MyHeritage -- Snaps Up Geni.com

One issue I have found with the merge, is I deleted the account I had on My Heritage and received conformation that it was deleted. I deleted it in an attempt to avoid pointless matches of the same people I have on geni but that has proved to be a waste of my time as I have been getting them all.

Private User, you said:

>>>>"I find some info to be Find-a- Grave profiles that I created!! How redundant is that?"

I see that as being a really good thing, actually. It's a reminder to add the FindAGrave record to the Geni profile if you haven't done so already (something I often forget to do, even when I make a FindAGrave record), and it also means that now the FindAGrave record will be easily found by other Geni users looking at your ancestor's profile. It's not just you looking at your ancestors' profiles, even if you're the only manager, so even if you're not personally learning anything new from a FindAGrave match, someone else could be.

And honestly, I upload "redundant" sources and documentation to my Geni profiles all the time. It gives authority and credibility to the Geni profiles I work on. Like for marriage event pages, I usually upload both the groom's and bride's marriage records, even if they're identical other than the name at the top. More documentation can't possibly be seen as a bad thing. Load it all in there; the more, the better.

I think if people spent more time actually using the new features rather than discussing them, they'd be pleasantly surprised. It seems like we have a small (albeit vocal) number of upset users, and a much larger group that's really enjoying this new service, even as the kinks are being ironed out. And all of the coverage I've seen within the genealogy media has been glowing. People are really, really excited, as I feel they should be.

>>>>"It is literally impossible for me to Google search/search MH/seach Findagrave etc daily, weekly or even once a year for everyone in the my family tree file. I could not even search one site for all my names yearly manually. The time saved by having Geni/MH automatically search for me and let me know likely matches is invaluable to me."

I couldn't agree more. There are so many matches for people pretty close within my family group who I simply haven't had time to repeat research on recently. Now it's like there's this genealogical Santa Claus who's delivering gifts to my door. So handy and time-saving, even with the initial investment of time we're all putting in now verifying matches.

Roger you've been on Geni a long time, yes? You don't remember all the sick green totally irrelevant matches we used to get? I sure do. I learned to ignore them. Eventually the matches got "smarter" and they stopped "nagging" me. This is the same only with a better color scheme.

Focus on tree building and use the tools as needed. I don't "source" every day, I don't "merge" every day, I don't enter new profiles every day, I don't "add to project" every day, I don't correspond with collaborators every day. These are different activities to enrich the World Family Tree (and hence, my own). So just like I'm OK with "time managing" my email, I'm OK with "time managing" matches.

I would like to echo Private User. It being Friday evening, I finally had some time to try out the new Smart Matches feature. Guess what, I found a slew of descendants of my great grandfather's siblings that I was unaware of. And some of them are in South American trees because apparently some descendants of my second aunt and uncle remained in South America.

When I first looked at these Smart Matches, they looked like they provided nothing new. It took some time working with the Smart Matches feature until I got the knack of it and realized that there were family members I had not found myself when I worked on that branch a couple of years back.

So yes, I am excited, because if this happened in the first week, I am sure to find many more "gifts" through this feature. And as someone said, you can approve the match quickly and come back leisurely to pull out the new information and then to use that new information to search for evidence in vital records or census data.

Unfortunately, all the Smart Matches have meant to me is frustration. I can't do anything with them because I simply get sent to a page asking me to establish a paid membership. And the price -- especially because you need to pay up a whole year in one fell swoop -- is prohibitive, so I keep seeing these Smart Match numbers, with no ability to do anything about it.

Private User if I actually could *do* something about these Smart Matches and Record Matches, it would be great. However, except for a Record Match on an uncle of mine, which I could see without being routed to an appeal to get a paid membership, none of these matches leads me to anything I can act on.

Frustrating!!!

There are two other discussions going on concerning the same item:

http://www.geni.com/discussions/122961
http://www.geni.com/discussions/123032?msg=869621

I think we all agree that for some of us, this is a blessing, while for others, a curse. Part of the reason we who feel it is a curse, feel that way because we have seen many redundancies in the MyH data, and do not want to pay a full year's subscription to MyH just to spend hour upon hour, declining matches just to make our trees look cleaner.

I think the logical, fair answer, is to have a setting(s) to turn the links to MyH on or off. Those who want to explore the links can, those you want to ignore the links can. As it stands now, there is no way to simply ignore the links without paying for a year of MyH - they clutter up our trees, our merge center pages and even our home pages.

I have sent a Help request to Geni.com, and they have written back that they will investigate adding these setting(s). I think that the more of us who express our concerns in these three discussion groups, and the more of us who make specific requests via the Geni Help desk, the more likely will i tbe that our needs will be met.

To me, this is an obvious miscalculation on their part, and it needs to be corrected.

Mark, doesn't it seem like overkill to ask Geni to turn off the feature on request? I don't subscribe to every premium feature on every website I join, but I don't demand that they give up trying to tempt me. They're in business, after all, and someone has to pay the bills. Speaking just for myself, it doesn't bother me to see that I could, if I wanted, upgrade to get even more.

