Can I have your help with my merges??

@Mike,
If you use the @ symbol before the person's name, it is recognized that you are talking to that individual, such as M. ♫.

I could use some help with my merge issues too. they seem to be growing at 50 to 60 aday. I am feeling a bit overwelmed

@Myrna,
We have quite a few in common where a third manager needs to take action. I am S-L-O-W-L-Y resending merge requests and slogging my way through them. Hopefully, I'll be able to resolve some of yours as I resolve mine.

@Scott Johnson - thank you Scott - one can not play the game if you do not know what the rules of engagement area - I appreciate your input

@Mike,
No problem. I liked your response earlier this afternoon to Mimi. Very civilized. Not often seen around these parts. You should see some of the other forums.

@Jordan, I understand your feelings. I have what I consider my "real" tree - the ancestors I'm certain of, and become very upset when someone not related screws them up. I'm used to keeping a woman's family name, but all my names have reverted to husband's names. The some men wind up being married to other men (WTF???). Others have the wives' names changed to something else. I know I don't have that many close relatives here, so seeing someone mess up my direct line is quite disconcerting.

@Joel Scott Cognevich: Sorry Joel... but that's utter bollocks.

The use of the maiden name as the last name of the female is a GENEALOGICAL STANDARD.

It has nothing to do with 'what's normal' and everything to do with the split between those of us who are serious genealogical researchers... and others who are, plainly, not.

Ie., the penny ante hobbyists who are a dime a dozen.

Jason P Herbert

@Janice I'm glad someone feels my pain, haha. Yeah the whole maiden name vs. married name thing bothers me, because in my opinion using the maiden name for the profile is a given for anyone serious about genealogy. Seeing all those profiles in my tree mangled in so many ways (names, dates, unconfirmed ancestry etc) drives me crazy, especially when I just keep on getting bombarded with requests from people who want me to merge profiles. I'm thinking of just deleting the entire tree and starting over, with no collaborating until I can find a way to keep collaborators from seriously screwing up my tree.

@Janice, If someone is able to edit your personal profile then you have obviously given them permission to do so or your settings are set to allow this to happen.

You can set this so you and only you can edit your profile. In the right hand corner next to your name for "Settings". Go here and then pick "Permissions" from the column on the left. Make sure the top two permissions are not checked. Keep in mind that "family" means more than you think. You can define your family settings as well. Back to the column on the left. Pick "Family Group". Then you can define your family. I keep mine on "2nd cousins and closer" and "Inlaws to first cousins". This still allows many people into my family but I feel that at least I know the majority of them and they know me.

I agree wholeheartedly with Jordan: can we all make a pact to NOT USE women's married names in the tree? I wish Geni would delete the "maiden name" field so that neophytes wouldn't be led to enter the married name in the other surname field. Unfortunately, I couldn't start over as Jordan has threatened, I've got 30,300 entries that I have personally entered! That's almost 2 year's worth of work!

Every one is a neophyte at sometime.

Thanks, Jordan - I really like the wife's family name for identification.
Joel, thank you for that tip. I know since my genealogy ("fake" lol) goes way, WAY, back, I have to let very distant relatives in who know what they're doing and know who to merge. I still have my own personal genealogy of absolute ancestry in my computer, separate from the merged gedcom I uploaded to this site.
I know you have to take 'leaps of faith' sometimes in tracing back a tree, but I'm just kinda suspicious of all the 1 and 2 thousand year info.
I have a distant cousin who didn't want to collaborate in the 'Big Tree'. He, too, has entered all his info by hand - I think he's been working on it for about 2 years, and since he's retired, he's working on it for hours every day!

@Janice - you're welcome. Also regarding the maiden name thing. Geni also offers settings on your tree to change how you see last name/maidene names. To do this you need to be in your tree. On the bottom of the screen you will see three tabs: Navigate, Go To, Preferences. Pick the Preferences tab. That will then allow you to see three more tabs directly below these tabs: Display, Names, Advanced. Pick the Names tab. Here you can set how you wish to view your name. I have mine set to Maiden name appended in parethesis. That is just my preference. I think what you would like is to have only your maiden name showing. Then you would pick one of the first three. Hope this solves some of you issues with how you see your last name/maiden name. Happy searching......

@Connie - LOL, I think we are all neophytes is some fashion on this website - I don't think "serious genealogical researchers" would be spending their time on a website like Geni. No offense to Geni - I think it is a great tool, but likely not a tool that professionals would be using.

@Joel, thank you again. I clicked through all the different settings after your last post and checked mine for maiden name, so that's taken care of. Now I'm trying to undo some incredibly wrong merges (fathers with sons, other same name family members of different generations, etc.) in my "real" tree.
I have to agree, I doubt professionals would be using geni, but it's fun and food for thought for me, and a source of new reading material (I love history). I know for sure I'm a neophyte with geni - I can't find instructions if they're staring me in the face! lol
Thanks again.

I have been off this discussion for a few days, but noticed Marty's question: "Can we all make a pact to NOT USE women's married names in the tree?"
Like you, Marty, I have entered a similar number of profiles in my personal tree and I am also frustrated by the amateurs that do not know how to use it: Men don't have "maiden names", maiden names (women's family names) are not a substitute for their married names, and vice-versa, etc.
However, having the ability to differentiate by using both married names (married names were not used until the late 1600's, for the most part) and maiden names is a great tool.
I don't think we should stop using them - regardless of the dummies who don't know the difference.

