Further as most members may already reaiise Geni;s own PRIVACY policy is both inhibitive and prohibitive. It is difficult, almost impossible to merge correctly trees or profiles which contain private profiles or identities.
I believe that if anyone wants their identities to be private and inaccesible to others than they should not participate in a public engine like Geni because it will prevent any attempt to keep proper records because in merging you do not know what you are comparing with what and in the end in order not to spoil the situation you will have a tendency to abandon and leave work unfinished, which also leads to further difficulties.
In the above matter Mohamad Habrul should attempt the merge himself if he is the expert on Southeast Asian geneology as he seems to portray himself to be and in particular as he is dealing with his own relatives near or far.
For example complications can arise when
(1) Mohamad is also spelt or abbreviated in a multiple of ways like Mohamed, Mohammad, Muhammad, Mohd, Muhd, Md etc etc
(2) Whether the words Bin/Binti which lterally mean SON OF or DAUGHTER OF is inserted as part of the first name, as the middle name or part of the last name and then how spelt and inserted Bin, bin or just B or b and in the case of Binti whether spelt as Binti or Binte or binti or binte or just Bt or bt.
(3) Unfortunately there is no spelling convention and each members enetrs a name spelling it the way he thinks is correct or has learned is the correct way. SHAMSUDDIN can be written as SHAMSHUDDIN or SHAMSHUDDEEN or even as SYAMSYUDDIN following the new spelling style of the now integrated and common spelling adopted for the Malay / Indonesian / Bruneian languages.
Curators please take note. Unless you are familiar with these variations the merger of Southeast Asian profiles best be left with Southeast Asian curators if any OR we establish a rule that names be spelt English style which again may give rise to further objections and complications.
Alas we in the Third World are just beginning to be civilised in the Western way.
