I used Geni for about 2 years but suddenly found that someone from Hungary had attached part of their family tree to mine. It was obviously completely wrong but I was unable to remove it. I did not want to start a chain of correspondence with the interloper so I have closed my Geni account. Unfortunately, all the incorrect information is still there. It is far better to pay for and use your own stand-alone family tree program. If I could have given Geni zero stars I would have done so.
Geni has family trees with members that can't be a spouse or mother/son as the dates are impossible. For example, mother & daughter born the same year? When I've requested they edit/change the information, they don't. If you try to edit an error that you or someone else made, it's practically impossible & the incorrect information is locked in forever.
One person in particular who has control of several families genealogy is P. Silbernagl who doesn't know what they're doing nor are they willing to correct obvious mistakes.
Hi Henry,
The family trees on Geni are constructed by our users, and of course there can be mistakes. Geni tries to surface these with our inconsistency checker, which will point out mistakes such as the ones you mentioned. Most public profiles are going to be editable by you, and you are welcome to do so -- especially if you can upload a source that provides evidence for your change. Failing that, curators can help and you can enlist their help with the public discussion thread "Attention Curators, Please Assist" (always pinned to the top of public discussions).
Beware: If you are looking for genetic information or your family history, do NOT use Geni! They assign random people to "manage" our family tree and they mess it up beyond belief. You will find NO accurate or reliable information there. And there is no one to complain to who will fix the mistakes so your frustration will know no bounds. Jut let it go and move on to a more reliable platform like Ancestry, Family Search or My Heritage instead.
See https://help.geni.com/hc/en-us/articles/229704067-What-are-my-management-options- for information about how you can take over management of your family's profiles. We have hundreds of volunteer curators, plus our support staff at misconduct@geni.com, to help you.
As a paying Pro Geni member I have to say I agree with Ryan M's review. When I read the response by the site representative Michael S., I was appalled. Michael for you to accuse Ryan of being "spiteful and petty" for posting his honest review, is highly unprofessional on your part. Clearly you aren't familiar with the concept of valuing your customers. If your goal is drive people away from your site, then keep that "woke" attitude.
Hello
I was wondering if someone can provide me with the name of someone who has the authority to override the interference to my tree of one of Geni's volunteer curators. I can't find anywhere to lodge my complaint. Apologies if this is not the correct site to do this but I am getting increasingly frustrated with the lack professionalism.
I have not given her the right to manage my profiles. Unknown to me she put Stop Signs on 3 of my profiles. Without going into detail, my research shows different parents of my 2 x great grandmother, Elizabeth. Geni's volunteer curator won't release my profiles until I provide my research. Note I said research, not records or sources. I am not going that. This could have been handled differently. This has been going on for some time and I have had enough, so if someone can point me in the right direction that would be appreciated.
Thank you and regards
Jan Stefanac
This is the worst site I have Paid for in 25+ years of internet usage. There appears to be no way to contact them or get them to respond and I have no access to this site which I have paid for and spent hundreds of hours entering info, which appears unreachable.
Hi James, if you paid for a Gen Pro subscription your receipt will have a phone number that you can call for billing / subscription questions. All other help needs are handled at https://help.geni.com -- click Submit a Ticket. Pro users get priority support and you should hear back from someone within 48 business hours. You can also go into the public discussions and post in the discussion labeled "Attention Curators, Please Assist."
I was charged $1.26 TWICE after canceling my "free" trial. I closed my account too, wayy before the 15 days came up. So glad I use Ancestry instead. They are way better and aren't sneaky with prices for way more resources. I can't even contact anyone because you need a pro account to do so. Great logic?
We have belonged to Geni for several years. And not had a problem till we tried working with a collaborator. The woman lied to us add people that aren't real. Didn't say anything till she got the idea we knew more than she expected. She took over management of my husbands profile. And made sure I couldn't delete things on my tree. We had to write an email to customer service and haven't answered my husband. And wouldn't allow me to report my problem. I would not recommend this genealogy site.
Adding the ancestress of the person I was trying to reach put me as her "admin" informed me that I had 2 matches and put a paywall between me and the person I was trying to reach in the first place. Wow, that was rude. I could see the info online before but now that I added it to my tree, I have to have pay for it? That is insane. What a horrible business model. You know what? I would gladly pay geni 119 bucks if they would have this member call me to compare family notes. As is, I deleted the entire tree I entered as not to put a paywall between us and anyone else who may try to connect too those families. I think I am done with Geni. My experience was very disappointing.
Hi Yolanda, Geni is a collaborative family tree built by stitching together our members' trees where they overlap. Merging duplicates is a free feature on Geni. What you encountered is an automatic "tree match" suggestion that is surfaced by the system; that is a paid feature on Geni that allows us to fund the expense of building and hosting the site. If you discover duplicate profiles that should be merged, you can do that for free.
We have DNA on familytreedna (paternal), ancestry.com, trees on ancestry.com and I heavily contribute to familysearch which has a one world tree format which seems to best of the two afore mentioned sites. I joined geni because I found that a person who was researching a particular family 20 years ago is still active on that site. I know how we connect. So I got a basic (free) login added the family tree up to common ancestor, emailed the member twice and got 0 responses. Even though this particular member was active since I emailed. So today I decided to add relationship down from our common ancestor to his ancestress and then geni told me they found a match and I can join 2 weeks for free to remediate this match or 119 a year today. I know exactly what the relationship is. I am not sure if with basic (free) account my emails are reaching this member in any way as I feel he holds key information about the family I am researching based on what was posted on rootsweb years ago. There is no indicator that shows me if my emails to him were received or seen? So I am leaving a neutral rating because I am not sure how geni works exactly.
This website is fishy as mentioned by several other users, no contact details, no technical assistance, its simply not acceptable. I tried unsuccessfully to amend my privacy setting for more than five months and I lodged several claims on their pseudo 'request' section with zero response. You've been warned, keep away from this site.
Overview
Geni has a rating of 1.5 stars from 78 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers dissatisfied with Geni most frequently mention family tree, free trial and customer service. Geni ranks 50th among Genealogy sites.
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Mistakes happen. Merges can be undone, our detailed revision history system can be used to undo bad edits. The solution is to fix the problem and upload sources so it can't happen again, not to run away from it.