Questions for GENI / MyHeritage Corporate Management

Good questions. Not aware of any good answers.

Lois I appreciate your agreement, but I wouldn't think you would be in a position to answer. These are corporate decisions - but the problem is Corporate is not answering the question - they are not informing us of a solution(s). Corporate may not have answer(s) - and I can accept that they do not have them YET !! But communicate with us - let us know they are addressing this issue. Ask for input from the communicate. Do not just sit on the issue - ADDRESS IT head on !!!

Rick -- i agree that this is something that should be brought up. Geni is not just a fee-paid hobby, like online poker; it is a dedicated, decades-long work of substance, and we pay for the privilege of participation. I think membership passwords and privileges and long-built up linking systems such as "following" all DNA relatives, could indeed be considered an asset of one's estate, as long as one's beneficiaries continued to pay the yearly dues.

I hope that the corporate entities do discuss this and offer rational proposals for continuity of effort in a family.

Thanks Catherine - I firmly believe if the companies do not start addressing this issue and develop real world solutions, they WILL wind up in litigation. Some family member of a member of one of the on-line communities will want what their parent or brother or sister, etc. had. They will be told NO and off we go into litigation. Worse yet, what if a member actually designates in their will or trust, how their membership will pass or continue after the individual's death. I think it goes way beyond just continuing to pay the membership costs. Do I want the membership to remain in the deceased's name or do I want it changed to my name? How do ALL of the rights, privileges, benefits and maybe perks of my membership continue on to "my replacement.? Maybe some of these should NOT be made available to the next generation on that specific membership.

I will be 73 in a few months. And like every other area of my life, I am trying to make sure everything will be done to my satisfaction before something happens to me. First, I believe handling all issues surrounding me and my affairs is one of the greatest gifts I can provide my family. They no longer need to guess what my wishes might have been. Second, it assures things happen based on mt desires and not on someone in a black robe downtown that I never met. Third, and really important, it keeps fights out of the house - I make a decision and the are stuck with it (HaHa !!). Maybe I want to skip a generation or a sibling, etc., etc. Who knows anything - if I don't say something ....

Lastly, I would ask EVERY member of GENI who reads this discussion to express themselves. Simply put into a reply box on this subject one of two different words.
YES - if you agree that corporate needs to explore and resolve this issue.
NO - if you don;t care.

A simple tally will begin to alert Corporate the value and urgency that this issue demands.

I hope I see every single GENI member express themselves !!!

RGS

Rick - if you want to talk to corporate in a public discussion, then I suggest you decide who those individuals are and tag them.

I assume you are aware if someone reliably reports your death to geni, then customer service will close your account. So - encourage folks to hold off reporting your death if you are leaving directions with someone on what to do, and hope nobody reports your death before that individual has a chance to act.
Other bits possibly relevant -- Geni now allows one to add oneself as a manager of any profile in one's Max Family.
Have not seen any way to pass on or obtain control of photos or documents.

Think last time I saw the topic discussed was well over a year ago. I do not seem able to find the link to it, and it did not cover all that you mention.

YES

YES

Catherine and Lois - I agree with you both. But the problem is you are both speaking about REACTIVE policy. What I am proposing and think is ABSOLUTELY necessary is PROACTIVE policy. I think I should have the ability to PLAN for how my GENI "asset" will be dealt with at my death. I believe I should have the ability to "tag / label / etc." my account, so the INSTANT my account shows my death, my account is FROZEN - nothing can be done to ANY element that my account contained, had access to, controlled, managed, followed, etc. Then per my thinking - a SPECIFIC person that I have made arrangements with, is contacted and CONFIRMS my death. In my plan I would have discussed with this individual and therefore my plan would provide for the individual "taking over" my account to CONTINUE paying for the financial obligations that my membership requires.
This would be NO difference in passing on my membership in my country club membership, my zoo membership etc. My membership is for a specific time frame and my estate retains title to that asset for the time paid for and per any other restrictions or covenants contained in my membership.
I have been a member of the GENI family since Nov, 2008 - ALMOST 11 years. I have worked hard and have over 300 followers and over 450 collaborators !!! I do not want all of my work to just be absorbed into - whatever. I think my work has earned the right to be maintained by WHO I CHOOSE !!!

I hope this better explains my thinking. (and thanks Jonathan}

Rick - interesting view. BUT - not, I think. in keeping with Geni's view nor with Geni's philosophy.
On Geni, the only Profile which belongs to you is the one of yourself. To have that profile "belong" to someone else would be just plain wrong - in my opinion, as I understand Geni.

And of course, the death of a Manager should NOT FREEZE the profiles that person had Managed.
What I can see as relevant and valid is having the right to designate who will take over your Management - and I would prefer if the choice does not have to be the same person for all profiles, but can be different folks for different branches.

