How Accurate is Geni?

LOL
I just had an image of Erica cooking up a giant batch of pasta sauce to smother the spaghetti like World Tree in :)

yum. but i also had a vison.. of her whacking a giant troll with a troll slayer.. Don't Ask!

:). I'm going back to using http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org to source my English ancestors and cousins.

Erica Howton thanks for the tip i will look into that... as a charlamage desendant that is a good idea for me to use that to help with sources such as henry the 8th etc etc at some point..

The 8th Henry doesn't have too many facts in dispute. Its the more obscure - but interesting! - minor nobility / landed gentry / professionals / court attendants in Tudor England, many of them direct ancestors to us Americans, that need the research help. Parliament online is a wonderful resource.

agreed.. did you get my msg about Executed by the Crown (England) project?

I like that project! I just added a "beheaded" ancestor. No, I didn't get a message I don't think.

check again i sent a msg to your inbox.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Jane_Gray i requested be added because it fit the terms of the project i saw that Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk was listed but not his daugther
and also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_were_beheaded under england had a whole list

Michael the way I work on adding profiles to project is through a discussion topic in that project. That way actually any curator who sees it can add the profiles. We also need a link to the Geni profile. Many thanks,

k i'll do that

going back to the project i see she has since been added I started a topic suggesting the use of the above link as a basis for finding others.

Lady Jane Grey, Queen of England (disputed) i see has been added allready

Mike Stangel

Would it be possible to "create an event" from the "edit document" view? Currently the only option is to "add to existing event."

Referring this to Michelle Elena Kempner as it's really a product decision.

I'll take a look.

Thanks! It would be a step to enhance working with documents. And give Ken Treager credit for my brain ... Um, storm.

i do eat my words about what i said earlier about good ideas going to waste... this is a start in the right direction if mike and michelle are at least acknowleging your idea.. but they can do more..

Related projects...Ghosts of Great Britain. All except Alexander Stewart who is my 18th great grandfather, are distant cousins. How very odd. I guess we all are connected in some way. And some of us are connected to ghosts!!!!

Links to these projects for the curious and maybe participatory, we invite collaboration on them:

http://www.geni.com/projects/Ghosts-Of-Great-Britain/6847
http://www.geni.com/projects/Executed-by-the-Crown-England/4160

Just to go back a little way in this conversation, where citing of sources was being discussed, I have found this to be a little difficult for me wrt individual profiles.

Where I can easily upload documents to a project and add my profiles to those documents, some of them quite large, I cannot add smaller documents to individual profiles.

When I am permitted to add them, it takes AGES to load. After repeatedly attempting I have long since taken the option of adding my data to the description, (often transcribing documents to do so) and placing the address as a source with that data. My sporadic attempts to use the facility in the meantime have been consistently disappointing.

My data speeds are fast and efficient in all my other programs, so I must only assume that this is a limitation within the Geni program.

The issue I have with just appending a URL address in the sources section, is that these pages do not always remain constant, either for content or even address.

An example, is where I placed a link to a site maintained by the SA Library, regarding poems written by the composer, Miriam Hyde OAM, and returned some weeks later to find the link went nowhere, as they had re-organised their site.

Any suggestions?
If Geni made it easier to upload source documents, I would certainly use this feature again. It would certainly be superior, particularly where references are made to more than one profile in the same source document.

I just tried to post a link from the family search website containing death data for my great grandfather and it did not work in the end. It seemed to go through but then going back and looking at it, there was nothing of info there but a blank form. It did not post the URL. My conclusion is that we need a better way of posting sources. It needs to be improved.

Vicki,
where were you trying to post the link that it did not work?
As Michele described very well posting URLs isn't a very reliable way to record info as the slightest change by the host site renders an old URL meaningless.

If you upload a document to a profile using "post a link" in the source dialog, it actually caches a "snapshot" of that document on the Geni servers forever. In "visit URL" of course it might change, but not the doc stored in Geni.

Unfortunately not every page on family search has a document you can get. It does provide valuable information. It is an accurate source but I have found some of the information or names might be spelled wrong.
For example Fifeshire came out as Fipeshire.

Only as good as the source - and the transcribers - and the compilers - and the invention of spelling ...

From what i understand Familysearch is no more accurate than Geni, that is to say that the info in their database is only as good as the "users" adding that data. There doesn't seem to be any effort at collating or correcting the data either.
One particular profile that i manage here on Geni has numerous mentions in familysearch of varying quality and consistancy, different spellings, different birth locations, diffferent death date, different number of children.
Here on Geni these variations can be researched and resloved and presented accurately whereas familysearch just presents all options as having equal value.
At least that's my take on the site, perhaps i am not using it properly.

Alex family search actually has several components to it. There are "user submitted pedigrees" "family trees" and images of records (microfilmed) and more. So it takes an analysis of the component you're capturing from FamilySearch and then an evaluation of that data. Census records for instance are great for time and place, not so much for name spellings. Etc.

I agree with your point about a Geni profile having an ability to not only capture varying data from multiple sources and also a trend to most accurate and complete.

speaking of accurate data.. what to do about places that are unconfirmed at best (say wikipedia for example) .. was going to add some data into a project but feeling genergous towards some people and didn't want to make a mess for them..

Quoting data from wikipedia is fine as long as you're identifying it as such.
Wikipedia varies from solid gold facts to propaganda and visits all the shades of grey inbetween.
If the wikipedia page in question lists some sources check them out, not only can checking the sources reassure you of the facts but it can also provide some interesting alternate info.