I see the enormous potential for Smart Matches, despite the inconvenience of change, which we often reject outright because it's different.

I pay for Ancestry and on Ancestry I find family trees for somewhat distant branches of my family with new information. I add those profiles to my tree which takes time. Then I print it out and manually add the information to my Geni tree.

Similarly for sources on Ancestry, I download and save to my computer and then upload to Geni.

As MH add more and more sources, the Smart Matches and Record Matches become a huge boon to the family researcher who has his/her tree on Geni but does their data collection manually in many other places.

So if I can cancel my Ancestry subscription AND save a huge amount of downloading and manual entry, for me personally it will be worth it.

I think as I said last night that until you have tried out Smart Matches, you may not appreciate that it does have value. You may just see it as unwelcome change and reject it as such outright.

I would like to see more openness to discuss the possibility that this is a huge leap forward for genealogy, if not for some of you personally. I would bet that those of you who try it will be hooked. I got hooked in an evening. And that is despite the fact that the full potential has not yet been realized since more sources and more matches are planned.

I'd recommend viewing the RootsTech keynote, which describes the vision.
http://rootstech.org/?start=0&id=K3&video=225508587...

The first speaker on Saturday is great, but Ori Soen takes the stage around 32:00 and get's into what MH is working on.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic," Clarke's Third Law. I think the corollary should be, "...and will be annoying to those who feel left out of the magic."

No one likes change, and we resist it even more strongly when we can't see how it benefits us. But change is unavoidable, and the best way to deal with it is to just wait a bit - refuse to react, refuse to even form an opinion - until we have more information, until a bit of time has passed.

Easy to say, much harder to do!

Thanks for the rootstech link, Jeff, I'm really enjoying the videos!)

Jeff, I have listened to some of the RootTech speeches. It's all about business and Justin explained simply; he says that it is an "overkill to ask Geni to turn off the (blue) feature on request". Why are all curators so optimistic about the "smart matches" and most of the other members are not ? Members who are not curators are actually complaining about the "smart match" redundancy and the continous advertising of MyH.

I am asking for the possibility to turn off the blue dots in the layout options, Get a little box; blue dots on/off. Why should that be an overkill ?

Does every blue dot click pays a cent ?

Greed is a good property and not an insult. However, probably a lot of members and users of geni are elderly people. Or do you have any other data. If this would be true and proven genis blue dot advertising would be ...what?,,,a shame ?
Now the blue dots have been used by several people and as a result I got several yellow warnings...conflicts with 4 parents which I cannot resolve. What to do about this?
Familysearch has a new very interesting beta-release.

I'm not sure how you all think blue dots are any more annoying than the leaves on Ancestry, yet all of us live with those leaves, even if we ignore them.

Or live with HORRIBLE search results on Ancestry.

Seriously, a little patience and a bit more flexibility and with time, this too shall pass :)

Gerhard,

You ask an interesting question: "Why are all curators so optimistic about the "smart matches" and most of the other members are not ?"

I don't think the answer will surprise you -- the curators had a little chance to preview the system and see what it could do.

In other words, right now the curators are the people who have some experience with it. The people who don't like it, so far, are people who haven't tried it, or haven't used it very much yet.

That should tell you a lot about the differences of opinion ;)

Sorry, Gerhard, I meant to add -- it's not the matching system, not the blue dots, that are causing the merge conflicts (the yellow triangles).

The matching system only opens a window to a match. It doesn't merge.

The yellow triangles are caused by someone on Geni merging two profiles. Nothing to do with matching.

Matching. Merging. Two different things.

Hatte - do not have an Ancestry account, so no idea what leaves you are talking about - can definitively say not true that "all of us live with those leaves".

Lois, on Ancestry they display a little leaf when there is more information available. The leaves lead to matches or to sources. If you're on Ancestry, but not paying for the features they prompt you to upgrade. Now Geni does the same, but with blue dots.

I've been on Ancestry almost since their beginning. I don't remember when the leaves first appeared. It must have been very early. I also don't remember anyone complaining about it. We all understand that people don't always take advantage of every premium feature.

Justin, is n't it so that curators have tried it and have a free data subscription? And it is not about not willing to try it, but trying means you have to pay for it.
this is the price for it first year
http://www.myheritage.nl/FP/search-plans.php?coupon=FFHS2012

I dont say it is not worth it, it maybe or not, that is personal, but if you have the money to do so when you are already a pro Geni user is personal too, For me it is too much both. It is not about do I want but can I. No I cannot. This is not a complaint, just a fact. I learn to live with the blue dots and all who can subscripe and gain the benefits for it, I will be happy for. But I'm only saying, you can be very happy with it because you have experienced it, and so you can make Geni users who can pay it make enthousiast too, that's really fine by me, but please dont react as if anyone should do it and they if only the give it a try. It is not that simple. I like many of the curators, they do a great job, voluntary, and spent a lot of time supporting and helping users. You know I have a great respect for curators, but I only ask, dont only preach the benefits of MyH, but also keep in mind its not only about getting used to a change it is also about not having a chance to keep up with it due to money.

