Why do we have a "Big Tree"? What is the purpose of it?

NH is 100 years for birth (unless proof of birth shows clear family association, i.e. your mother, father etc AND there is a fee) and 75 years for marriage, death,divorce....outside that range is open access to anyone in records...

Small town libraries are easier to access than cities for records and Judith L has a point cause even then libraries have differing policies for access to even genealogies)...MOST towns freely publish yearly reports available to every citizen that have a section for births, marriage, deaths (but they dont list cause of death in-depth details on anything)

I remember someone telling me that, on tree matches...the person at the TOP of the screen and whos data appears to the LEFT when you pull up comparison IS THE LEAD PERSONS PROFILE...but that is definately NOT the case, in a lot of instances....so while you THINK you're own info is the lead profile...it 'ain't necessarily so'. I have yet to figure out WHAT works and what doesn't....does it depend on whether you entered info to about me? Is the person who put in the most words the LEAD? Or is the person who has been on Geni the longest the LEAD, no matter what? It just doesn't make any sense to me...but I tend to over-read instructions, and why do tree matches that are correct in all regards sometimes end up getting you linked to the only non-zombie in a crowd, or the only public person in a family of privatized profiles?

Kathleen...the point you bring up is valid...and I've complained before about the same thing...you merge (or tree match link) with someone whose info agrees (you agree to cooperate and blend data) and then your name appears NOWHERE on the profile.....and sometimes you can't edit it either...but you could before...AND requests to co=manage that profile fall on deaf ears or the person no longer is on Geni...so you are left between a rock and a hard place.....You could always create a duplicate and hope that you create a tree match and re-merge it back to your new entry...but why should you have to play such a game of cat-n-mouse...

Just when I get all warm and fuzy about Geni some topic comes up that rankles my fur again.....

AND the last part has NOTHING to do with the 'privacy rules' since it also happens in the 1700's, 1600's etc..

When two profiles merge, the managers of each should both be listed as managers of the merged profile (though it's true only one of them can be the "primary manager"), and no data is lost -- whatever cannot be merged appears in the "Resolve Conflicting Data" table.

I work for Geni and can investigate such oddities.. the next time you see something like that, send me an Inbox message right away with the URL / address of the profile that was merged, and I'll take a look.

I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN carfull when merging - I read double read and triple read before i merge - If in doubt i try and open the profile requesting a merge to read and look around the tree to see if it 'fits'

i do not know how many time i refused to merge only to have it come back up

one night in late March or early april 2010 I spent 8 hours refusing to merge profiles on the smith-hinckley line only to have them stacked back up to be re-merged - I finally gave up and said the _ _ _ _ with it and left for 2 weeks only to find a bigger mess than when i left - - thats when i finally got one GENI rep to tell me the only solution was to follow every yellow triangle and blue dot to either refuse the merge and unmerge all wrongly merged profiles - and to reclaim my original profiles which the deemed impossible - but I had by the end of April 2010 except for one family and 3 or 4 out of their family of s childred when i was coakex back into collboration - - but i can guarantee you because of it I became the "most hated" person on GENI but the Smith-Hinckley line was back in proper order - or for the most part

Its the past its over and done with - but it still hurts....

I have that happen to me all the time.I have a profile that i turn down and i will come back later and there it is again waiting to merge with a profile of mine.And again i turn it down because the profile is wrong.now is that the curator doing that or randomly generated?

Tawny - That's very good question! Bet it's the system! But really don't know! Judy

Mike...they aren't....or I wouldn't have to ASK to be included......maybe that has been resolved by enhancements AFTER the event, but I still have profiles out there (even IF I can access them) where I AM NOT listed as co-manager........and I have -0- in data conflicts now.

I'm not doubting what you're telling me, I'm just sayin' that's not the way the software is supposed to work and if you can point out an example within 4 days of it happening, there's a very good chance I can figure out what's going wrong.

Ii'ts not my purpose at all to have a Big Tree and my own experience, as many as others, it has been seeing my profiles messed up, my management being hold by another who doesn't let me actualize my own blood direct line relatives. I rather stay out of a tree, welcoming anyone who really is my relative. Not because I'm despectful about others not being so but, to avoid the complx errors and messes coming out with merges.
It wouldd be wise that those of you who want to build a Big Tree do so but, without invading the ones who like me, prefer to work her or his own way.

Sincerely,

Sylvia

Sylvia : I agree. If most want a big te , knock yourself out but leave the rest of us alone. By leaving us alone, to make up our own minds , you might in the end get a joiner.

@sylvia, if you invite relatives then eventually you will almost certainly become part of the Big Tree because your relaives will invite their relatives and they will ask their relatives and so on ad infinitum. If you don't wish to belong to the big tree then Geni is probably not the site for you. Having said that, you should give it a chance because the problems and messes of the big tree are becoming resolved now that we have curators to tidy up.

