How Accurate is Geni?

thanks was going to add data into the executed by the crown project and didn't want to give "queen" Erica Howton a excuse to send me to the chopping block heh heh

i came on geni to verify some family legends. through word of mouth passed down through generations we understood to be related to irving bush (business man) myles standish (he came to america on the may flower) and a guy named robert the bruce (king of scotts at some point) and sure enough i linked into some older family members and my tree went right back to all three of them, not all in one line, but through my grandmas dads grandfathers tree, and different directions from there. this sounded logical to me. these were people weve talked about in my family, and we even have pictures of irving bush, and a stane glass family crest from window in a shipping terminal he owned in brooklyn(demolished) irving was only a couple generations back, myles was too and robert the bruce was 21 generations back. this was all relatively believable but then i kept searching back ... and upon some more searching i found i was related to beowulf, cleopatra, and adam (from the garden) lol i dont know what to think now

Robert - personally I ignore the far history as "fantasy fun factoids." Unless you've got wayback machines like Dr. Who, there isn't a way for me to take it more seriously than - Dr. Who.

Verifying links to Myles Standish of the Mayflower is outstanding. And I'd love to see your profile of Irving Bush.

Most people can, with a little effort, get as far back as their "first American ancestor", especially if s/he was very recent.

Many people can find links into well-documented colonial families, and work their way back that way.

Some people can find solid links back to a family in the "old country" - they usually turn out to be yeoman farmers, merchants, and such.

A few people really *do* turn out to be provably related to nobility and/or royalty, legitimately and otherwise - but many more will find spots of "wishful thinking" here and there. ("Improving" one's family tree goes back at least to Tudor times!)

heres irving bush

Irving Ter Bush

Jonas Webb, Jr. totally innacurate..

On adding URL's

You must always check the link before posting.
GENI sometimes gets confused if the link does not include the www.
I see this all the time, when a copied link has just the http// and then goes right into the rest of the link without the www.
Adding the www. makes the link post very quickly and smoothly.

What has this got to do with the profile of James Webb? Who could NOT have been in the Civil War....and whose children listed in the 'about me' do not agree with those entered on the tree.;

the orginal title was how accurate geni is.. I put that url in to say much work remains to be done improving things..

Fay,

Vicki Thomas, the Original Poster, in her post http://www.geni.com/discussions/110268?msg=811868 states that she "...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."

In my experience, when a URL is attached as a document to geni by Copy&Paste, the www. is left out (servers don't really use the www anymore, as in geni.com instead of www.geni.com). This "confuses" the process that geni uses to connect to the link, which makes it invalid or partial, which makes it not work.

For example, if I C&P a FindAGrave page, it transfers as http//findagrave etc. If I do not manually add the www. to the link before trying to add it, geni will just sit and churn and eventually time out, or, post a link that instead of showing the intended information shows a nonsensical string of URL code as the document which then needs to be deleted and re-entered. But if I add the www. manually then the link usually attaches almost instantly and displays correctly.

This is a glitch that needs to be fixed that is probably a result of The Web dropping the www. at some point in time that I do not recall exactly.
A google search should reveal when the web-policy was changed.

So . . .my post about adding URL's is a response to her post, which is a response to a post from the General Manager, which was a general question to Remi and Michelle about how to improve our ability to add documents. It was never meant as a reply to Michael's post about James Webb.

This is another good example of why I truly do wish that All Geni Users would read back through the discussion they are contributing to before posting in order to give the posts of others during the discussion the proper context for comprehension of the proceedings.

And try not to infer "tone".
I'm just telling it like it is and I do not intend to be rude or disrespectful.

(Remember, Fay, not all boots are meant to keep your feet warm.
B^)
Wishing you nothing but the best of health and the happiest of days.
May your woodstove always burn bright and hot in the wintertime, and may your feet always be toasty-warm.)

As to posting documents....I put them into the 'media' but I also recap the info in the 'about me'.....some doc's are not that easy to read...without a powerful microscope.

I dont seem to have the problem you do Lloyd3.

My ONLY question was in regard to WEBB..

Tho I do think that discussions shouldn't be lumped under 1 profile for multiple persons....

::-)

Fay,
I like to address my posts to the person I am addressing.
This keeps things moving along with clarity.
B^]

If your question was asking what my post had to do with the profile of James Webb then my answer is, "Nothing".

Of course I could only assume you were asking the question of me because 1) you did not specifically address the question to Michael, and 2) because your post that asked the question was immediately after my post on the thread of posts.

This thread is about improvements, after all, and I can easily think of 100 ways that communication between users could be improved.
B^]

My response was to your comment about documents and the full URL....however, the fact that they are in a discussion which I think should stand alone, and not be multi-attached to profiles has nothing to do with you (I believe)....

Why not start a discussion on its own....or were the attachments to certain profiles meant to point out the accuracy of Geni profiles.....cause there are a LOT of errors....which are being worked on.....not just the Webb profile..

Anyway....since Webb has been UN-Civil War'd.....and set off to find his proper home....I am 'out-of-here'

Didn't mean to ruffle your feathers. Lloyd3

Unknown Profile - re: "This thread is about improvements, ..." - based on title -- seems this thread is about the question of how accurate Geni is, not about suggestions for improvements. Read back a way, and then went to beginning and skimmed forward - still did not see where it is "about improvements".

Also, if you choose to respond to a comment posted over a year ago, think you should always give the link to it and make clear you are responding to something from long ago, rather than acting as if answering a question just asked.

Lloyd3....My question or statement was asked from your post of yesterday at 8:59 PM.

