Geni

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Geni, once the best place to create a family tree and collaborate with relatives, is now a place of negativity and harassment. I have been on Geni for 15 years and have been very happy. Recently, things took a drastic change. Myself and many other account managers began receiving messages claiming my family does not exist and relatives were made up. A man, who had no family tree of his own and no relation to anyone, began sending daily messages that he was going to delete these profiles. I contacted Geni, who then defended this behavior by saying that all he wants is proof that your Great Grandfather x 13 is a real person. My response is that I cannot provide a paper trail to a person alive in the year 1500. Geni said that they will delete any profile that does not have proof. We all know that proof cannot always be obtained, especially going back over 500 years. So, the messages continued from this disgruntled member saying that my profiles will be deleted. I am helpless now to really provide anything other than oral history and or collaboration with other members who are also related and then also DNA. I was told that I was in the wrong and GENI now allows profiles to be randomly deleted. I guess aggressive cancel culture is now the way things are done on something as simple as a family history site. The world is changing and being aggressively disrespectful is the now the accepted way. This is not the same genealogy it was a few decades ago. I would not recommend GENI as a site. You are always now under the threat of being deleted if GENI or any hostile member wants you or your family removed.

They are misleading & lying to people to get them to add their info. They don't tell you that you're required to merge duplicates with total strangers who may or may not be family & that once you do you not only lose all control over your tree... you also can't delete it. They banned me from my own tree, deleted my account against my wishes & turned what I managed over to a person from another country nobody in our family knows. They're thieves. Do not add your info here.

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.

This is a RIP OFF company. I bought a subscription and then was unable to view my own grandfathers' records unless I paid more money! I called to complain and the 'Customer Service' Rep told me sorry, you don't get your money back. You have to pay, we are right, too bad lady. Third world country crummy service rip off artists. Stay away. Their 'records' are inaccurate anyway. I paid with Pay Pal and Pay Pal gave me my money back. Shame on your My Heritage.

I was using the free version of geni.com to see if I would want an upgrade to pro, but all of a sudden it stopped working, a major disappointment. I cleared my cookies and cache, then tried switching from Safari to Chrome. It still doesn't work! Now I see that it has failed worldwide. MyHeritage has been kept separated from geni.com. Does that mean MyHeritage is fully aware of geni.com's flaws? My condolences to MyHeritage, the lemon owner. To expect anyone to pay $119.40 for something that doesn't work is an insult to their intelligence. Your business model is astounding!
P.S. (added later): Never mind. I just read more of the reviews. It's obvious that the geni lineages are sloppy, inaccurate, poorly curated, and hard to fix. Misinformation in a genealogy renders it a useless waste of effort. Verifying data from the distant past requires dedication, careful documentation, and logical thinking. Splicing together unvetted information invites errors which then propagate. I'll stay with authoritative sources and spend my $119.40 elsewhere.