software update-well done

Indeed! Much improved. Thank you!

I really like the fact that the algorithm now searches for blood connections and in-law connections and that it is possible to see two paths simultaneously but I am having three big problems with it now which I did not have before the update.
The first is that new searches seem to take much longer (several hours in some cases, compared with a few minutes before). Established searches which I am following still open in seconds with no difficulty.
The second problem is that if I leave a search open (after the system has stated that there is a connection, it does not update if it finds no path so the search stays open until either I close it or refresh, at which point it either shows "the blood relationship search is in progress" and "the in-law relationship is in progress" (which can be several hours later) or "no blood relationship was found" and "no in-law relationship was found".
And the third is that it seems to block some direct connections. In several cases I have found a blood relationship to one person but if I then try to go to that person's parent, child or sibling, the system spends a very long time (with the problems above) and then informs me that there is no connection (blood or in-law). If I go from the person to the parent, child or sibling direct the system confirms within a few seconds that there is a relationship but it refuses to accept the relationship back to me.

I think the update is still in beta, so I asked yesterday
The change in the software is very positive
Unfortunately, it have not solved the problem with the algorithm I have from the first day I am in geni: when I am a descendant of the same great grandfathers from several children, the algorithm does not understand and shows me strange things about some of the children (my great grandfathers),Every few days the algorithm is reset, showing me the right connection, but at the same time changing the connection to my other great grandparents
The interesting thing is that when I check the connection between my father's profile and them, the algorithm almost always shows the right thing
I think the reason for this is that for some reason in my father profile appears almost three times more family relationships than in my profile

It must be incredibly complex to maintain multiple sets of connections. I find that if I follow family member profiles back one generation at a time, sometimes it will jump to a completely different path for two generations for no reason that I can understand, then it will revert to the path I was on before two profiles later.

To be fair, I think that because geni is trying to show how everyone in the world is connected (whereas other programmes are just looking for one set of paths for individuals) those of us using geni may make greater demands on the algorithms. But it leads to infuriating changes.

As an example, in September 2018 it showed that Haim Wartski was my great uncle's 32nd cousin once removed. Today it shows no blood connection and no in-law connection. Last September the furthest back profile that we shared was Yehuda "Zakai" ben David, 29th Exilarch 'Judah II' (born in 914 in Iraaq and died 941 in Barcelona). Today it still shows my connection to Yehuda "Zakai" immediately but it has been searching for half an hour and has not found a connection from him to Haim. That normally means it will not find the connection. I'm wrong, after forty minutes I've just had a message showing the connection. Now I'm going to see if the sytem will reconnect me to Haim (I know that non-curators cannot normally repeat a search within seven days but sometimes it works immediately and maybe that has changed). No. I just tried and it still says no connection. If I want to try walking through the path profile by profile that will take me hours as there are 33 profiles between Yehuda "Zakai" and Haim.

So, I welcome the improvements by the addition of some useful features but it has a long way to go. It would be nice if geni notified us and asked us for feedback. I'm sure most of us who use it a lot would be happy to contribute to improving the system. And if it's a beta programme, it would be nice to be able to opt out of it until the bugs have been cleared..

Bernard Miller

As I wrote, my profile has a problem with the algorithm. Anyone interested in checking if there is a blood connection to me, should check with my father's profile
And another thing: now the algorithm is often stuck and searched for a very long time
I tried to check if there is a connection between us, the algorithm stuck

possibly post comments on this topic in thread announcing the change:
https://www.geni.com/discussions/198290

Private User
Thank you very much, I have not seen this discussion
This is very welcome, but there are problems that need to be solved.

If the technical staff at geni would solve me the problem with the algorithm that existed from my first day in geni I would be very happy. With nearly 5000 ancestors, in any case the algorithm would show me the real connection to a particular person

This is wonderful! Is there any chance of getting an option to calculate a second blood relationship? Because that would be more useful to me than an in-law relationship. Once you go back a few centuries it becomes very likely that you're descended from the same person several different ways.

The system has been largely down for hours but occasionally came on for a few minutes. That seems to affect searches, including ones that made connections earlier, so that they no longer make connections and prevent future matching (probably for a week). Haim I tried searching the paths to you and to your father and they are showing nothing. Previously I had a path to you with one marriage in it, now I have no connection. I'll give it a week and try again.

Over the weekend the feature got a fair bit of use and as a result, the queue of path searches backed up. We spent some time today optimizing the code and we've been able to keep up with the queue for the past 5 hours or so.

The goal of this enhancement was to provide the shortest blood path *and* the shortest inlaw path. Multiple blood relationships are possible, but a) will require more development work, and b) I'm not sure where it ends... 2.. 3.. 4.. it becomes a matter of diminishing returns. We have plenty of other projects we want to get to (like improving search & matching) so I'm not going to make any promises on when we'll revisit this to address multiple blood relationships.

I posted a discussion with the title "You might be connected in other ways." To announce that this new tool says that my husband of 41 years is also my 11th cousin once removed. LOL Who would have thunk it? LOL

You know over the years there were common surnames, but I never was able to connect any of them and I really didn't think it possible, but...this algorithm, if it's correct, has connected a few dots.

Okay, now this isn't really a surprise, I've thought this for some time. My parents are also related: Hugh Albert ALLEN, Jr. is Joyce Marie SEBRING (Franks)'s 17th cousin twice removed.

The objective is good but the system is certainly not working for me any more. Not only are searches not completing, long-established paths in my tree have gone only to be replaced by 'no path'. But the real problem is the time taken has grown out of all proportion. I was finding, tracking, matching tens of profiles in a day. Now I'm lucky if the system competes half a dozen searches. And when I step from an established connection to that profile's parents, siblings or children and am told that there is no connection, I know something is wrong (In some cases I did previously have those paths but they have now disappeared).