Hello, Vicki Thomas and I are 12th cousins thrice removed, and like her I want to believe that we are related to all of these royalties, but am skeptical.
I will say however that I did do my research on the first 4 or 5 generations of my Lockhart, Brown and Lanier family branches using Ansetry.com and many other sources. All three of which are apparently very well documented lines. I then transferred that information over to Geni. Once I had that info entered, it kind of took on a life of it’s own, and I ended up with very large family tree.
The other interesting thing is that I had my DNA tested, and it came back that I am 98% European, 1% Middle Eastern and 1% North African. So to me, that is at least some verification that I could be related to people from those regions.

It tells me the same most magna carta surety barons are my 27 great grandfathers .. I'm wondering about accuracy... ??? Says King Henry 1 is my 27 or 28 great grandfather or something..I'm like wow this is interesting

I don't think all this Can be accurate ...I have made major errors I've corrected I've revised my whole tree almost but I'm still related to the same royalty I don't get it

Rebecca, try to do a check and valifity of the sources of the links, or if there are no sources, start a discussion so you can get other users opinion on the validity of the link(s). You should also try to find out something about the trustworthyness of the sources used.

According to geni.com Im a descendant of Ragnar Lothbrok, Harald Finehair, Harald Bluetooth, Sweyn Forkbeard,...list goes on.. So yes... I do think sometimes has some wrong information slipped in there....
Im scandinavian and my fathers roots do go to Sweden, Norway and Denmark but i still have hard time believing the viking connection...

Well, Rebecca, old Henry I was one of the most Tireless Tomcats ever to warm the English throne, so you're probably descended from him one way or another (this goes for most people of English ancestry). He had mistresses up the wazoo, and the mistresses had kids, and the kids had kids, and it all propagated down into the middle class and then the lower classes.

Being able to prove it conclusively, *that's* the rare thing. :-D

(Note to Cathy: Ragnar's historicity is debatable, but the others have at least some hard evidence for their existence. Descent is another matter, because the throne of Norway often went by conquest ant then the victor would "legitimize" his claim by saying he was a long-lost son/grandson/whatever. ;-)

I traced my ancestry through Geni to King Marcomir in the 200's and was feeling pretty good about it until someone on my ancestry tree who was related through DNA said I lost all credibility! My reason for tracking my ancestry is so I will know my ancestors when I get to heaven that I didn't know here on earth, if we will be able to know them by name. The rest isn't going to matter much. A lot of the European conquerors were blood thirsty, power hungry people that probably won't be in heaven, anyway, but I'm not one to judge and they might have had a last chance. If people use Geni to get inheritance, it doesn't show historical evidence as proof. Ancestry does have newspaper articles, grave pictures, census, property listings, wills, etc... that back up the connections.

Geni also has newspaper articles, grave pictures, census, property listings, wills, etc... that back up the connections.

Ive personally contributed thousands to the Geni tree as well as notes in profile overviews.

Diane Hamilton - Geni allows for documents to be attached to the profiles, information to be entered in the About. It is up to each user to obtain and upload documents to profiles. If you have not provided documentation on Geni for every connection that matters to you, then time to start doing so.

It is true Geni does not provide a collection of documents. MyHeritage, Ancestry, familysearch, and other sites do provice collections of documents. No need for Geni to try and re-invent that wheel.

Moreover, even tho Ancestry (and etc) has a large collection of documents, it is still up to the user to attach the document to the profile.

Just reading through this, and I saw something about Moses on the Ark, with his family. I simply must clear this up. Moses was in a basket, alone, with no other passengers, and he was a baby then. Now, Noah, on the other hand, built an arc, and when the world flooded, all human life was lost except for Noah and his family.

Hi Elizabeth Ann Jesse

The baby in a basket legend is a common motif, so in a sense Moses was not in there alone :) Perhaps there was a real baby once upon a time, perhaps it was Moses. Perhaps it wasn't, perhaps there wasn't but the story just sounds so cool that lot's of cultures borrow it.

Noah is just a story, the possible explanations behind it are fascinating, but the story itself is no where near accurate. You might as well watch the Steve Carroll movie (Evan Almighty) as it is far more entertaining and no less factual.

As for the original question : 'How Accurate is Geni?' the answer is "It varies."
Some parts of the site are extremely well developed, sourced, documented and lovingly maintained. Other parts are absolute rubbish that look like they were created by a blindfolded monkey. Then there are the sections which are so light on "details" that making a determination on their accuracy is impossible.

@Alex Moes, I disagree. I consider the Bible a reliable source. However, I thank you for the rest of your answer.

There is a huge difference between believing the Bible is a reliable source and it being 100% accurate in every aspect.

The U.S. Census Bureau is a reliable source, but not all census data is 100% accurate.

@Alex Moes. You are free to have your opinion and beliefs, just as I am free to have mine. I don't need to intellectualize and prove every detail of the story. I do require more proof regarding most things in life, but the Lord's book, not so much. I believe the story of Noah's Arc. Do I know that God had every detail a human could possibly wonder about in there to "prove" it? No, but when it comes to God, I just go on faith.

A colleague at work this week said that I was wasting my money on DNA testing because you can't prove you are related to dead people who didn't have their DNA done, anymore than you can prove someone did a crime if you don't have a DNA sample. Does anyone have any comment about how to prove that DNA shows the area of the world your ancestors came from? She said she wants to know how they know that your family came from that area of the world if they don't have DNA samples from the ancestors. I think that No one has only one race and that everyone has a mixture of race, sometimes more of one than another, but we all came from the first wo species of male and female and people migrated to other parts of the world. Any comments?