Royalty / Merging / Adding New Profiles

Thanks for starting this discussion Heather, if your advice is followed it will certainly reduce the merging work load.

A simple search in the 'Search People' window on top of the page will show if there already exists a profile for someone that a 'NEW' user might be thinking of adding.

Has the "search people" been changed to only public profiles and immediate family? I'm not getting it to always work.

Good question Mary Kathleen. I have not had a problem getting it to work personally.

One thing that new users may not know if that using the advanced search filters on the left hand side will help immensely. You put in the first name, choose a gender, mark deceased and can even put in an approximate birth date or specify that the person was born for instance before 1650. Take an example -- Joseph Williams. There are many of them in Colonial America and they have been confused. It's a common name and a search with no filters will give too many results to be useful. So I searched a deceased male with first name Joseph, born before 1700. That limited the search tremendously.

When you want to attach your tree to the Big Tree, instead of creating duplicate profiles of historical figures, find an existing ancestor, preferably a "Master Profile," marked "MP" and follow the descendants down until you reach a place where your line should be connected and you are not duplicating the entire line first.

@mary Kathleen, another point to note is that if you are searching for people in your tree that you have added and are wondering why you can't find them, it could be that the index hasn't caught up yet. Wait a few days between adding a profile and expecting to be able to search for it.

If you find a point where you become connected to the Big Ttree/ Historic Tree you can request management of the profile instead of creating a new one and merging it.

Remember, if "your" tree has become attached to the 'Big Tree' you will see many more relatives and ancestors than those you have added yourself.

There is also a thread where you can contact the curators for help:
http://www.geni.com/discussions/80793?msg=690974

Attention New Users of Geni, Would you have found it useful to have had a message from the curators when you first joined Geni explaining their role and making points like the above about the possibility of adding duplicate profiles?

I think the issue of creating duplicates needs to be brought to the forefront again as the problem seems to be getting worse, not better.
If you are a new user and not sure what we are talking about then please respond to this thread and we'll try to be more succint and clear about it.

The search box is horrible for common names, especially if you're a free user. Also, most of the advanced filters don't work for free users at all by design. The filtering you describe, Hatte, isn't possible if you're a free user.

I think the first step in solving the problem of duplicates is solving the problem of the search tool itself. I believe Geni is working on it, correct?

I know it can also be easier to add a duplicate than to wait on someone else to approve a merge... that can be a really frustrating.

And another thing.
Some members of my family don't want to be part of the Big Tree so they won't merge with me. So I've gone ahead and duplicated their tree in mine because I didn't even know they existed.
I don't see anything wrong with that.

@Terry
Not only a message from the curators as you suggest. Some sort of information pack, IMHO, would definitely do the trick. And would have done for me anyway.

@Brendan, bearing in mind Geni's policy of one person one profile and your family members unwillingness to do just that and wishing to have a seperate tree, what would be the best approach to these family members do you think?

Terry
Perhaps it could be part of the information pack given to new users when they register. I'm quite sure that alot of 'new' users are completely unaware of the problem and will remain that way because they never log in again after the novelty has worn off.

I have a few instances where users have abandoned their whole tree and have never made any of them public which is understandable if most of them are alive. But what do I do now. Their relatives are my relatives as well.

Maybe a pop-up could be programmed in where this is explained to them and the option given to make their tree available to 1st cousins or something for merging or whatever.

Yes, no, maybe?

Brendan Swemmer,
your suggestion to make a tree available to 1st cousins is very reasonable. There is only one problem with it. If an actual 1st cousin comes along and wants to merge with an abandoned tree, that they are NOT yet part of, Geni has absolutely NO way to verify that they are an actual cousin. So I could just as easily CLAIM to be a cousin and gain access to all of your PRIVATE information. Not something we want to be possible is it?

Shmuel
Yes, I would have to agree,
I just find it very frustrating when I'm trying to fill holes in my tree but I can't because a 1st cousin doesn't want to merge their tree with mine. And, quite frankly, I'm not quite sure I understand what all the fuss is about regarding privacy, please excuse my naivety.

I am new at Geni and have a question: When I`m about to add a profile that already is in another branch of my tree, how do I do it? I mean, how do I merge different branches in the tree? It feels wrong to add duplicates, just because I don`t know how to connect to profiles that exixts from before.

Hi Camilla

I add a spouse, child, or sibling to the existing public profile. There need be only one connector of branches!

Thank you! Luckily, I found the answer at the Geni Help Center: to clict at the "actions" button in the profile, select "merge" and add the profile to merge with. This is very helpful when distant cousins are married to each other, and have the same ancestors.

Duplicates! Grrrrrrrr