things like schools, healthcare and service for elder. This is of course not free of costs, but we pay it in the taxes. Everyone helps to pay, so to even poor can get schools for their children and healthcare if ill. All that are of big discussion in USA today. People complain about the taxes and the governements expences. Both in Sweden and USA. In Sweden we pay 30-60% tax and in USA I know it's not that level. That about "free" things.

Wikipedia "the free encyklopedia" is built by contributors. The 'free' thing is that anyone is 'free' to contribute and use the encyklopedia. In any language! The costs that are is financed with donations. Sometimes WP has to beg for money to keep the servers going and keep the personel still employed.

It's the same with Project Gutenberg (litterature from all the world free on line) and Project Runeberg (nordic litterature free on line): They need donations to keep the machinery working.

So what is Geni? I don't feel lika a customer and I don't behave like one either. This is a possibility to collaborate with other genealogists. Some that are really good (professionals?) and some at my level. Some technical skilfull (professionals?) or as me. Sometimes I can do things in my closest family and other times in distant places in the World-tree. Some of my friends here does not pay but know I do and we have genealogy in common.

I have never felt disturbed in things I do by myself. Sometimes there has been "dicsussions" because I and others do not value things in the same way. I find some persons hard to cooperate with, but in a social context it's always someone else who can treat and meet "bezzer-wizzers" in genealogy better than I.

Some amateurs behave as they are professionals. They migth be professionals but not in genealogy! That's never a "profession". It's always a hobby. And we can chose on what level and to what degree we, in person, like to exercise it.

But to claim a higher level and e.g. an extreme personal degree on the cost of someone else seems like Sweden on top level from 1980:s when the author Astrid Lindgren of "Pippi Langstrump"-books had to pay 110% tax and thougth it was too high compared to her income.

The question Michael put is about what shall he do? Stay at Geni or not? Well if he feel "forced" to collaborate Geni is not the best for his tast. But if he likes to cooperate/collaborate with all kind of people to do something of worth for both himself and to others Geni is a great oppotunity.

In the Press Release announcing the launch of Geni, http://www.prweb.com/releases/Family/Tree/prweb497693.htm it says, "“Geni is free to use. The company will generate revenue through advertising and eventually layer on premium services for power users.”

For years, it was understood that Geni would be free, except for these premium services Geni would be adding. However, due to low ad revenues and/or the Geni-Team failing to come up with enough Premium Services enough folks would pay for, in 2011 Geni abandoned this stance. I think Geni had truly meant to stick with it, and so was not purposely misleading us, but whether on purpose or inadvertently, they did in fact mislead folks.

I do not know if Geni considers this permanent, or if they eventually come up with enough Premium Services folks will wish to pay for, if Geni may revert to more of the original offering being free again.

@Agneta Ahrberg

Wow - you are really the voice of logical reason Agneta.

Everyone must enjoy Geni and the collaboration and benefit from the contribution of all.
It is your choice to pay or not to pay, but what you put in (Subscription as well as material contributions) you will also get out.
I have chosen to pay and get Pro benefits because I understand too that to improve Geni will and does cost money and I certainly benefit from it.

Thank you for the link Lois! I did'nt start with Geni until less than a year ago, so I have no history like that very starting point five years ago. Apperently it was a business from the beginning. And business people in computers and internet. It's obvious that the've seen the market.

I started with some genealogy in the 1980:s. It's been ups and downs. I have tried to find software that suits me. Not until last summer when I found Geni I felt "this is worth trying". I don't need to be afraid it will drop dead if I do. I and my elder generation have talked and do understand the younger generation have not time for this doing Family History at this time of their life. But we have connected them! And anyone in my family group can go in on Geni later on and continue what I have started at Geni.

It's obvious that Geni did not succeed in financing the equipment, the staff and the service with the adverticing idea. Thereby being forced to change. Or die. That choise is easy: Survive by doing needed changes.

I must say I do prefer a screen free from advetisments. I rather pay a licence for TV and radio so to get rid of announcements of cloth, shoes, weigthloosing preparates and "would you like to meet a millionaire" when I surch for a gggg-mother to a pharmasist in Finland. I never click on the links about "See 10.000 hits on other sigths" since they are mostly selling information that I can find for free in my library. That's a kind of freedom too on Geni: The screen is not occupied with advertisments.

So it's clear from 2007 that Geni is a Social media in Genealogy matters. It's a little bit to many "secrets" to my taste but also so many open, giving, exchanging, nice people that I can oversee that complication in the Geni-kontext.

