Geni Pro

1 year subscription $59.40
2 years subscription $95.04
Lifetime subscription $299.00

I notice that I can no longer add ancestors to my family line when it gets way back to the 1700s. Must I have Geni.pro in order to extend my DIRECT family line?

Non-Pros can no longer add new profiles to the historical tree or merge profiles. By making these permissions more consistent, we ensure that anyone who can add a new profile to the historical tree can immediately merge it with any existing duplicates. These changes will benefit all of us as the world family tree continues to get bigger and better.

I've attached a link so you may review the updates we have made to pro and non pro users.

http://www.geni.com/blog/geni-pro-just-got-a-whole-lot-better-36966...

What does this change mean for visitors to Geni.com? Will they be able to see my family tree if I invite them to a specific profile or will they have to pay for Geni Pro in order to look?

People you invite to your tree will still be able to view your tree. They will not be able to use search as non-pros, but they can use Lists (found under Family - http://www.geni.com/list).

If I become a Geni Pro, will I be able to add an unlimited number of ancestors to my tree?

Bob, yes Pros can add unlimited ancestors to the tree as well as merge with public profiles and edit unlocked public profiles.

You mean that any Pro member could go to the public profile of my sainted great grandmother and insert an item indicating that she was a lady of ill repute?

Yes Bob.
It means exactly what you wrote.
public profiles are raelly public now for Pro users

Pros have had the ability to edit any public unlocked profile for a few weeks now. Geni customer support is available to help with any cases of vandalism and it is easy to roll back unwanted changes.

Can you also roll back unwanted and/or false merges ?

I am also interested in the answer to Fred's question, when someone from Geni.com has a chance to answer:

"Can you also roll back unwanted and/or false merges?"

No undo option.... Only Edit-Relationships-Remove

see also http://forum.geni.com/topic.php?id=73311

last post 8 month ago, isn't representative !
Geni had the merge undo in developement and it should be applicable one of these days, now the question, is it allready realised ?

I recall it being said previously in public discussion that the ability for PROs to merge all public profiles would not be implemented till there was a way to undo merges. That's why I ask.

[This is analogous to PROs only being able to edit those data fields where there is an undo facility]

David, you are a non pro collaborative manager of about 500,000 profiles. Are ypu still sble to edit your public profiles ?

Fred - yes I can still edit what I could before.
- Any that I manage
- Any public managed by my collaborators
- Any in my family group
- Any private managed by others in my family group

Edit and resolve conflicting data.

But I can't merge ANYTHING. Can't merge two profiles I manage - private or public, family or not. Nor can I propose merges between any profiles. Nor can I search for profiles that might be matches and investigate them. Nor can I accept a merge - so if someone else wants to merge their profile with my private profile they are stuffed unless I make mine public or someone else in my family group who is PRO steps in.

And guess what - I still get a daily email from Geni suggesting that I merge two profiles that are the same - even though I can't. Great that - don't you think?

There's a campaign going on in the blog imploring people to make as many profiles as possible private - I guess in protest to make a point.

Last night I made 200 profiles in my family group private - not as a protest but as a preventative measure - partly because I know of certain person(s) who is intent on turning my family profiles into a foreign language, and I don't want data wars ...

This isn't collaborative genealogy as we know it. This isn't progress. Friday morning here was a sad day for Geni and its users as a collective.

I feel particularly for those whose life this has been who really cannot afford PRO, who have just been kicked in the teeth / knees / choose which part of the anatomy you think appropriate. And without warning.

David, you know that you can search, see and even open all public profiles of Geni via Google? It is odd you have via Google more possibilities than via Geni !

Private User, they are working on a tool to undo merges. It's just not available yet.

Fred: "David, you know that you can search, see and even open all public profiles of Geni via Google? It is odd you have via Google more possibilities than via Geni !" - YES I know that! Now the rest of the readership knows as well - if they didn't know already!

Ashley: "they are working on a tool to undo merges. It's just not available yet": one of my collaborators answered this question differently. She told me: "Affirmative that I seem to have an undo merge option in a message that geni sends me. Those affected have been undone."

It's POSSIBLE that my collaborator is referring to undoing data updates rather than merges. To be advised.

David, maybe she's referring to data conflicts? Merge-undo hasn't been released yet. Even curators still have to "undo" merges the old-fashioned way, by recreating profiles and connecting/disconnecting as appropriate. This could be an issue of people using different terminology.

Sounds like a UN delete message. Geni has always sent those and nothing to do with merging.

Well, look at the positive side of the change. If you don't like somebody, you can shell out for Geni Pro and really screw up their tree. No hacking required, just log in and go about your mischief until you're caught and banned. Then move over to another computer, sign up anew and repeat the process. Fun, fun, fun.

You know what, there is a lot of bad genealogy out there and the changes in Geni, just made it worse! I have spent a lot of time following my family tree back to the 1600's and your decisions to make my research uneditable by me is absolutely stupid and I am working hard to remove my data from your website!

Folks, you have some choice here--you can allow Geni to control your trees or you can control your own trees. You can use the edit function to remove names from your tree that you don't want geni to control. I have been doing this one-by-one--the same way I added them-I am in control of my tree not some web master!

Are you deleting the data of my ancestors? I'm no webmaster, I'm a family researcher. Why would you want to take away what I may have contributed as well?

I think this whole "issue" gives big emotions and understandable. I would have them too and am certainlo not happy with the new Geni rules as I wrote on the blog. But maybe (and I understand that is not as simple as it sounds) we can all take a breath and give Geni staff a few days to sort this out. Because they have to and I trust they will. Because this is not good for anyone. Let Geni staff solve this and let them not wait to long. I mean they have to come with an answer real soon. Confirm this is what it is, or confirm they are going to change this for the "better". Meanwhile us Geni users do what we think we have to do and I'm not stopping that, just asking to think about it. Let us be wiser than Geni staff was when she took this decision and had a bad communication about this (read no; it came to complete a shock for the no pro users. And it sure had shocked me as it them did. It shocks me now allready) . Geni must be a good place for us all. And real real soon. Sorry if my English is not that good and I cannot say it as I would say it if I could wrrite it in my own language, Dutch.

FYI George Homs (one of the curators) gave an update on an action that a large group of curators have been busy with the whole weekend. You can read it on the blog of Geni (at the bottom of every page you see "blog").
It is a slow blog (maybe because of the 397 comments?) but you can see it.

As a Pro user, I'm not very happy with this 'improvements'. I don't believe that the changes will improve the quality of the data and the tree. A lot of people can not respond to my merge requests (so the trees remain separated ) and on the other hand I can edit any public profile, just because I've paid? So people will set there profiles to 'private'. separated trees and private profiles ? It doesn't match with Geni's mission.... or does it?
They need an other business model and I strongly believe that there are many other ways to make a Pro account more attractive...
In the meanwhile I'll sit and wait (and exported a Gedcom of my forest).