Personal Profile Managed by Someone Else

If someone else is manager of your profile it means you have not claimed it yet.
You claim it by changing your Geni password in your settings.

Thank you for that Bo-Arne. Much appreciated. Do you have any idea how to do that on, say, my deceased Father's profile. I added it in, but the person I was referring to in my earlier email seems to be the Primary Manager and there doesn't appear to be a way to remove her. I also have no idea how far up my tree this person has been automatically added as a manager. Any idea?

You are the primary manager of your fathers profile. The change was made 8 hours ago but the revision log only notes it as an action of Geni.

The manager function is not very important. Managers are informed of profile changes. If a profile is deleted only the primary manager is informed and can revert it (if it was in error).
Within your family group you can remove profile managers which are outside your family group.

Small correction to the last statement: Within your family group you can remove profile managers which are outside THE ACTUAL PROFILE's family group.

It is a bit confusing for some, but fair.
Think about it as two managers sitting on each side of a tree and in the middle you have a profile both have within their family group. Since they are in each side of the tree they are outside the family group of each others.

I once had a user who argued hard that another user should be removed as a manager of a profile of a third cousin of him with the argument that the other manager was not family of him.

I had to honestly answer that if a manager should be removed using closer family as an argument it was him that should be removed because the profile was a second cousin of the other manager, i.e. the actual profile was closer related to the other manager..

Thank you Bo-Arne and Bjørn for your responses. They completely clear this up for me. As I mentioned in my earlier messages, I'm certainly not angry or upset I just thought it peculiar and eye-brow raising. I would have thought that I would have at least received a system message indicating that someone else was made a manager of my personal profile. It came as a surprise to me.

I'm also not the manager of my own profile, my profile has no manager. The owner of my profile that added me also doesn't have the option to make me a manager on my profile. He logged back in to make me a manager on other profiles he added many moons ago, but can't seem to do it for our 3 profiles. Same goes for my mothers' and fathers' profiles. I just tried changing my password, but it didn't work. Any advice?

Profiles in question:

Mine Nadia van Zyl (de Klerk)

Dad Private User

Mom Private User

There are no managers listed on user profiles. Each user are in full control of his/hers own profile.

Private User thanks! I'm probably still confused with it all, thought that when I looked at my moms profile she would be listed as her own manager!

When you see a manager on a user profile it is because the profiles is not fully claimed by setting a permanent password. There is no manager listed on your mothers profile, but when you see them in a list you will see them manage their own profile.

Private User thank you so much! Sorry for the silly question and thank you for explaining it to me so well!

Hi, I'm completely confused over this topic! I joined Geni back in 2012 and added several members of my immediate family. Over the next few years I wasn't really active on Geni until a complete stranger emailed me a few weeks ago to ask that I remove her name as (primary) profile manager of my mother's profile. She told me the usual procedure was to ask her first and she didn't want to be! At the time I had no idea what she was talking about or who she was. It turns out she is my 4th cousin. On further investigation I discovered she is now primary manager of my sister's, aunty's and even my husband's profile for some reason. How has this come about and why only random people I've added to the tree, At the time this woman emailed me, only my husband's name and birth details were showing and he is not connected to her in anyway. I was alarmed to read above that only primary managers are notified if a profile is deleted and are the only ones who can reverse that action if in error. I would hate to think any of the profiles I've added could be deleted without my knowledge. I told the woman who emailed me I never made her (primary) manager (it appears to have been Geni)) and from what I gather she is the only one who can remove her name as no x appears next to her name as it does mine. To date, she's still showing as primary manager to several members of my immediate family.

Just tell her that she has the right/access to remove herself as manager from any profile, - she should just hit the x besides her name in the manager options of the profile. Your access to remove her as the manager is limited: You will only have that access for managers that is not within the family group range of that specific profile, so I doubt that you have access to remove her.

Thanks for responding Bjorn. Yes I did tell her only she can remove her name but she hasn't done so. She seems to think I made her manager of my mother's profile (and several others as it happens) without asking for her consent first!

Would you be able to explain to me how someone becomes a primary manager of profiles they didn't initially instigate? It seems strange to me that Geni would make this woman primary manager of my husband's profile and random other profiles of my immediate family (still living), when she knows nothing about their personal details? Obviously she doesn't even know herself! Also are managers, primary or otherwise advised when an amendment or alteration is made to a profile or is that all just shown under revisions? The reason I ask is because, at some point, someone incorrectly altered my sister's birthdate and I only discovered this after I was looking into this woman's complaint. I'm concerned other information may have been incorrectly altered by someone not privy to the correct info and I'm unaware of it. Thanks again.

