The Geni Blog

More Enhancements

Profile Name Display

Recently we added name preferences to let users choose how they want names displayed on Geni. Users told us that they missed viewing the full name on profiles so we've changed it back. Now profiles always display the full name, including middle name, last name, and maiden name.

Undo Pending Merges

Users have also told us that they often come across pending merges that they can complete but not undo. This makes it difficult to correct certain mistakes in the tree. We've changed this so that you can always undo a pending merge. You should now see options to complete and undo any pending merge you can view.

Free Family Statistics, Data Drill Down

Data Drill Down

Every statistic now includes a link to drill down into that data behind the chart or tag cloud. You can even click on the chart itself to view the profiles for a particular piece of data - a slice of a pie or bar chart or a name in a tag cloud. For example, here is the Country of Birth chart for my blood relatives:

From this chart I can:

• View the list of all of my blood relatives that have country of birth entered, sorted by birth location.
• Click on a particular slice, such as Poland, to view only profiles with that country of birth.
• Use the add missing data link to fill in the country of birth on profiles that don't have one entered.
• Consolidate the US and USA slices by selectig the US slice and then changing the birth locations to USA right from the drill down list.

These are just some ideas to get you started using this new feature. We'd love to hear how you use it.

Free Family Statistics

In order to give all users more access to the data drill down lists we're giving away all 15 Family Group statistics for free. This includes 12 statistics that were previously available only to Pro users such as Country of Birth, Most Common First Name, and Oldest & Youngest Living. Viewing Statistics for your Blood Relatives and Ancestors is still a Pro only feature.

View Your Statistics

List Enhancements

Based on user feedback we've made a number of improvements to our recently enhanced lists:

Free Sort Controls

We've moved the sort controls to the column header and made them available at no charge to all users (sorting was previously a Pro only feature). To sort a column click on the up (ascending) or down (descending) arrow next to the name of the column you want to sort. These sort controls will appear when you move your mouse near the name of a sortable column.

More Compact Advanced Controls

We've updated the advanced controls to improve usability and take less space. Columns, Filters, and Events each have their own section. You can collapse the controls that you don't use as frequently to reduce clutter and keep open the ones that you frequently use. Smaller controls mean that more profiles appear on-screen in your lists.

New Columns

The following columns have been added as options:

• Age
• Number of Children
• Marital Status
• Ethnicity
• Political Views
• Language
• Religion

Add Photos

You can add a profile photo to a profile that doesn't have it directly from a list. Make sure you are on the Edit Profiles tab and then click the add photo link in the Photo column.

New Pro Feature: Unlimited Gifts!

All Geni Pro subscriptions (new and existing) now include unlimited virtual gifts at no additional cost. Virtual gifts are a great way to show someone that you care, and can be sent with a birthday or anniversary greeting, or "just because". With subscriptions available for less than three dollars per month (when prepaid), you can save money even if you only send a few gifts a month.

Upgrade to Geni Pro

Merging Enhancements

Improved Pending Merge Interface

Pending profile merges now use the newer side by side format. Multiple pending merges will all appear at the bottom of the merge page so you can quickly resolve multiple merges. When you act on one pending merge the next one will automatically load for review. Use the carousel of pending merges at the bottom to jump ahead to a specific pair.

Better Conflict Permissions The Tree Conflict icon now only appears when you have permission to resolve the conflict. On the conflict resolution page you can now initiate a merge on any profile that is not private.

More Enhancements

• Profile names will now display the collaborator icon when you have collaboration rights to the profile. This is helpful when you are collaborating with an editor but not the profile manager.
• Managers no longer lose editor rights when they transfer management of a profile.
• The name of the manager that will retain management rights appears in bold on side by side merging pages.

Additional Enhancements

• Name preferences now appear in your settings as well as your tree settings and apply sitewide. The default is still to show maiden name in parenthesis in the tree and not show maiden name on the rest of the site. However, you can choose to always show maiden name across the site if you would like.
• We display a warning message when a living person is more than 125 years old, there is a death date before a birth date, or a birth date more than one year in the future. You'll see a green icon in the lower left of profiles with bad data. Clicking it will take you to the edit card for that profile. The icon does not take precedent over the other notification icons (conflict, merge, cycle) and will only be displayed where you have permission to edit.
• We've simplified and expanded relationship path searches. You no longer have to wait while we are searching for a path; even if you navigate away from the page we'll alert you when the path is found. We've also expanded the paths so you can find your relationship to more distant relatives.
• Your 100 most recently bookmarked and 10 recently viewed profiles have been added to your people tagger
• Profiles Managed has been added to User Stats
• You can now view the following modules on your collaborator's profiles:
  • Revision History
  • User Stats
  • Joined On
  • Last Online

Upgrades to Video Uploading on Geni

Video uploading has been improved! We have updated the Windows browser plug-ins that power Geni's video uploading feature. Users of Internet Explorer, Firefox and other Windows browsers should experience far fewer issues getting their videos encoded and uploaded to Geni.

