GeniReviews 78

I have NEVER had anything to do with Geni.com. My tree is PRIVATE on Ancestry.com for a reason. Yet family photos which are definitely mine (the way they have been cropped as thumbnails, or I know I have the only copy) and data have made their way to Geni.com. I discovered this by doing a google search on an ancestors name on google at a friends suggestion. I am more than furious, as all my photos have come up in images which link back to geni.com. Deceased children are listed which no other living person knew about. How did they get access to Ancestry Private trees?!

From my DNA test, it showed I had a lot of Scandinavian with some Iberian decent. Through using Geni search, it has taken me back to those connections though centuries ago. When I googled closer family ties, I received validation to part of my family tree; going from the American Revolution to Colnial Virgina into England, which I know is factual.
Thus far, I cannot condemn Geni due to at least 8 generations in America to be correct.

MY TREE WAS ALSO STOLEN WITHOUT ASKING. And how I found out was through === ALL other sites sending me ALL of my pictures that only I had even pictures of my 2 brothers that died in the 30's and telling me that they had a match. I had been doing my tree for over 15 yrs. And it cost me a fortune and without asking they got all of my information for nothing. It completely destroyed me and I have never been on the site since.

I've contacted GENI about a user, Nancy D. Coon that has stolen all of my family photos from Ancestry.com and uploaded black and white copies to her trees on GENI with (my family). I never gave this person permission, I don't even know this person, over 30 profiles of photos so far that I've found have been taken of photos that either I, my parents or my grandparents took that all solely belong to me and I think that's absolutely ridiculous they cannot respond to such a gross violation of misconduct from one of their members.

I find it very interesting that Geni will take nearly any ancestor I attempt to search into infinity, and bring up a truckload of royals, not to mention, fables and myths. Then when I go back to check these so called Kings and Queens in my background with sites like Find a Grave and WikiTree, the search ends in two generations. Am I to believe that these other sites don't have access to the same long lines of nobles that Geni does? Or is Geni just one giant spoof? It was fun at first, but now that I see that I can not verify the information anywhere else, (except maybe MyHeritage,)I'm starting to see the light. MyHeritage results designated me as male, (I'm not), and said I had NO English, NO Scottish, NO Welsh, and NO Irish in my DNA. Funny how that works, since about 90% of my verifiable ancestors come from those countries. SMDH.

I google my name periodically & found that we are deceased as per Geni.com. The only way I could contact this site was to ask for a job since there was no other way to contact them. They claim that they got the info from my cousin which is odd since she knows we are alive. My cousin told me her only genealogy search was on ancestry.com, so it appears that Geni stole info from them & didn't get it right. My brother & I have never used any genealogy sites. Now this incorrect info will probably remain on the internet even though Geni states that they will fix it. I hope family & friends don't get upset by this misinformation. Hopefully my Social Sercurity, Medicare, pension benefits are cut off because they think I'm dead.

I am baned from geni.com cant participate in discution cant send receive messages

And all of from the best of some volonteer curator. Custosmer service ist help at all so dont wasted your precious time if you got reported

RHngative blue blood french canadian noble family are not welcome on geni. The only purpose of this site is conect ppl that dont have family ancestry... its a park ride for skyzophrenia enjoy GENI.COM a place you can enjoy Boer descent and bastardry and fictious genealogy and mormon hiding in jewish oligarchy
God is on geni lolll

Irresponsible resource and tree owners.
It's alarming to find my family info and photos show up on the Web from Geni that were obviously stolen from ancestry.com, and attached wrongly to people my family is not related to-- no, my father did not have an older brother named Archie, and my grandfather was never an MD.
There is no way for me to report this, nor contact the tree owner, and I should not have to pay money to reach the tree owners who've spread all this wrong info and precious photos around the web.

I was pulled in--I always wanted to set up my family tree. At first it was pretty cool. Then I realized to do more research I had to become a member--which I thought well why not--this is pretty awesome so I paid the $95+. As I kept building the tree I would get smart matches which automatically populate the tree--but in order to get those and be able to do more research I had to upgrade to Geni Pro--and I did, at a cost of an additional $119+. Then about two weeks later my tree was blown away--very few of my family members remained. Oh and if I want to do any Smart matches I now have to pay more money to become premium. Stay away from Geni--they bait and switch. I wish we could all pull together at go at them with a class action lawsuit!

When I first joined Geni it was a great online family tree management tool. But then they either sold to or merged with MyHeritage. Even tho I paid what to me was lot of money to be a Geni Pro Customer, I find it's now only a collection tank of your and my family research which THEY now capitalize on by charging us extra fees to use one another's info! Yes, I can do research through Geni... but then to view the info (yours) they say is there, I need to sign up and pay a second hefty fee to MyHeritage to view it! If I do as they want, I'm then paying more than twice what other similar online family tree services charge! Sad to say I now see Geni as a costly "hook" (which WE ironically pay to be hooked on) so they can reel us in to MyHeritage and be charged again (the same amount too) for a service we already paid for!

Even tho I enjoy access to their World Tree, I cannot afford both accounts to do research I'm already entitled access to through one. Because I consider what they're doing is a form of usury... I regret I will NOT be continuing with GENI and will pay my fees to another service... and it WON'T be MyHeritage!.

By the way... if you're serious about being part of a world tree, AND ABLE TO FREELY RESOURCE ITS INFORMATION, you might want to look into wikitree.com. They're building a FREE world tree. It's nothing fancy... but at least you're able to research AND freely share info.

Good luck! I wish you well in building your family tree and research info.

Geni.com is very adept at privacy violating, and sends out tons of spam...

I will NOT be fixing any errors, nor will I be approving any merges any more...
I will just be standing by and watching 43 years of Genealogy research just fall apart, because Geni says they own my tree now, and allow anyone (except myself) to edit (or worse, delete) my data...

I feel completely violated by Geni, especially when I get 400 emails in the last 3 years that say "A Geni profile you manage has been deleted"... no permission request from the deleter, just a deletion... Including my son getting deleted by someone who lives in India, and has no conceivable relationship to me going back thousands of years... And a cousin deleting 37 names because he was angry that I posted maiden names of DEAD females...

Also, I NEVER asked, (nor gave permission) to be merged into the Giant tree...
(I DON'T care... and don't need to know if I am related to Jesus by a convoluted path of 200 marriages...)

One of their curators plagiarized my entire tree...
Another of your volunteer curators (who has a shill review on this site) has told me to "just deal with it" and that it's "all part of collaboration"...

The physical address listed for Geni is a Private P. O. Box, I know, I live not far from that address... also, beware of "shill" reviews on this site...

Thanks Geni.com, for ruining a 43 year long hobby...