I began to think that too these last days: why am I a pro member and why should I stay being a pro member? This is really going through my mind, but also because I dont know anymore the difference between the basic and the pro user. I thought the pro user was to get benefit from MyH. Really cannot remember if this was said or just something I thought. I am not leaving Geni, I am a fan of Geni, the world tree, the coloboration and my favourit the projects. So no I am not going away at all, I was just honestly thinking, what is the benefit of being a Pro member these days?

Charles, I'm not sure why that would be infuriating for you. Virtually every genealogical database I'm aware of has different membership levels/tiers. Like on Ancestry, I choose to pay for only U.S. records, so I don't get "infuriated" when I can't access international ones. It's my own choice to pay for a lower level, and I'm not going to hold it against Ancestry for not giving me everything at the reduced cost just because I want it. I recognize that they have to pay for the record acquisitions, the technical costs, the staff, etc. Why would I be mad at them for that? Likewise, the additional services provided by Smart Match and Record Match cost MyHeritage/Geni more money, which they have to make up somehow. Should they just not recoup those costs? They're not a non-profit.

The MyHeritage CEO has said repeatedly on the message boards that many more record collections are going to be introduced in the very near future. It's only temporarily heavy on SSDI, FindAGrave, etc. Give it a chance to grow a bit before writing it and/or Geni off entirely.

Jennie, I understand what you're saying. I don't want to say that everyone should do it. That's a personal choice. I want to say something a little different -- if you try it, I'd bet you love it. The reason the curators like it is that they've tried it.

It's not actually true that you have to pay to try it. Some of the matches are free. I haven't paid attention to which ones. Findagrave, I think, and maybe Social Security Death Index. Those won't help people in Europe, I know, but Geni will be expanding the offerings.

You are right that I have a free subscription by being a curator, but even if I didn't, my partner is on MH and has a subscription, so I would just use his.

To me, it's very much like Ancestry. I have an account there. Sometimes I subscribe to the American records, and sometimes I upgrade to the European records, and sometimes I let the subscriptions expire. It all depends on where I'm working. I don't yell at Ancestry if they won't let me access European records with only an American subscription.

I budget my time and money everywhere so that I'm getting what I want as best I can with what I'm able to pay. Geni users will do the same. Some will pay for the subscription to matching. Some won't. And some will wish they could afford it.

That's very true, Ashley. Even an entirely-free service such as FamilySearch has service tiers. As a member of the LDS church, I can access information that a non-member cannot. True in "the real world" as well - I can't afford a membership at Barnes & Noble, so I miss out on some coupons and special discounts their members get. I choose not to pay for a Costco membership, so am unable to ship there. Life is too short to get infuriated about the playgrounds I can't play in, or the parties I'm not invited to!

*shop, not ship

Charles, one more point to add. When someone on Geni accepts a match to MH the match is visible to everyone. (Not the actual source, but the summary.)

So, everyone benefits. That's the nature of collaborative genealogy. On Ancestry, if someone adds the 1880 census from their data subscription, I can't see it unless I also subscribe to the same data. In fact, on Ancestry they will keep reminding me that I could see more if I subscribe and actually attach that source to my standalone tree.

To me it seems like a matter of personal preference. People who like working collaboratively will prefer Geni's method because it's all of us building out our common tree. If you like the standalone tree concept better, no one is going to think you're wrong. Do it the way you're most comfortable.

For those who are concerned about the cost of a MH premium membership, would it be possible for several of you to band together to share a membership? I shared an Ancestry account with several people last year in order to reduce the cost of an International membership, and it seemed to work very well... just an idea.

Gerhard, to add to Justin's response with regard to "Why are all curators so optimistic about the "smart matches" and most of the other members are not ?" He addressed why we're optimistic, but as for the other. I'd respond that most of the other members are actually not dissatisfied. What we have here is a small vocal minority. However, I'm sure Geni is aware of these concerns and is considering the best ways to improve the user experience as it fits into the product vision and goals.

As for your merges that you're not sure how to address, feel free to paste a link to them and we can take a look. Normally, you would go through the conflict resolution process and match up the duplicates, merging them into single profiles.

Jennifer, I really like the way (on the last page) you expressed the differences and limitations among our many choices in life. Very well said!

Now one quick follow on, Jeff. One thing running through my mind was that people who are concerned about something are more likely to voice their concerns than are people who don't see a problem.

I think that's a different slant than "small vocal minority" ;)

But yes, I agree that most people are just not posting either way, just making up their minds and moving forward.

Justin, you read the last two comments; the blue dots must be affordable and meaningful.
Do you have ancestors with the name pf Anders Anderson or Nils Nilsson ?
You'll never get rid of the annoying blue dots. So just make sure to give us the possibility to turn it off...it is not an overkill.
I am a "poweruser" with huge online and library resources in Stockholm with all churchbooks and every single book available in Scandinavia and therefore I can evaluate the blue dots. I have little use of the dots, other people might have. People who like it could turn on the blue button and those who do not could turn it off.
The layout option e.g. gives you the choice of colour so why not the choice of other option.