Lynette - see https://help.geni.com/hc/en-us/articles/229706587-What-is-an-abando...

If you were off geni for 9 months, someone may have reported one of the profiles you managed as "Abandoned Tree" - thus triggering the above, including "For private profiles within the user’s Family Group, management is transferred to the nearest active relative in their Family Group" -- Geni's definition of "close relative" is out to 4th cousin.

Hi Lois, yes I may have been off for that length of time so it's possible. If so, why has my 4th cousin (who I've never heard of) become PRIMARY manager to only some of my close family, ie sister, mother, aunty and my husband? Is it because they may have been the only living relatives on my tree at that time, apart from me? It doesn't sit comfortably with me that she now has access to their personal details while they're still living, especially my husband and mother as they were adopted and in relation to my husband, his birth family are still living and deserve privacy. She doesn't even want to be manager of my families profiles and sent me an email telling me to remove her name as I shouldn't have added her without her permission! I told her I didn't add her and that only she can remove herself as manager as I don't have permission to. To date she hasn't answered my emails or removed her name. I am now back and active on Geni so what other action, if any, can I take to remove her name as primary manager of my living immediate families profiles? Thanks.

Lynette - it is possible there was no one close than 4th cousin who had a claimed profile and that Geni did not have labelled as Abandoned Tree - my guess would be, not qualifying for Abandoned Tree is also Geni's definition of "Active" in their above policy.

I have a first cousin who will look (so triggering 'logged in') any time I add a document of photo, or even edit a profile, of our relatively close mutual relatives - but has never made a single entry on Geni other than once, years ago, correcting the spelling of her middle name. I also have a third cousin who is very active, and a spouse of a third cousin who is very active, a spouse of a second cousin who sometimes does a bit - but Geni will undoubtedly turn management over to the first cousin (or possibly her sibling, who logs in even less often), ignoring my relatives who are really active.

As to why some, not others - perhaps those were ones that had been "reported". Do know - 1) if there were other folks who were also managers, esp. if they were not 'Abandoned Profile", then that profile would be ignored. 2) If you were the only manager, and this was triggered, then yes, the person Geni added would be added as the PRIMARY manager.

As to what other action you can take - do you have the message you received from her, asking you to delete her as manager? Do you have both the version within Geni, and the e-mail Geni sent you quoting the information? If you have the version on Geni, I may have an idea.

re: Also are managers, primary or otherwise advised when an amendment or alteration is made to a profile or is that all just shown under revisions?
I believe both managers and/or anyone who is "Following" a profile is supposed to be notified when any changes are made to that profile - but it does not always happen, and Geni accepts no responsibility when it does not happen. I think that is definitely an are they need to tighten up.
[PS - if more than 20 (10? some other number?) managers, then not all get the message - probably also true if lots of followers - not sure of this or actual figures - am assuming not relevant in your case, but I could be wrong]

Lois - thanks so much for taking the time to answer my queries. Even though I joined Geni in 2012, I never realised at the time that the purpose of Geni was to create one big world tree! I only discovered this recently after my 4th cousin emailed me telling me to remove her name as manager and I did some investigating into how this could have happened. In answer to your question, yes I do still have her emails, both on Geni and the version generated in my personal email account. Yes I was the only manager of the profiles I added but during the time I was inactive, I see another person is now primary manager of some of the profiles too. I'm not worried about that though as they seem to be very active and she hasn't been made primary manager of the profiles of my immediate living family. It's the principal of being downgraded to only manager of my living family and a complete stranger who knows nothing about us is now primary manager that particularly irks me!

I'm sorry I didn't quite understand the first part of your reply about claimed profiles. I'm still trying to come to grips with the workings of Geni. I actually quite like the concept of creating one large world tree so have started transferring information from my large tree on Ancestry onto here. I've only just had the courage to merge a double up profile of my 2x great grandfather as I wasn't sure if I'd override all my good work but it seems to have worked. My next hurdle is I have two sisters who married two brothers so I need to try and understand how to loop the information together so I'm not creating two separate lines of the same family.

Thanks for explaining about how notifications are handled when informing managers. Your help thus far is very much appreciated.

Geni actually handles the situation of siblings marrying siblings quite well, in my opinion.
They call it a "cycle".

If you have already created duplicates, just merge them. If not
then you can hopefully just follow the directions here: https://help.geni.com/hc/en-us/articles/229703267

(PS - see many typos in my answer before - embarassing!)

Thanks Lois I'll check out the link. Also what was your idea, re the email sent via Geni from my 4th cousin asking that I remove her name?

Lynette - just sent you a PM with some suggestions.

Thank Lois, have PM'd you back.