I had started going through the index of a book for my great-nephew, marking up all the people with whom we have connections (blood and in-law). I had expected to finish this week but at the speed the system is operating, I will probably need a month.

Mike Stangel
The change / improvement geni have made is an important and welcome step.
I think (as one who understands computers and software) that more work needs to be done so that we can all benefit from the welcome change.

I am very active in geni and the algorithm helps me many times in my very large research (I think I have employment for this for life, and even then I will not finish everything)
Since geni change / software update
Now I have two problems:
First:

The algorithm is stuck all the time, or refuses to show any connection
Second:
As I wrote, from the first day in geni, the algorithm does not recognize that I am the offspring of many of my great grandfathers through a number of children. The algorithm identifies only some of them, and for the rest, it shows me the wrong connection (or no connection at all).
Once every few days the algorithm is reset and shows me the right connection to them, but at the same time it changes the connection between me and other branches of my family
The interesting thing is when I examine the relationship between my father's profile and my great grandfathers and the various branches of my family, the algorithm almost always shows me the right relationship.
This may be because my father's profile has (for some reason) nearly three times as many relatives (family tree) than in my family tree
Needless to say, the problem makes my research very difficult.
I turned to the technical support, opened discussions, but nothing helped
I would be very grateful if the problem with my profile resolved
Thank you!

I also submitted a ticket but have not yet had a response. I submitted one over a week ago about all the paths I could make from other people to my mother and sister but which showed no connection when I then took the step from my mother or sister to myself.

Bernard Miller we'll dig into your reported issues tomorrow. As far as I know you shouldn't have lost any existing paths, nor the ability to redo the search and get the same path back even if it were lost.

Haim Wartski, HaCohen it's an unavoidable reality that the farther down you go (i.e. from your father to you), more ancestors are required to search through. The consequence of this is that Geni may be able to find the path from your father to someone, but not from you to that same person. If you want us to investigate specifics, though, please either post the details here (what profiles?) or send them to me in a private message.

Thanks Mike.
I did submit a ticket last week about lost paths which when I tried to step though from my mother to myself turn into no path. And this is on paths which were previously established to me. I submitted a ticket about this on Raoul Wallenberg (who had previously had a path to me but suddenly only had a path to my mother) and HIromimarie kindly stepped through the path for me and it is working again. Then the same thing happened with Adam of Eden. The old path went and a new path worked from Adam to my mother, my sister and my niece but not to me and I submitted a new ticket on that but have not yet had a response.
Now it's happening a lot more.
I have an old example from last year (the only one that I experienced last year) in which I have a path to King Frederick IX of Denmark. When I step from him to his daughter, Queen Margrethe of Denmark, that path disappears and an entirely different one opens to her I would actually like to be able to show both.
A few days ago I found blood links to five Ramon Berenguers I (el Corbat), I, II, III and IV of Barcelona (shown as my 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th and 28th grandfathers, (I have been doing research on and in Barcelona since 1974 without ever suspecting a bloodline connection so this was exciting to me). I sent a message to a friend in Barcelona to tell her. Now half of them have disappeared (showing no blood or in-law path) but the other half continue to work (and they are all fathers and sons so if I am connected to any one of them, I must be connected to all). I was hoping to share the information with other people in Barcelona but it has become so unreliable that I don't dare start. I have screenshots of the connections all from 30 June. Now if I try to step from those that remain working to those that show as no path found, they still do not work. If you want the screenshots I am happy to send them.
Last September I had a connection to Haim Wartski, (my great uncle's 32nd cousin once removed). Since the upgrade, I cannot establish a connection to him and he cannot establish one to me. I have a screenshot of the old working path.
But my greatest problem is that instead of timing out after two minutes, path searches show as being in progress, even overnight) and they do not change to no path (although a small number do change to showing a connection). If I renew the screen they then show no path, even to profiles to which I previously had a path. It has become a real mess and it makes it very hard to track specific people.
I bought my great nephew three books on pirates of the Caribbean and was going through the index of one on Jewish pirates marking those to which I could identify family connections because I hoped this would interest him in history. I had established paths from some people who did not have a direct path to me to people who did and wanted to step through and create the paths but when I move one step away from them (if I can get profiles to come up at all because a lot of the time now they hang) they show no path which I know is not true. I have tried four different browsers (Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera) and cleared my caches but the problem is the same on all of them.
Similarly, when I try to move one step away from profiles to which I have a connection and know that that step is a blood relation, the path breaks and I am shown no path.
The problem is the same on my computer, my iPad and my iPhone (although normally I only use geni on the phone in emergencies such as when I need to show someone a connection at short notice - a phone app would be nice).
So I'd be really grateful for anything you can do to improve things.
I am happy to let you have a list of more profiles. I don't know how to attach screenshots so that you can see what they were when they did work (such as last week) but if you can tell me how, I will happily do that.
I'm meeting a relative who is visiting from Israel today and wanted to show her some of my discoveries and I know she will ask about other people so I hope it will be working well enough for that.
Thanks in anticipation for your help.
All the best
Bernard
Bernard

Mike Stangel
I sent you a private message, I hope that although it is hard for me to express myself well in English, I have succeeded in clarifying the essence and magnitude of the problem
thank you very much

Good job! I am thinking that maybe I can finally connect my husband to myself? I have not done so yet d/t do not want the relationships to run through marriage lines if at all possible.

Mike Stangel - Two features are interacting -- 1) when I choose to use push-pin to look at relationship to another Profile, the system continues to look for the relationship to that Profile -- 2) When no path is found, the message is "No path found to ..." -- and there is nothing showing that the Profile it is looking for a path to is not me, but someone else - I just got tricked on that one, and others may as well.