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Geni has a rating of 1.53 stars from 78 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about Geni most frequently mention family tree, free trial, and customer service problems. Geni ranks 22nd among Genealogy sites.
No positive highlights yet
I appreciate Mike, from Geni customer support who helped me correct the mistake on site, quickly. In his communications with me, he was clear, concise, professional, kind and courteous. I appreciate people who make it happen and do it right and have a positive attitude, like Mike from Geni support team. Way to go Mike. Keep up the good work. Sam
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.
I appreciate Mike, from Geni customer support who helped me correct the mistake on site, quickly. In his communications with me, he was clear, concise, professional, kind and courteous. I appreciate people who make it happen and do it right and have a positive attitude, like Mike from Geni support team. Way to go Mike. Keep up the good work.
Sam
I've been connecting with many relatives through Geni and am very pleased with my experience. I started with the free version and upgraded to the Pro version after awhile. I also have a data subscription to My Heritage. I began my research with Ancestry but my grandparents all emigrated from Finland, and Ancestry, while good, didn't have as many Finns on the website. There are many on Geni and My Heritage. It's been rewarding for me!
If you want to build a tree and keep it to yourself, Geni is not a good fit. If you want to create records and are open to corrections from others - or correcting what others have recorded - Geni is great. Different paradigm. Like lego kits vs freestyle.
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.
Very well done website! Cleaner look and better price than any of the other genealogy websites. My only concern is MyHeritage bought the website for the data, but then did not add more servers to keep up with the processing.
I entered geni.com in good faith posting my children's childhood pictures, graduations to date and so on.
Since this time, I have been locked out of my free account, with a message
'You do not have permission to view this page.' when I try to reset my password.
Although I have advised GENI on many occasions now, at their email address of *******@geni.com, I am still locked.
They have allowed me to join again, but I cannot seem to link to any family unless a pay a subscription fee. Yes, it says its free, but it asks for credit card details.
Has this happened to anyone else?
Tip for consumers:
Just be careful, because they allow 'managers' and 'others(?) to take over your account and change your information.
NOT FUN AT ALL!
I am not an employee of Geni, but I really love the program and think it is by far the best tool we have for genealogy. It really pains me to see people who obviously don't know much about Geni, or genealogy, write such negative reviews. If you want to see why Geni is in fact the best program for genealogy, read my blog posts at http://schoenblog.com/?p=712 and http://schoenblog.com/?p=471
I was impressed with the amount of information that you can obtain and share with others on geni. The interface is adequate and the overall website rivals other leading genealogy sites. Customer service is EXTREMELY great.
I thought I came from a very small family. Have no family members to ask, but since I've joined I now have a family of over 30,000 people I'm connected to. I have messaged with distant cousins from all over the world.
I find Geni to be a fast and easy way to build and share my Family tree with my family. They have tons of privacy setting to let you manage your profile and keep profiles of living and underage family private. By default, they do share deceased profiles with the public unless you mark the profile as private. As a non=paying user I find customer service is great along with the group of curators that are always willing to help you with your own profile, merging trees, or correcting tree info. Geni is a One World Tree as in there goal to connect everyone into one tree alone but as any tree building sites, there are some errors. With the ability to collaborate with others, it is not too hard to fix these errors and create a great tree to share and collaborate with your family.
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Create your family tree and invite relatives to share. Search 180 million profiles and discover new ancestors. Share photos, videos and more at Geni.com.