Mac users will still be able to upload videos through Safari on any version of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. We are still waiting for updated Mac plug-ins that will support Firefox as well as Snow Leopard Users.

Thanks for your patience while we made these improvements. For more information on uploading videos to share with your family on Geni, please check out the Videos page on the Geni wiki. There, you'll find out about these video features:

• Free, unlimited video sharing
• Installing the video plug-in for your browser
• Tagging family and friends in videos
• Recording and sharing live videos through your computer's webcam
• Sharing videos from an attached DV camera (Windows users only)

New Enhancements: Sharing & Merging

Merging

The View Profiles link for pending merges in your merge issues list now uses the new side-by-side format. This allows for faster merging with better verification to help you get through those mere issue quicker.

Sharing

Shared profiles are historical and famous profiles that anyone can find and view. Your family and collaborators can edit any profile you share. Sharing a profile helps the Geni community find and merge around common ancestors.

Anytime you add a new profile to the tree you now have the option to make it a shared profile. When you add a profile outside of your maximum family group (your default family group plus inlaws connected through ex's) it will be shared by default. You can uncheck the Share This Profile setting if you don't want to share that profile.

You can also share all of the profiles you've previously added outside of your maximum family group in one click. Look for the Share Profiles button on your manage profiles settings page.

• This will only share profiles that you manage
• This will not share the profile of anyone who has joined Geni or been invited to Geni
• This will not affect any close relatives (fourth cousins and closer)
• You can not undo this bulk change, but you can individually unshare profiles

Share the historical profiles you manage

New Features: Faster Data Entry

Now you can quickly make changes to multiple profiles without visiting each profile individually. Use the new Quick Edit and Edit Profiles features to add or modify data on up to twenty profiles at a time.

Quick Edit

When viewing a list, the new Quick Edit link appears in the Actions column on all profiles you can edit. The Quick Edit action opens up edit fields for that specific profile, letting you quickly add or correct information from the list view. In Quick Edit mode you have three new links in the Actions column:

• Save Changes - immediately saves your changes for that profile and switches that profile back to view mode.
• Undo Changes - throws out any changes you have made but leaves you in quick edit mode to make further changes.
• Cancel Edit - switches that profile back to view mode without saving any changes.

Edit Profiles

Quick Edit is great when you want to make a quick change to a profile you see in a list. But to make changes to multiple profiles the new Edit Profiles tab is the way to go. From any list you create select the Edit Profiles tab to expose the editable fields for each profile you can edit. If the data you'd like to edit does not appear, you can use the advanced controls to add the appropriate column.

Once you have made your changes to the profiles in your list, use the Save All Changes button at the bottom of the list. Or, if you prefer, you can use the Save Changes link in the Actions column to save the changes to each profile as you make them.

New List Controls

We've also added new controls to all lists:

• Gender column
• Living Status column
• Baptism Date & Location columns
• Burial Date & Location columns
• Current Location filter

View Your Lists

New: More Powerful List Views

List views are a great way to view information about groups of profiles on Geni. We provide thirteen predefined lists such as your ancestors, cousins, and recently modified profiles. Today we've released a number of enhancements that add power, flexibility and customization to all list views.

First, we enhanced the basic filters. All users can now filter any of the predefined lists by:

• All/Claimed/Unclaimed
• All/Living/Deceased
• All/Male/Female/Unknown
• All/Shared/Not shared

Then we added a number of advanced controls for Pro users:

Basics

Focus: By default you are the focus person of your lists. For example, the default descendant list is a list of *your* descendants. Choose a different focus person to view their list. For example, enter your great grandmother as the focus person to view the list of *her* descendants.

Sort: Sort your list by any of twelve different sort criteria, and choose ascending or descending sort.

Columns

You are no longer limited to the columns we choose. Select up to 16 different columns, in any order, for any list.

Filters

Select from over a dozen new filters, including birth and death date ranges and locations.

Bookmark

After you have created a list you like, use the Add bookmark link to save the list to use again later. You can even name the list for easy reference.

Here are some examples of how you can use these new advanced controls:

• Look for ancestors that don't have parents sorted by relationship - this will help you choose what line to focus your research on
• Create a list of your blood relatives marked living that were born before 1900
• Find living cousins that live in a certain country or city

That's just a few ideas of what you can do with your new list views. View your lists to try it out yourself!