Signing up and Starting the Search
Because Geni is a MyHeritage acquisition, a question that often arises before signing up is: How is Geni different from MyHeritage? Both genealogy research services support a global and collaborative community, have family tree builders, have mobile apps, and offer–in respective varying degrees–access to MyHeritage’s record archive, and both services’ collected family tree data. However, Geni and MyHeritage are kept separate because their goals and objectives are different. Geni offers a truly collaborative experience; you start with your own family tree, but as you start merging more and more profiles, efforts very quickly start to benefit more and more people; and ownership of family trees is not as significant as the main goal of creating one tree to link everyone in the world. MyHeritage family trees, on the other hand, are often private and strictly edited and maintained only by their owners and carefully selected collaborators; the focus is to flesh out individual profiles within trees through both record matching and family tree merging.
Sign Up and Browse
Geni’s signup process is truly painless; all you need to provide is your name, an email address and a password. You can even configure your Geni account to use your Facebook account to log into the site. After this initial step, you can look around and stay for as long as you like, as a Geni basic account is completely free to use. You may want to check out the site’s extensive catalog of genealogy research resources, affiliated projects, and guides; there’s a lot to go through, and what isn’t educational is at the very least entertaining. You may find yourself losing countless hours browsing profiles of famous people, interested and wanting to participate in a particular research project, or interacting with other Geni subscribers in the forums–all before you even try out Geni’s search feature, or start on your family tree.
5th Place6.8 out of 10Search and View
When you do get around to using the search feature, you may be pleasantly surprised to find that in addition to looking for matches within the Geni database of profiles within subscribers’ family trees, a link to match results from MyHeritage is also provided. Full access to the records in MyHeritage may require a separate MyHeritage data subscription, but sometimes even the individual summaries of what each record contains is enough to be a jump-off point for your research. Matches within Geni, on the other hand, are very detailed and can be viewed even signing up or logging in–the only problem is that due to a much smaller database, quite often you won’t get any search results to work with initially.
Building Family Trees with Geni
As you begin to build your family tree using Geni, you will notice one of the service’s huge flaws: the lack of GEDCOM importing support. If you’re no beginner hobbyist or happen to have started your genealogy research elsewhere, there is no easy way to sync or carry over data that you’ve already painstakingly arranged and worked on. You’ll have to type each name and flesh out each profile one by one. That being said, because Geni subscribers focus on building and growing family trees, it often only takes a few matches and merges before your own tree is part of a much bigger one resulting from collaboration–and if you’re lucky, you might even find that you’re already connected to Geni’s World Family Tree.
Despite the absence of this key feature, Geni’s family tree builder is still a more than adequate tool. You can add an unlimited number of profiles to your family tree, merge trees with a known relative also using the service, merge duplicate profiles, view relationship paths in a family tree, and upload up to 1GB of media supporting your family tree. Said media can be in form of documents, photos and even videos. A Geni Pro account has access to advanced features, such as enhanced search options, unlimited uploading of media, tree matching–which leads to potential merging of profiles and trees with those of other subscribers, which in turn may lead to connecting with distant relatives–and priority support when it comes to GEDCOM exporting. Priority support for Geni Pro subscribers doesn’t stop there, either; it also extends to the processing of their help tickets.
Connecting and Collaborating
It is in this aspect of genealogy research that Geni truly shines. Its community building is not only organic but also very inclusive. Forums are viewable even without signing up or logging in, and concerns raised by the community are handled by both fellow community members and Geni support staff. When you search the help section, results are returned both from the Geni knowledge base and the community forum. Even without participating in the forums or any of the research projects supported by Geni, you will feel the collaborative nature of the site through tree matches and other special family tree building features.
Family Groups
Geni allows you to create and be part of a group of relatives that are all subscribers of the service. It’s an easy, built-in way to keep in touch with people, if not closely related to you, may share similar research goals nonetheless. If you invite a relative and encourage them to start using Geni, the Family Group is also a great way to show them the ropes and help them adjust to the ins and outs of the service faster. Worth noting that Family Groups allow others access to your account and data, and vice versa–so be careful and make sure you join only a Family Group that has members you know and trust.
Once you are part of a Family Group, you and the other members will be able to share your family trees, family news, reminders, updates, uploaded media and other data with each other. Members will also be able to edit and change private profiles that you manage, whether or not the profile is of a deceased relative. Should you feel the need to remove an individual from your Family Group, you can do so easily with a few clicks; or you can just block them and have them automatically removed from the Family Group, as well.
Collaborators
Collaborators are people who help you with your family history research without being related to you. Working together in Geni is natural within Family Groups, as there is a common goal; but what if you want to join forces because of a common work ethic, or just to help out? When you ask to or confirm someone’s request to be your collaborator, you each give the other permission to view, edit and even merge profiles within both of your family trees. In many cases, this can lead to one shared and co-managed family tree; or even to the discovery of an even larger tree that you and your collaborator may be part of.
You can have as many collaborators as you like, and you can stop collaborations at any time. Because collaborators aren’t necessarily family, this feature maintains your privacy. Collaborators can’t see or manage private profiles (of minors and other living relatives in your family tree), and unlike Family Group members, they don’t receive updates on your family news stories or your site activities.
Paying for Premium Service
A Geni Pro subscription lasts for one year, and costs $119.40–this price comes out to exactly $9.95 per month, which is affordable and an average fee for what Geni offers. There is no provision for month to month billing.
What's the Verdict on Geni?
Geni Review 2020 – Conclusion
Geni’s commitment to creating a World Family Tree is commendable, and the objective does lay a foundation for healthy collaboration among the service’s subscribers. Community building and collaborative features are Geni’s strengths, and for beginners and genealogy research experts alike, it’s not hard to see how Geni can be a very useful tool and resource. Unlike some family tree-focused services, Geni has an uncluttered interface with user-friendly tools, and is supported by a parent company with a huge archive of records; although a lack of complete GEDCOM file support and no monthly subscription option can be deal breakers for some. It’s a good thing that the service offers a completely free basic account and a free trial, because they will give you a chance to assess Geni and see if what it offers is compatible with the way you go about your genealogy research.
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