Everyone who can't afford to pay geni fees post here

Funny lol. dont know if thats a concern for Geni but lets see the response.

Just want you to post if you can't afford you do not have to give why those are some of the good reasons as you can't even pay bills on those icomes, buy food, and gasoline for car let alone afford medical care

Ijust post you can't afford pro version

thank you Michelle for the gift subscription to Geni - will try to live up to it

well i certainly can't, but never though about voicing it. great idea you had Judi. growing up i was taught if u dont have it too bad. u suck it up and keep moving.

Geni is way too expensive for me, too. Social security is going to too many places, all of which are increasingly expensive. Meanwhile SS stays the same.

Me too. Long-term unemployed. Was planning to purchase lifetime membership when I get back on my feet, but I'm so annoyed right now that I doubt I will. Already my data has been compromised because anyone with a Pro account can merge with my profiles, no matter how dubious their data.

Marilyn Jean Horn

I agree with you Marilyn, too many people making too many bad merges on OUR OWN FAMILIES! I had someone, some months ago, tell me about MY FAMILY TREE "I can't wait to get started on this one!". Had to ask her to please make no merges - too many fathers, grandfathers, sons, grandsons etc. get merged into one. What a mess it makes! And I am a Pro member - until it runs out. I won't renew here, it's not worth the money. If I want to spend (or be able to spend) that kind of money, I'll go where I can have access to records online w/o having to go to a Family History Center and rent the films, pay for copies, etc.

Should have added, when I joined Geni was having a special, 2 years for a very discounted price. Even so, they've raised their yearly fees to what I paid for 2 years - just about 2 years ago.

What a mess! now i have messages that i cant delete my own family members that i manage

Its a joke because the person who they clain is now manageing the accout does not have an account here!

Have no idea what i am goign tot do yet - another year of the pro gift - I am hoing a can get alot accomplished it hard data basing it in all by hand - some of them I have nothing left the orgiginal faded manuscripts i threw away - i got 2 copies of the older mckee books pdf format and data based all the 2 early lines in one chases them down in Scotland and ireland, and one branch into us and on into wisconsin - but they gave a nice detailed accoutn of those branches and i thought they would aid in chasing down the most fabled story of 10 mckee borthers comign to the US -

yes there are some very ad merges - and its no all the non-pros doing it -

habg in for long run - things getting worse around here one house hold memebrs check was cut so going and it may got to $0 benfits so its going to be a rough time ahead - i alwasy come in here and hide in my genealogy escape for reality - chase the ded people arounf in the 'dead people's society' as my firends grandson nicknamed it back 10 yearrs ago - he had to descirbe me to his kindergarden teacher and that all he could think of -

i have access to a website with another and she has tng so may be going that route too besides full time - after i get paf files cleaned up my big one 'crashed' big time of I am hoping if i clean out the merging of the 5-10 alogether i can get it to gedcom and do if not may have to trya gedcom in sections if it don't crash so far no luck - so may loos it all 30= years of work and since 1986 gtting it all databased into paf - oh well such is life i guess -

also have option of goign with my genclass - - total ancestry.com but not keen on that either - using it as a means to chase down the one file that 70% internet links and celan up and compelte my Hardest/edingtonashcraft book more - things not been able to do since 1990 as was not money everythign I do is on the free basis and give away my stuff...

mayve just maybe geni will re-think their position - still goign to keep myopinion spoken tho feel like i am talking to a brick wall and batting my head against one for what.... wonder if its worth it - but yess if we have a way to access genealogy for free its worth the effort - - I would not have what i have it if was not sharing and given freely by otheres waht research i could afford back before 1990 i done and shred with outhers and returne got back - its what it is all bout not the allmighty $ and making genealogy only a "rich mans hobby' which I have alwasy been told what it si and believe them now more and more...

to bed - should of been there several hours ago - I can finally merge my mckee line - its merges i requested the other guy to make - so now i am forcing my owns requests through wierd but finally after almost 2 months...

