Geni Reviews 55

Tried on several occasions to inform a contributor of a blindly obvious error(s) (and there are many) in their work and have never received a response. On the whole cross referencing where possible geni is very useful. It's frustrating that no monitoring is done by geni of their contributors work many of whom haven't done any work on their subject for years!

Beyond and above professional. After years of account inactivity and it being set up with outdated credentials I had no access to it and eventually had to ask geni.com for help. My account was recovered and updated successfully. I would be devastated if I lost all my work, my family tree . Thank you , Geni.com

for the last two weeks Geni will not Load, there is complaints on the community page, then you get emails saying your password id out of date and you have to make a new one, that sounds like bunk to me, Geni needs to get this fixed,

A background story: The profiles that I created on Geni were deleted by Geni Customer Service. When I complained, I was insulted and shunned. My word had zero value to the Geni General Manager. I had to prove to him that he my profiles were being deleted, I guess he couldn't check it for himself. It took Geni days to stop deleting my profiles. Geni General Manager didn't bother to acknowledge, nor apologize for, what was done to me. Instead, he referred to my complaints and actions I took to save my work as childish, accused me of having too many “private” profiles and used that as alleged proof that I had a history of not wanting to cooperate with others. I had a few profiles deleted or access removed by Geni curators even before that specific event. Free account users get what they pay for.
A few weeks ago, my account was suspended because I renamed a profile that I had created causing me to complain about the Geni General Manager and his team conduct. My "improper conduct" was renaming my profile and complaining against Geni policy allowing Geni Curators to steal somebody else's profile by "curating it". Curating gives the Curator full control over a profile that somebody else created. Geni General Manager refused to give me a contact information to his MyHeritage supervisors on multiple occasions. I have nobody else to express my concerns about Geni General Manager's conduct other then to Geni General Manager.
I am now not allowed access to thousands of profiles that I created on Geni.

The answer below (now removed) showed how I was treated; I was immediately labeled one of those people who don't play nicely as soon as I complained as if I was the person who did something wrong. Geni General Manager had a conflict with another person and he started deleting all of his profiles, not only private ones. In his incompetence he also started deleting my profiles. Most of profiles I set to private to prevent them from being deleted as they were being deleted, not before. I was not given some sort of warning before my profiles were deleted. He made a mistake and doesn't want to admit it or to apologize for it. My "private profiles" are just a distraction from his improper conduct and incompetence.

Why don't you show that "sincere apology"? If you apologized to me we wouldn't have this discussion. I have screenshots of our conversations. There is not a single word of apology. Instead you attacked me for having "private profiles" and called me childish. How "professional and respectful" of you. At the time I created and managed about 40 000 profiles and only about 50 of them were private. Most of those were made private because I tried to prevent them from being deleted. You have blocked me now because I renamed my own "historic" profile that I created and that was stolen by a Geni curator and because I wouldn't allow being bullied by "Geni Curators". I have every right to rename a profile I created.

What "repeated removals of historical data on profiles from the 1700s"? Expand on that subject if you have nothing to hide. As a basic user I had no way of "removing" anybody else's profile but mine. More misinformation justifying stealing others hard work. They are breaking their own DO NOT code of conduct: "Harass, bully, "troll" or instigate conflict", "Post information that you know is false or misleading".

Tried to log in on computer. Would not let me. Requested to reset password. Reset password. Computer would not let me log in but can on phone. Over and over and over. Try to contact them, must be signed in. REALLY??? Have to log in to get help logging in??? When I'm logged in on phone. there is no "help" section. Nowhere to get in contact with anybody!!!

Adding my family. I know some of these people are already on Geni, but there is no way to link to them. Now everybody I added is duplicated. I know of no way to merge them. Oh well, at least my relatives can see they descended from royalty. As long as they're on MY profile.

Now to add documentation to all of these when I have to reset my password EVERY TIME I try to log in and it gets denied. Resetting password STILL will not let me log in!!! FORGET IT GENI!!!

I'll stick with familysearch!

Good UX, Deep Directory and a very helpful customer support team.

I am on numerous genealogy web-sites, and a seasoned genealogist.
I decided to upload a Gedcom on Geni as I liked the idea of one single tree where everyone adds a bit.
Since then I have been contacted by members giving out to me for creating double, and even one who wrote to me in capital letters and threatened to report me.
Unless they don't understand that every time a new user upload a file, there will be doubles where his tree will hook up to the main tree ?
I have contacted the moderators, but got no reply.
Since then I am afraid to merge any individual, and I won't do any work on that platform.
So very nasty people in there.