Your "Account" on Geni is your right to use Geni's services -- a Profile you manage may be merged with another and as a result you may stop being the person who added that profile. If you are Manager of a Profile outside your Max Family but inside someone else's, you may be removed as a Manager. I may be misunderstanding, but you seem to be including all the Profiles you added and/or Manage as somehow being part of your "Account" - and they are not.

I think it would be good if, when a User Dies, some record is kept and can be seen analogous to the Statistics one can currently see for a User -- was a Geni User from .. to ... plus -- Profiles Added - Profiles Invited - Profiles Managed [this would be number before transfers following the death] - Photos Added - Videos Added - Documents Added -- -- As long as I am alive and my account open, folks can see all this (aside from time on Geni, possibly) - but for my relatives who joined and later died -- none of that is visible, you go to their profile and cannot even tell they were ever a member.

As an example of what seems the most that can be done currently, see Eldon Lester Clark - the now MP for one of Geni's long-time Curators, now deceased. And I do recall (from his comments in a Public Discussion) that, while alive, he did have a designated relative added as comanager to all the profiles he managed so they would be taken care of.

My understanding is that Geni does not consider anyone to be the "owner" of their family tree. Therefore you do not have an asset on Geni that you can legally pass on to anyone. If you want to keep your family tree intact, you need to copy it somewhere that recognizes your ownership of the information. Here's an article by someone who talked to corporate in 2016: https://www.legalgenealogist.com/2016/07/05/myheritage-and-geni-par... and they say:

"“Geni’s mission is to create a single family tree connecting all the people in the world. Geni calls it the World Family Tree. This is a collaborative effort. On Geni, users do not own independent trees; they manage profiles in the World Family Tree. Technically, a new tree on Geni begins as an independent tree but quite quickly matches are found between that tree and the World Family Tree, and once duplicate profiles are merged, the tree becomes part of the World Family Tree. When a tree is part of the World Family Tree, it means that a relationship path is available between any profile in that tree and the more than 100 million profiles in the World Family Tree."

Here's a blog article with an interesting attitude toward people who think they have the right to control their own family tree information: http://schoenblog.com/?p=471

I've seen people with similar attitudes say that it's vandalism when someone decides to delete all the profiles they manage rather than let other people tamper with them, because Geni is the real owner of the profiles, not the person who added them. I've seen complaints by people who said they got kicked out of Geni for trying to delete their family tree.

per Bjorn in a post today - https://www.geni.com/discussions/192542?msg=1309352 - if someone can log in as you - then they can go to Close Account for your account (https://www.geni.com/account_settings/close_account). where they will get some options on why and if managed profiles, who should inherit them.

That was the simple answer for a user which have active family members on Geni, including a daughter. Depending on how close other Geni users are you also get options on deleting profiles, - your self, close family of the whole tree if a standalone tree with no other users.

In any case manually closing an account gives better control than just reporting a user as deceased since you might end up that the sister in law you dislike inherits your profile because she was the last active Geni user in the family.

You can however try to write in the report who should inherit the profiles.

Eldon Clark is a great example:

If one cares about who will 'manage' profiles for which you are the primary or only manager, then recruiting a younger person (who will hopefully out-liive you and maintain an interesting in remaining active in Geni) -- and then adding them as a co-manager ... or even make them primary co-manager (if you are currently primary, then you can do that).

That also allows one to 'recruit' different people for different groupings of profiles ...

Making them primary co-manager can also help in keeping them "engaged" in Geni along the way.

Encouraging collaboration, adding documentation (preferably 'citable' sources), and enlisting some "curatorial" help to lock-down values and relationships would likely do far more to preserve the integrity of the work done (by everyone involved with those profiles).

I am very glad I have sparked this kind of active and important discussion. Several Important points:
1) I have tried to say from the beginning this is conceptual - don't take things so LITERAL. All of you are correct - we do not own any profile except our own. BUT we do OWN our account in / with GENI. And there are certain rights and privileges that each of us hold with regards to our OWN account. It is very unlikely that I will die as my account comes to the end of my annual subscription. So just as there is "time" that I have paid for that is still available, say tomorrow, that "time value" remains regardless of my being alive or dead. So what happens to"my" rights and privileges? What I am saying is my living status should have nothing to do with those values - that asset.

2) Many of you have said things can't happen because - whatever. OK - I agree. There are LOTS of issues that would need to be dealt with. BUT those issues become challenges to over come, NOT reasons to avoid solving problems. All of these issues are solvable. People AND management have to want to overcome them and arrive at real solutions.

3) My thinking is to be PRO-ACTIVE. Several of you have mentioned all kinds of ways from making sure no one alerts GENI of my death, to recruiting others to be co-managers, etc., etc. By making it so difficult and convoluted, I believe most people will not get anything done. The idea is that people DO get something done. AGAIN - be proactive. At the end of the day - there are very few things in life that are not better off when planning and actions occur before the fact !!!

4) We do not have a lot of votes yet. But so far they are all yes -there are NO nos ......

RGS

Yes