Take a look at the newest Geni blog. Geni is offering free PRO to library users if the library signs up for it here: http://www.geni.com/corp/geni-public-access-program/ through Geni Public Access.

Sophie I'm not sure what deletion problem you're having but if you want to send me an Inbox message with the details, I'd be happy to take a look.

Mike at Geni

Yes but we rather the no-pros should not be forced to have to travel to a library - and homes users will still probabyl be locekd out of library use just as they are for ancestry.com Not every on lives within walking distance of the lobrary - and with the high gas prices; car travell for many who are economically crunched remains for going to work if they have a job, job hunting

Do not go to any local library much - main reason the travel expense to one - and i do not have the extra time to sit there in fron o f a computer we i have my own at home -

why should someone who has there own computer at hoem their own geneaogical files on it at home be forced to go to a library and work on geni off the top of their head - without being able to access there computer files that is utterly stupid in my mind

It might be nice for someone whi is just starting out an dplaying around with family history - but for the serious family genealogist like me it is rediculous - as i have side by side screens up of my PAF program files, and my manuscripts and entering all my data and documentationf rom them - plus on top of the with my genealogy class for proffessional genealogist certification i often have ancestry.com open to verify any data that has been sent to me - to expecially make sure all census records are coreect - besides using wikipedia, find-a-grave or just plain ggogling a name per general location to see what i can find besides using the resources of USGenweb, INGenWeb - Internet archive where there are full books available and i often down load the full book in PDF format for free if can and us it to add to the family tree

Plus many times libraries limit the time that can be spent on their computers by one person....

But i guess maybe it is a sign that they are coming to terms the the non-pros are a valuable asset - just only if the can have their home based priveleages back -

yeah I am a hard head - for i would not have what i have it if were not for those who sahred freely - and i in turn have made that my goal from the time I started - back to work to make sure all my profiles are all open to tthe public - just in case someone just might be interested and luck out find their ancestry in mine and merge into my tree...

@ mike i'll let u know if i still have a problem thx

@http://www.geni.com/blog/search-enhancements-forest-gedcom-369929.html

maybe just possibly this helps some they all don't want - gedcoms - they want to be able to work with their trees fully and beyond 4/5 generation they want to interact

but they still CAN NOT MERGE OR ADD to their trees or MAINTAIN them as they wish which is the saddest part of all this they CAN NOT - yes they can correct etc possibly -

GENI hase gained an emense amount of free data basing from these users - what if you had to pay for this material and data basing - and you do gain dollar wise from all this free input in the long run tho I am not sure - they have gained branches of the 'big tree' that they may of never of evere been able to acquire - but if like one person infered to me that my input was possible 'junk' and what documentation I have put in I took was unwanted - but I know there are branches there that are NEW to GENI - which to me makes my content just as valuable to GENI as keeping within the already profiles there - It was my understanding you wanted new profiles - if you don't how will the 'big tree' continue to grow without them ? Just limiting to the profiles already there is not growing - not creating a 'big tree'

not all the non-pros were the cause of the bad merges as has been claimed elsewhere - the pro users and the curators are and were just as guilty of this -

Also you when you allowed allowed GEDCOMS back when is the ROOT of allot of the problems - I KNOW

I trusted a guy who sent me a GEDCOM that was to deal with the "Hardesty's" only and it was to be fully documented - sure like hell it was - it was all internet links to ancestry.com /rootsweb.com that could not be found or hard to be paid for Also he had linked obituaries from the local Greene county Indiana newspapers - bloomfield news, evening World, linton Daily citizen - and against the one company got done they bought out and defuncted all the newspapers combinging them into one newspaper - so that and obituaries that were on line before 25 July 2003 disaapeared out into never never land - @http://gcdailyworld.com/records/ So I am having to weed through about 22,000 prifiles to find these offending links and the what I consider ancestry's "access baggae'" in tacking on the source to every event, and every person instead of just one major event and the primary person/ or head of household it belongs to

needless to say other problems with thes gedcoms has caused GENI there headaches - such as use of golbal replace changes a place name across the board - some place nanmes became garbagaed because of this - no one was ever consistant in data input - so you have full name given & surname into any one of the name fields plus the very annoying mrs... if the spouses name was not known and when others merged and passed on gedcoms this has reeked emense havoc - besides those gedcoms which carry out what i have dubbed the "Queens & Kings" they are a total nightmare in hell as one person such as Charlemange may have up to 20 different names - along with each of his children -