C’est top ohm Merci Madame Caroline

As a professional heir researcher for over 50 years I found Geni.com to be a very interesting and collaborative site to gain familial information. However, quite often, the information is wrong, and incorrect information can be vexing to correct. Others will "correct" my entries without documented sources, and quite often burial dates become death dates, and it can be hard to discover correct information, esp. because access to sources that could provide documentation are blocked from view unless you purchase another website's programs. If Geni truly wanted to have a useful site, there would not be Smart Hints and such that are greyed out. Other genealogical programs exist providing such data so why use Geni anymore??? Also, allowing others to input into your tree may cause you to spend forever correcting things, so I now have some 170 trees I need to review in some other manner to insure correctness, which I cannot do in Geni without access to sources.

I joined decades ago when the community was much smaller and had stricter guidelines. You were required to approve any changes before people could update or merge records. This system made the information more accurate and reliable, making it a go-to resource for checking details. However, things have changed significantly.

Recently, when I tried to log in, I was informed that I needed to verify my identity, and an email would be sent to the address associated with my account. Unfortunately, I no longer have access to that email address and haven't for some time. I never encountered this issue before when logging in.

I reached out to the help section, but received no assistance. They emailed me a series of irrelevant questions about information related to relatives who have passed away, making it impossible for me to confirm details. I answered the questions to the best of my ability, but I don't have any hard copies of the information I originally provided. Eventually, I received a message stating that I had failed the verification questions.

I have sent multiple emails explaining that the questions were about deceased individuals and that they could verify the age of the records I set up on Geni. However, I have yet to receive any response.

The site has deteriorated significantly. The information is now unreliable, as anyone can update or merge records. When I first joined, if you entered details about a person, you became the manager of that record, and no changes could be made without your approval. Now, I see that there are individuals listed as managers for records I created, people I do not even know, who have made changes and merged records that are unrelated.

Over the years, I have contributed many entries and data to Geni, created many profiles, etc. Now it turns out that pretty much none of the profiles I added are "mine" anymore, but are co-managed by at least one other person, who seems to have taken control over these profiles so that they are "locked" - even to me who originally created them, i.e. I cannot add or change or otherwise modify my Geni profiles.

Inquiring about it, I am being told that there is a "problem with the profile", and I should just let them know which data I want added. I am essentially being asked to completely give up control over the data I painstakingly researched and also can show sources for. That will not happen.

I have used Geni in the past for getting in touch with collateral families via the entered data, but will now refrain from entering anything there anymore.

Also: I never understood how they can actually charge people for access to data that were researched and entered by users like me.

Someone is making a lot of money with this site and laughing all the way to the bank. I will stay far away from it from now on.

As an unregistered user, I can freely surf and view as many profiles that I want. But as soon as I register as a user, my access to profiles is blocked, and I need to pay $150 (intro offer $120) excluding US VAT to view them. It is extremely annoying that Geni.com treats unregistered users better than registered users without a subscription.

That being said, as an unregistered user, you are spammed every second minute or so with 'Verify You Are Human' checkboxes, and despite I kept verifying that I am a human, over and over and over again, Geni.com ultimately blocked my IP address. When I contacted customer support over the matter, they weren't very helpful.

In conclusion, Geni.com has become a nightmare of paywalls and CAPTCHA boxes.

An issue arose with respect to my geni account and I reached out to customer service. The matter was promptly resolved to my satisfaction. In addition to being an excellent genealogy site, I was extremely impressed with the customer service.

Great idea to build a global family tree.
Building a tree with family members is great.
I like that the tree is collaborative, if you see a person's profile where you can add more information or provide links to sources of information about them - just do it!
I really like the ability to add links to indexed FamilySearch records. If this feature was available for the free account, that would be absolutely fantastic.

Craziest website ever. Seems anyone can add anything to their family portfolio and poof, this now adds to the families heritage. Looked into a few people I know, misinformation all over. The truth was easily found, but family members and friends seem to still believe the lies geni.com allows others to post and/or manage. Terrible site for nonfiction, fairy tales and fake stories, have at it.

I was most impressed with the Team Member (Hiromimarie) and the friendly and helpful information received. It amazes me how a big organisation such as this could be so obliging especially in this day and age. Absolutely wonderful Company that I have been a part of for many, many years. Thank you "Geni" and Hiromimarie for the incredible service you gave me and especially for the friendliness of the correspondence received :o)
Cheers,
Raelyn from New Zealand

I reported a bugg, a button that didn't work as it should and get an answer after only 5 hours. They had identified the problem and had forwarded the issue to their engineers. After only one hour more, the problem was fixed! Really fast! Good work!
Claes Bystedt

I had an issue which arose with Geni. I suspected a scam, initiated by them. However it has transpired it was from an unrelated source. I have retracted my initial review as Geni were extremely helpful in enabling me to discover the truth. I am very grateful to them. They were kind and helpful; not something often found in companies these days. Thank you Geni

I have had several interactions where I required help with some GENI has always done a good job trying to resolve the issue. It may take a few days, but it gets resolved.

I've experienced a problem in my family tree, after contacting Geni help, they resolved the issue quickly and completely!