I have to admit, having seen many with no sources, I do kind of regret having merged a line. On the other hand, at least I got to see the mistakes, and learn from them.

BTw, that's some handle, your Majesty.

There might be some zombies or outstanding merges getting in the way of a good path, Corey. Can you post some URL's where it seems blocked to you?

Throw me some links Corey! There's a revision history that anyone can see -- but if the tree if broken erroneously of course we need to fix it.

n.b. 80 curators and we end up divvying the work. So in the past few weeks I've been in Colonial Connecticut mostly, even though my tree goes back quite clearly to John of Gaunt.

This profile
Humphrey de Bohun III (II)

is managed by
Private User

One of the "private" Adeliza's was a "claimed historic profile" i.e., a not serious person on the site. I used "report this profile" to ask Customer Service at Geni to fix that.

Marvin Caulk, (C)

You have some dups of Adeliza (probably inherited from orphans and zombies). Would you be kind enough to take a look, maybe merge on up for Corey?

http://www.geni.com/search?search_type=people&names=adeliza+of+...

Angus Wood-Salomon

Maybe if you can get the "unknown" managed Humphrey 3rd Baron De Bohun merged up with all the others / the Master Profile, that would also help mend the tree?

curators can change the private profiles to shared, give us links and we'll try our best to fix

do you have your tree set to "direct ancestors only" ? that makes tree view much cleaner

just means theres profiles that need merging, in tree view it doesnt always show the master profile line but often shows the unmerged lines instead. we're working on it. Privatised profiles are White boxes that you cant open. some master profiles are locked to prevent people sabotaging them, but you can still initiate merges into them

Dear Terry:

You said so, if I invite relatives and I'm free of allowing merging others or just unlinking their other relatives that are not mine. Usually they happen to be my relatives to but, there are people not being relative, that have merged my profiles with their and even having a curator, I see in my relatives profiles they appear married twice with the same woman, being son or father of their ownselves and even having three or four diferent parents. So curators do not solve the problem. It's only a matter of having respect to each other and everyone has the right to be in Geni, not only because you want to build a big Tree.
Best regards,

Sylvia.

Corey, I've done a bit of work in the area you mentioned. It's not all clear but I think you'll see progress. Just keep us curators posted if an area gets messy and it will get tidied up.

No one is removed as a manager UNLESS they PERSONALLY relinquish it - just just get "bumped off' of being "Primary manager" if you see the 'edit feature' ou still have manager rights -

I dione that to alot of my profiles in april 2010 after being so discouraged with what happened to the Smith-Hinckley line I was tired of the bickering, snide remarks, and being called a lair... like i said i was all but ready to give up what my real purpose was all about to share and preserve my research work

Jason Scott Wills up above you say: "curators can change the private profiles to shared, give us links and we'll try our best to fix" -- I thought we were promised our private profiles would not be merged without permission (by us or someone in our extended family group)-- are you saying this is only true of SOME curators, but others can and will go ahead and merge them??

Slyvia and others - you can not help to be in the "Big tree' once you invite another even if it s a family member - as they will invite others and you have no control over whom they invite in or colloborate with -

collobroation is the same why as the person you colloborate may have 1 person or 100+ persons they collobratie with - this is what happened to me with the Smith-hinckley line and once you profile is tied to the big tree it can not be deleted - - - you can only spend hours trying to back out of the "bad merge' if thats what you call it - i spent for months and slmost 24/7 doing it as I have stated before the only reward was that I did get most of my original profiles back - the Smith-hinckley line within the areas of rev. john smith married susannah hinckely and their childen and parents and siblings was cleaned up some - - needless to say I rarely go back to that area to my tree to work on it - I do occasionaly when an update comes in on it - just curosity - to see if its still basically correct or fi they are back to mergeing every john Smith and mary smith back together....

Corey and Silvia are both my cousins and I know this because of the Big Tree. Corey's actually a fairly close cousin through the Lakes who are my direct ancestors.

I agree that there are periods of time when the Big Tree can be frustrating due to merges which temporarily disrupt the lineage. There are a lot of people who add duplicate and sometimes erroneous family trees in the historic and especially the noble family trees.

But I have learned far more about my lineage and my ancestors because I am connected to the Big Tree than I would have learned working on my own.

When you find that something has gone wrong with your early ancestors, use the Curator Assistance thread and there is nearly always a curator ready to help. In fact many of us share these early ancestors so we are all invested in correcting the Big Tree and keeping it stable.

Hello Corey, the Gallup family is wonderfully researched thankfully. I have the 2009 Gallup Genealogy if you want me to look anything up for you. I had heard about being a descendant of the Gallups, but until I came to Geni, I did not know exactly how I descended from them. There are tons of us Gallup descendants on Geni.