Yes it was my fault for trusting this person - but we have all done this - and this person done such great work and documentation on the greene county indiana message board on rootsweb - providing full obit data wehere needed and a full transcription of census which he failed to carry over to his paf/family tree etc. program -

Also the greatest hindereance in merging I find is that the female spouse often shows only her married name - and in past i have hand searched - through the profiles - matches - and I totally refuse to match any profile that show the same surname - and i still do amd will continue to do so unless I can clean it up - and prove with out the doubt that they are the right man and wife.

this is one on my biggest pet peeves that we have to hand generate all the data into GENI but then GENI AUTO INSERTS the woman's name as her husband surname or if you enter the woman first the the man assumes his wife surname grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

off my sopabox and back to making sure my profiles are all open to the public so hopefully you can gain new GENI members who will be possibly paying members thus....

I just came back to Geni after a three week hiatus and found this mess!!! I am so upset!!! I I had hoped to join Pro a few years down the road, but now being forced to do it at a time when everyone's broke is ridiculous!!! I can't upgrade, but I can't stand the thought that other people are going to be able to bully me around and change my family profiles without my permission just because they have some spare pocket money.

I came to Geni because it was free and you could upload as many people as you wanted and it offered so much more of what I needed than other sites. What's gonna happen to the 16,541 profiles I've added? I keep them pruned and pretty for the most part and now I know the people merging and editing them are not going to do the same.

Again, this sucks.

came to geni because it was free and I thought that we could mutually share info.

I started with Geni because I am a Retired Military with an intrest in family and having found out I decend from brothers who came over in the 1630's that went differant directions. Many were Military and contributed to building this country some even giving thier lives for what they thought was right, I sometimes wonder if we have lost and sense of direction and it's all about Greed and how much can I make, and whats in it for me?

Brittany, I hope you get to keep the 16K+ profiles you added. I had 10 times as many profiles as I can now download as my ancestors, and I AM a Pro user - but not after this subscriptions runs its course. This site is a joke. Have you ever followed a line through only to find at some point, a historical figure never had offspring? I've seen it too many times to take this "genealogical" site seriously. My own family's profiles have been merged when I've clearly stated in notes no parents are known, or whether a wife's name is correct. Just today I saw three different Ann Carpenters merged, messing up three separate lines. Geni is bad, and it's getting worse.

I noticed that I can't even send a message to someone any more. They seem to be requiring you to pay for things that used to be free. I was once on the Pro plan, and I found it useful for a few weeks while I made some merges, but after that I used the pro features so rarely that it was not worth renewing. So now they seem to be trying to FORCE people to pay, by withdrawing the privileges that used to come with free accounts?!

thanks all for input very interesting - its a sad state of affairs indeed - i am still ver veyr sadden at lossing oall the good input from the non-pros = there merging capabilites which were just as great, or better than some of the pros - they know there family lines - and the loss of there much needed adata and input higher up in the tree beyond there 3/4 generation limit. Oh well its like talking to a brick wall and beating your head against it.....

The South African exchange rate is 7 to 1. Many of our SA Geni users cannot afford the new subscription fees.

http://www.geni.com/discussions/101154?msg=741885

http://www.geni.com/discussions/101178

It's disgraceful! Our family decided some years ago to use Geni as a method of keeping the extended family in touch and it has worked very well and our tree has grown enormously. Now, if we want it to grow any further and enjoy the same level of contact, we all have to subscribe. Well I, for one, cannot afford to and will not be doing so. It's way too expensive when compared to tools like Genes Reunited.
Shame on Geni!

My tree cannot load and there is no way to change the preferences - every time the error message comes up it just attempts to reload without having the option to change preferences. I think the Geni service is broken and is no longer reliable.