”Quo vadis” GENI?
It is required or uncontrolled development of GENI?
I just try to summarize my experiences with using Geni site for almost 4 last years. In my opinion the system was left without any control and development ideas for TOO long time. And now all the lately introduces actions (projects, curators, fixed profiles etc.) can only be seen as a “rescue operations” from dead of drowning in the endless number of merges, wrong dates and profiles....
But at the first some suggestion for improvement of the system:
1. In all the professional systems – the double persons (profiles) are shown in the family tree at their “lowest location” i.e. in the lowest generation and at the closest location to the paternal line (most to the left). In GENI today – there are listed randomly (I guess that it corresponds to the location where they were listed first).
2. The same concerns listing of ancestors: in every generation ancestors should be listed starting from the paternal line (from the left line in the family tree) to the maternal line. Present GENI option gives again a list with randomly listed persons in every generation.
3. NN, Nn?, Unknown?, ?? etc, etc, etc.
Every day I receive a message to merge hundred of such new listed persons. Can anyone explain me WHAT IS A REASON for adding such “profiles” to our common family tree?????
Of course EVERY child has to have a mother and a father. And it is completely unnecessary and causing additional overloading of the system by adding thousand of such “??” or “nN” profiles.
a/ the general convention should be like this (again adopting the professional rules and following the church book way of listing such persons)
NN NN (unknown first name, unknown surname)
NN Brown (unknown first name)
John NN (unknown surname)
b/ I may only recall a few cases where listing of “NN NN” has meaning:
1. Some dates/facts from his/her life is known
2. Second wife/husband (just to mark multiplied marriages)
3. Ancestors in earlier generations are known
Of course I use (or I need to use) such NN NN-persons sometimes (e.g. to merge parents of two sibling listed separately). But after completing this merge – I just “delete” it from the further listing.
I may propose the curators or system administrator to delete automatically such unnecessary “empty” profiles.
4. Maiden names / family names
For me is the MOST disturbing issue in the GENI system.
The family trees have been created for over 2 thousand year. And the generally adopted convention is that every person should be listed with the name as listed in the baptism document i.e. for women with the MAIDEN name. This should be the main rule for the GENI too. Suggestion (fixed in the present GENI) when adding a wife, that a woman should have the husband name is WRONG and should be removed. Many users just follow this suggestion and listed women with names after marriage. Of course everybody should be free to list/shown in its own tree in such manner as he likes, but GENERAL rule should be like it is in the professional editions. Now in the GENI tree we may find taht women in the older generations are listen with their maiden names,but in the modern generations they have sometimes the husband name, and sometimes the maiden names.
Using for ALL children from one family the same name (father’s name, if applied) help very much to follow the family lines and to establish the family connection.
5. Removing undesirable / wrongly copied photos.
It can happen that a photo (or drawing of family coat of arms) is copied from a photo archives to a wrong profile (actually I did it several times). When I deleted it – I deleted it from ALL the profiles. In a case of the multiplied used coat of arms –it caused plenty of additional work to restore this coat for other members of family.
It should be added an option in the copy/delete photo procedure which will allow to delete LINK of a photo to the specified profiles and NOT to delete a photo.
6. Succeeding names in the dynasties or clans should be listed with ROMAN and not Arabic numbers, i.e. John I, John II, John III, John IV and not (as it is somewhere now ) John 1, John 2, John 3, and John 4.
But my main idea was to start discussion regarding the present and future development of GENI. I would like to point out two fundamental issues:
1. LANGUAGE
This is the main issue which caused that I claimed that GENI has missed control. Some rules should be established many, many months ago. Today – it looks as completely miss-mash.
As long as we operate inside of our family and not too long in the past – it would be up to us to select language which we like to use to specify profiles. But approaching ancestors who are the common ancestors for millions of presently living persons i.e. following ancestors lines back to 14th century and earlier – some restrictions should be done. Situation today is funny: mixed of all possible languages for members of the same family (line). How we should say/adopt in our family tree: Berengaria or Berengaria von Spanien or Berengaria av Spania or Berengaria d’Espane or Berengaria z Hiszpanii etc. etc. – all possible versions are available and mixed.
Two possible versions are usually adopted for such early ancestors:
1. One (only one)selected language (e.g. English as the most common language)
2. To list persons with their origin names i.e. people born in Germany with German names and titles, born in France with French names and titles, etc. etc.
In case (1) – it should be possible to get a translated version in the most common languages.
This part of the GENI tree should be fixed a long time ago. I do not see any sense that thousand of people list Carl the Great again and again. Any persons who are included in the “Europäische Stammtafeln” (Europian Midieval Ancestors Tree) should already be added to the common tree with the “closed” profiles. This part should be defined as ONE large project, closed a long time ago and controlled by professional group (curators?) and not open for thousand users adding incessantly new multiplied profiles in all possible languages and including all possible errors.
2. PROJECTS & CURATORS
I still do not fully understand what part curators should/will play and what is exactly a range of their authorities. As I can see – they lately started several projects (every curator a group of own projects) when I rather expect that they will work together as a group of experts and supporting persons. I have expected that curators should have minimal (at least) knowledge of languages considered in the projects which they have started (or are involved). As an example(bad example) I should list the project called “Piast” (the first Polish king dynasty). I do not what the curator (who open this project) know about the Polish history and how is he familiar with the Polish language – but what is presented today – is a horrible mixed of facts and wrong names. Some examples:
1. The line starts with Choscisko. O.K. very very vague person. But according to the legends he was killed and a new clan came to power (just Piast). So he could not be the first in the Piast line.
2. For some persons from 8-10th century (including wives) the coat of arms of the Polish kings from the 14th century was added.
3. For Choscisko - the nickname “Kosciuszko” was added. It is probable the only Polish family name known for Americans (after Tadeusz Kosciuszko, the Polish and American hero who lived in the 18th century). But who did find such connection between these two persons it is really a big puzzle for me.
4. The first Polish princes and the first Polish king are listed with their Polish names (Mieszko & Boleslaw) but the second king has already the name listed in other language (Casimir ? why not Kazimierz (consequently in Polish) ).
5. The first Polish king was called Boleslaw Chrobry (brave). In the tree he is listed with nickname of his son: Boleslaw I Lambert
6. And of course overall there is used “broken” Polish (Wielkopolskie instead of Wielkopolska, Piastowie dynasty instead of Piast dynasty etc. etc.
I just may only ask: is there any curator who can a little Polish in order to correct all these errors and to administrate this project????? What is function of curator in this project?
3. WIKIPEDIA
Wikipedia is very useful site but ... it is full of errors. This site should NEVER be used as a primary source. Users adopting information from Wikipedia should understand that these data may be completely wrong.....
