Comments and Feedback

Just a short note to let you know that we had our first feedback review last night, and we're busy distributing the top issues to everyone on the team. We do read and tally every message we get in this blog's comments and through our Contact Us form, so don't worry if you don't see us respond directly here on the blog.

Overall, your responses have been very, very positive. We're glad you like what you've seen so far, and we're looking forward to getting your feedback on the improvements we make during the beta. Thanks again!

Comments

[Ryan]

Profile > Height

5'12" = 6'

[Matteo]

Bravo on such outstanding communication during the beta phase. The combination of a brilliant idea and your seeming intention to assimilate and integrate user feedback makes geni.com very promising indeed. Thank you!

[Chris Gardner]

Absolutely love the sight. You all should be proud of your accomplishment.

One suggestion (for now). Some sort of comment system for each node. I'd love to be able to add stories/anecdotes about people and have others post comments, their own stories about someone. Some sort of forum type thing per person.

[phil]

Great idea.
Profile info needs to include the county where things happened, since that is the basis for much genealogical research.
Also, spouses need to be listed by their maiden names -- again, in keeping with convention.

thanks.

[Patrick]

First of all, great job. Great concept and excellent execution.

Suggestion: I'm at the point where I have a number of my family members all signing in to make additions to our family tree. It would be great if there was a way I could post some type of bulletin for all those viewing the tree can see. I know we can send individual comments to other individuals, but a bulletin for your whole family to see would be great!

Keep up the good work!

[Kelly Carson]

I love the site. I have been looking for a way to get everybody involved in creating a family tree and this by far is the easiest method I have seen around.

A few suggestions though:
1. Allowing anniversary dates for married couples.
2. Exporting of data (especially to something like a format Outlook can import for the addresses, etc.
3. Print Views for the tree, obviously the data is there now but the only way to show it to anybody is to have them go to the site.
4. For the religion, add other denominations under Christian, such as Baptist, Methodist, etc.
5. Finally, as many have mentioned, giving users a way to prevent others from editing certain profiles that have been entered. Not sure how this will work though, maybe users can only edit their own profile and fill in blank fields in others. To edit fields that have already been entered the request would be sent to the original submitter maybe? Just an idea but I am sure you guys will figure something out.

As is, this site is great and I thank you so much for creating a easy but useful method that has finally motivated me to start the family tree.

[Peter]

I would like to have the option to view a fully extended family tree.

That is to say, rather than look at my tree and then click on a link to view my wife's tree, and then click on a link to view her sister-in-law's tree, I would like to be able to look at the overall grand tree to see how all these people relate to each other overall.

[Scott Sanders]

A couple more comments from me...

1. Along the lines of Chris's comment above, would love to be able to add wedding dates and other details about a marriage - perhaps by clicking on the line in between a husband/wife or something like that.

2. I invited my step-grandfather, and he says he added some family history, but it's not showing up on the family tree. I suspect he created a new account by accident, and I have no idea how to search for the details he added to incorporate them into my tree.

[sleazyred]

I love the site - just what I have been looking for to get my families input on our family tree especially as I live in the USA and they are all in the UK!

It would be really cool if you could add first names of people without having to add surnames. I have an idea of who my much later relatives where married to but I don't know their maiden names.

Also it would be really cool if you flag someone as a ? especially as you get far back you have an idea of someone being in your tree but you arent 100% sure that way when someone else from your family logs in, they can review that person and confirm or not whether they are indeed in your family.

Lastly to print! I know you are working on that.

Love the site! hoorah for you guys!

[sleazyred]

If you could get an email notification every time some adds to your tree that would be great.

[Jared]

It'd be great if the photo had a cropping tool, so you could zero in on just the relevant face, rather than having to do it in photoshop and then send it to the site.

Overall, great site! This is definitly the "answer" to the family tree problem.

[Geni]

Jared: Photo-cropping is on the list!

[darren john paine]

thank you geni team- you guys are doing a brilliant job.

[bill]

I tried adding a family member, but when I entered an email on her profile, I was told that the email was already connected to a geni.com account. If this is the case, how do I add the existing profile to my family tree?

[Kenny]

Glad to see photo cropping is on the list. The is why I clicked on this link.. to make just that suggestion.

Another that I don't think anyone has made yet:

A statistics page.
I.e. Oldest living relative
Youngest living relative
Average age of death (on the tree)
etc.

GREAT job though. I've already got some information from family that I didn't have before. Sometimes people are more willing to give information when they see an immediate benefit to themselves -- whereas a lot of my research has remained on my computer (though perfectly willing to share).

[danny]

I'm pretty astonished that your security is so weak, especially for a site containing such sensitive data. It's frankly appalling to see that in the 21st century, a website purporting to care about privacy is sending passwords in the clear.

How much does an SSL certificate cost, anyway? Please get your act together security-wise.

[Corey]

This is a great site, we've added 298 nodes onto our tree, i can't wait until we can import/export gedcom files, it will make life MUCH easier.

How about showing the birth and death dates on the main screen for each person along with their name? and maybe the country where they were born, so when it is printed, it makes more sense?

[insolentpheasant]

congratulations on geni!!!it is first rate, long overdue, easy to use and a wonderful way to get family information together. mike stangel deserves congratulations for getting me up and started. two suggestions: 1. whether there should be a specifc space for marriage dates and 2. where should bibliographical references be placed? keep up the good work.

[insolentpheasant]

i concur with corey above that it would be nice if the birth and death years could be shown on the cover tree listings. my son is interested in the names and relationships but has to go into the individual listings to get the dates rather than an overview.

[Naomi Chambers]

Great job so far, very easy to use. Just to add my vote, in my order of priority, for things already being worked on or mentioned by other users:
1. encryption, SSL, password protection, etc - a birthdate and mother's maiden name is critical to identity protection
2. Marriage dates needed
3. list married women by maiden name (or at least display in parenthesis)
4. Printable Views for the tree & profile/bio
5. additional options for adoptions, same sex marriage, blended families, etc.
6. County needed in addition to city, state, country
7. add other major Christian denominations under Christian (Episcopalian/Anglican)
8. Prevent editing or send a request to the original submitter or allow only items blank or flagged with question mark to be edited.
9. Exporting/Importing capability

[Robert Smith]

Is this going to be behind a secure server (SSL)?

-r

[Lee Reeves]

I also have put in a lot of information (cool website!), but now, my tree is just not showing up and it only says "undefined's tree 0 people". How to fix? I'd hate to lose my whole tree! For what it's worth, I think the info is still there, because my "list" is still showing up.

[M. Sanchez]

I agree with the comments about the need for SSL to handle passwords on the site, but I also wanted to express my deep disappointment that this site employs the irresponsible practice of sending emails with usernames and passwords together and in plain text as well.

[Purnima Mysore]

This is a fabulous website. I saw a request to provide support for multiple marriages between two families.
Further to that, would it be possible to drag and connect relatives who are related to more than one family tree. This is especially true for a lot of families in South India where marraige between cousins or distant uncles (in relation, not in age) is possible in some cases.

Right now I am struggling to connect my maternal grandmother's father with my paternal grandfather. They both were blood brothers born to the same husband-wife couple.
It would be great if you could provide a feature to do that !!!

[Jon Beck]

I love the site. I would love to also see more information in the tree view. Also it would be great if you can add more schools. It appears the only new school I could add was graduate schools. I personally went to 4 elementary schools and 2 High schools.