Family Tree / Family Group

The "Family Tree" is what used to be called the "Maximum Family Group".

The re-designated "Family Group" is the subset of the "Family Tree" who have 'claimed' their Geni profile -- and thus that is the grouping of folks who will get messages about the "family actions, birthdays, etc." on Geni.

Doesn't it complicate communication by changing the definitions mid-stream? It seems to me this is especially true since Geni is not currently consistent in how it uses the terms (hence my question if this definition was just for use in Lists).

Considering the number of times Mike Stangel and others have told folks that, for example, once a relative claims his/her profile on the tree one started, it stops being your tree, Geni is collaborative, the Tree belongs to everyone with a claimed Profile on it -- BUT - now, new definition of "Family Tree", you now explicitly have your tree, and if they have claimed profile, there is also your sister's tree, your first cousin's tree, etc. Is this really an improvement?

It can be a bit confusing -- the "Family Tree" and "Family Group" are (as I understand it) *always* calculated with respect to your own personal profile.

So, my wife's "Family Group" (claimed profiles list) is probably the same as mine -- but not necessarily.

Furthermore, my "Family Tree" (4th 'generation') and her "Family Tree" are not exactly the same. And my son-in-law's father's "Family Tree" is a little bit different than mine.

One of my 2nd cousin's "Family Tree" is only about 1/2 the same as mine -- profiles which some of her relatives "on the other side" have added show up to me as private profiles, even though they are, to her, part of her "Family Tree". (Now, if we wanted to, we could mutually "extended" our Family Tree scope by my inviting those distant relatives to join "Family Groups".)

In the past, the terms Family Group and Family Tree could have been rather loosely used as synonyms; the recent change makes them distinctly different terms (with the Family Group being a sub-set of the Family Tree).

The old family group list did not include ex-spouse families in the list, but practically they were included when it comes to checking your privacy range.

This confused even experienced curators like me, - a "check public" could fail and checking the family group did not show any claimed profiles. Some claimed historical profiles was hiding in a tree as ex-spouses, - blocking the line and very difficult to find. Today we have better tools for that, like the "max family" list which now are available for all users as "Family Tree".

Interesting thread - am I reading Bjorn P. Brox's comments as suggesting that the Max Family feature was improved by the Family Tree concept? What I don't understand this entirely as while my Family Tree contains 1367 profiles my Tree as accessed from View Tree only contains 264 profiles.

I understand from Geni support that this is because Geni displays relatives in sub-groups (so my wife is in my tree but she is also part of her own tree which is displayed separately. I can see the reasoning for this but I don't see it as, to quote Bjorn again, 'better tools....now available for all users'

A tree is a tree. Max family is like drawing a circle around yourself in the radius of 5, which means that other children of for example your great grandfather, their descants and in-law family also are included.

Bjorn thaks for that analogy - it greatly clarifies the issue.

I have been with Geni for a couple of years but have only started using it seriously for the past year and I must admit I find it potentially powerful but equally difficult to master.

As with many others of us I find the issues of Privacy & Abandoned trees the greatest barrier to progress and no easy solution other than a great deal of patience.

One of the largest family groups (with over 1,500 profiles) in my tree is virtually impenetrable because a mother and her son - both marked as Private - have market many of the profiles of their(our) deceased ancestor profiles as Private and have since either abandoned their trees (the mother) or visit very infrequently (her son) and so ignore/don't see Collaboration requests. Net result - a brick wall that is holding up further development.

Surely a rule can be formulated that takes into account incomplete profiles (i.e. with no dates at all) and bans Privacy if the surrounding profiles are clearly in excess of 120 years old?

I'm also rather surprised that there don't appear to be any decent tutorials around; perhaps now that My Heritage is involved we will see some activity in that regard?