Scott,
so-called "genealogical standards" are utter nonsense (and more often than not derive from more from stuck-upism than any actual content), if only because they are EXTREMELY Anglo-centric, and even then pretty recent. Naming conventions in other countries and cultures are radically different. Not all culture follow the pattern of the woman taking her husband's name, and in MANY countries men DO have "maiden" names, in the sense that this term is used in America.

Geni has been requested numerous times to rename the "maiden name" field to "birth name", you can find no-end of discussions on this topic in the Forum.

Geni has given us the fields to fill in - so if done properly all will work just fine. This is because Geni also gives us the option on how we prefer to view our tree's last names. You can find the "preferences" tab on your tree at the bottom center. From there chose the next tab (names) and then select how you wish to see last names. That should solve the problem for most.

As far as men with maiden names - Edit them and delete the maiden name. I contacted Geni about this previously and to do this you have to edit the profile. Temporarily change the man from male to female. This will reveal the maiden name area and then delete the name in that field. Then change the female back to male and save.

Scott
Of cause does men not have maiden names!!, but I and others with me use it for royal houses fx Wettin, Wittelsbach, Hohenzollern, Oldenburg and so on!! It it maybe not very correct but very nice to have in the profil name!!

Back to the original topic, Mimi, it looks like you are making some progress, from over 600 to just over 500 merge issues in a little less than a week. I'll need to remember to ask for help when I need it :-)

Joel, if you are NOT the only manager of these profiles, or they were not entered by you (i.e. you "inherited" them) how DARE you remove other people's work?? Do your "standards" permit sabotage? Please, this self-centered outlook has NO place in a shared-tree.

Were you a Family Group member of mine, you could for example edit MY profile, and remove the "maiden" name, in this case used to store a previous family name...

@shmuel - thank you for the lecture. I am a "collaborator" and I check with others before editing profiles that I share. Why does everyone jump to conclusions? Think before you speak or accuse other of "sabatage". No we do not collaborate and likely will not. Again thank you for your concern. Why not try suggesting things in a positive manner rather than instead of always going negative?

Perhaps if we've finished accusing each other of crimes against humanity, we can begin helping each other to clean up our trees.

Can anyone suggest a way to fix an entry with dual sets of parents? Usually, when I try to resolve a conflict by choosing the correct parents, I get a message saying "Choosing those parents would split the tree" and the operation fails. And then there are some entries that I have already been able to fix once, but when I go back later there are two sets of parents again. How do I lock the entry once it's fixed, so it can't happen again?

Thanks.

Hi Marty. Its seams like the system is based on cooperation and trust, that all do their best to make a realistic tree. I have met the same problem as you decribes it, but have'nt find any soution.

For few miniute ago I was aware that if you share a profile from your tree
in facebook, all your facebook friends can go in and edit and changes whole your tree, trough the thread. So I will not do that.

Marty, the problem is there can be both parent and spouse connections on a profile. So when you unmerge profiles to separate multiple parents, they can get re-joined again when you merge the profiles to a single spouse. Your best bet is to unmerge profiles with multiple parents, then edit the first name of the profiles with a flag that will let you know which profiles you want to merge, and which profiles should not be merged. Eventually, you will need to resolve the profiles that you do not merge, either by connecting them to different parents, or by removing the connection to the "wrong" spouse.

@Anne Gronvik, I have not heard of that. If they aren't members of Geni, how can they edit anything, especially if the permissions are set for members only and if you allow others to edit your tree?

Its seams for me as if they click in to the thread you share in facebook, htey are like logged in as you ..... :-(

But I am not sure. I will make a test next time one of my facebook friends
are guest in my house.

Martin, it IS possible (and allowable) to "split the tree" despite the warning. But there are several hoops you must jump through first.

1) You will need to be a manager of the profile in question, and there must be no pending merges on that profile.

2) There can only be a single path connecting each of the multiple pairs of parents to the profile you are working on. If you look at the profile (in Profile View) and see, for example, four parents (two men and two women), you'll need to make sure that each of the four parents are not involved in any pending merges themselves. And of course, to complete the merges, you'll first need to be a manager or collaborator for all of the profiles in the pending merge stack. Complete all pending merges for all four parents in Profile View. (Please let me know if I'm talking at too high of a level to understand how to do this).

2) Go back to tree view, click on the little yellow triangle on the profile with multiple parents, click on OK and try to select the correct parents again. If you STILL get the "this would split the tree" error message, then go to step 3).

3) In tree view, click on EDIT, then click on the "Relationships" tab. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of that window and you should see a message that says something like "Retrieving relationships". Wait 15-30 seconds until you se the different sets of parents appear next to a button that says "Remove relationship". Click to remove the incorrect set of parents.

4) Repeat all three of the above steps until it works.

You'll usually find that the reason you cannot remove duplicate parents is because you don't have edit permission for one or more of the profiles involved.

Hopefully I don't have many typos in the above. This stupid Discussion feature doesn't let you go back in and edit after you post your reply.

Dave K.

Dave, I agree with the process as you describe it. The only caution I would voice is to make sure there is at least one connection (either a spouse or a parent) to the profile. If all connections are removed, it will become orphaned, and will be nearly impossible to retrieve to correct.

I have several examples of profiles that are just plain connected wrong in the tree, but I am making an attempt to find the right connections to these profiles, so the owners do not lose these profiles in the sea of orphans.