Lois, acturally there are professional genealogist. I know a few. They may have started it as a hobby but they do it as a business for other people . they write for magazines ete . These people do it for a living. The rest of us do it for fun and information. Well in America It's No Business Like Show Business. Have you heard the song, seen the movie. ( I am half way kidding) Geni may need to do things to survive but they don't need to cut slit the throats of the people who have been contributing willing for years but now can't. It's like they bleed us dry and then kicked us to the curb. As far as free goes. What I was doing in Geni was free. I didn't need all the other stuff. I should be able to continue to add names myself. That's all I want to do . Add, merge and , photos , document edit. I think I can sometime still edit. I can put some photos and documents in but I am not going to. I even did a project. I am not asking for the world just a small part of it.

Sorry not Lois it was for Agneta. Don't know what I was thinging when I wrote Lois. Dahhhhhh!!!!!!!

@Agneta Ahrberg I belonged for over 3 years before I became a Pro. I did simply to correct serious errors. But now I can't correct serious errors.

Marianne Lyons Dagher -- as a "Pro" member, you ought to be able to correct almost any error among the profiles you manage. If you encounter a "Master Profile", then a Geni Curator will need to help you out.

Perhaps in a separate discussion, or send me a private message, we can help you with those "serious errors".

Michael. Yes, it needs some thought. Geni has changed so that it favors those more interested in world genealogy, rather than their family genealogy.

If you are interested in how you are related to Alexander the Great, you will find the site fascinating.

If you simply wish to share your family history, then you have a problem. If you enter photographs, documents, and a detailed account of the various people in your family, then you have a decision:

If you make them Private, then it is probably defeating your purpose, as few people will be able to view them.

If you make them Public, then any Pro member may alter or delete the information you have entered. With the exception of the basic details of each person, you will not even know that this has occurred, and you will be unable to find out who did it.

My take is that Geni is for those interested in a basic tree - boxes with birth and death dates, and perhaps a quick cut-and-paste of who they are. It is definitely about relationships between people (i.e. the tree), rather than the people themselves.

Until last year, it was possible to have members of your family publicly viewable, but amended only by persons selected by yourself. Geni decided that this inhibits a person in Mongolia from changing your fathers details - just not good enough.

The curators suggested making such profiles into Master Profiles to stop this occurring. This prevents you from updating your own profiles also.

Michael - If you are interested in your families genealogy, and Alexander the Great doesn't matter too much, I would suggest another site.

The curators suggested making such profiles into Master Profiles to stop this occurring. This prevents you from updating your own profiles also.

This is not correct, Ken. It refers to an option, only used really on "wildly popular" profiles such as Charlesmagne, to "lock" data fields to further changes - and even then a new fact contributed will be added on request.

99% of MPs are there are merge guides to prevent needless duplication and ensure the most accurate and comprehensive profile available. Manager contributions on profiles I curate are not only do-able, they are solicited.

Richard and Agneta,
I'm well aware of the identity of the curator who "messed up" my tree, and not only mine but two others (meaning, from different children of original immigrants to the Colonies, and in one case a completely different unrelated family).
The curator hadn't fixed it in more than two months of messages, so I did it myself. The reason I call it "MY" tree, is there are no other users on geni who descend through my family's particular line from the original immigrant, or one of the original immigrant's sons. So, more than once, my line has been merged to make one generation out of two, even with DO NOT MERGE included in the name fields, and the dates included as well. I'm tired of it. As for making profiles private, there was no chance to do that once geni made the changes of 4 ggp generations removed becoming public.

In other of my lines, following an ancestral line back to the 13th or 14th century turns out to be a joke, since the lines contain mothers who didn't give birth until they were in their 50s, or mothers who are 60 years younger than their children. All to prove "everyone is connected". That particular line is the Winthrop line, and I can tell you that no matter who follows it, the information is wrong, since the questionable dates are more than 500 years ago. I stand by my original statement: If you don't want non-relatives, or even distant relatives, messing up your data, I'd advise you not to join.

I guess I will "Unfollow" this discussion as it has now become the vehicle for a few disenchanted people to drag out all their gripes in response to the original very simple question from @Michael Earl Lind, entitled

"So this is really a site only for professional users?"

which has been answered time and again in a helpful and constructive way.

This Discussion has now exceeded it's "Sell by Date" as far as I am concerned.

To all those positive and constructive members, Thanks for taking part in this discussion, .

Well. conclusively I can only say, that Geni has served me well in getting an idea of my relatives beyond my grannies. Just 3 years ago I didn't know much more than that but by now I am considered the true expert on those matters by my relatives, close ones as well as more distant ones formerly unknown to me, with whom I now enjoy and entertain frequent contacts.
All of this thanks to the introduction of Geni to me by my nephew :)

/Sten