GENI IS A TOTAL MESS

Yes I agree with you Leon I have the same problem

Private and Deon GH Botha b1c7d1e8f1g1h4i5j1k2, - the answer is collaboration, not a question of being Pro or not.

Geni's main goal is a world tree where people collaborate to build and correct it. Pro users have extended rights to merge and partly edit all public profiles.

If you start collaboration with one of the profile managers of the profiles you want access to you will actually have better access than Pro, not collaborating users, and you don't have their limitations either like editing fields that is not under revision control, except on cutting connections which will split the tree, but any collaborating Pro user or curator can help with that, - if asked.
You don't want to go back to the access rights you had before the latest major changes in November, because basic users did not have access to merge profiles at all then, and could add maximum 100 profiles.
Today you have full access and no limits, - if you collaborate..

You find the option to start collaboration in the Actions menu of a user profile.

As a newcomer I also find that I am not sure whether to believe some of the information given on certain branches of my various family trees. I have recently been overwhelmed with information that I am descended from both early European and English royalty, and while this would obviously be wonderful news I do have my doubts about some of the connections made. Surely when it comes to such revelations the person/s who provide such information should be compelled to state their source/s when posting these. I have been put in an embarrassing situation when I followed an arrowed line to a royal king with the intention of finding out my relationship to him and then to discover that it was published on the news update, and which I am unable to remove.

Remove the checkmark on: [x] Find a relationship to a popular profile http://www.geni.com/account_settings/recent_activity/
and [x] Let users see when I've viewed a profile (Recently Viewed By profile module) in http://www.geni.com/account_settings/permissions/

@Leon Van Schalkwyk, I have not tried the pro can do a 14 day trial for free but they want credit card details - too scared once bitten twice shy. @Gideon Hendrik Botha. Leon is my cousin too so I want to combine the duplicates but looks like none of us is able to, apparently i have 2 pages now and i cant even combine myself.

Private, if you want to merge duplicates and one or both of them are private profiles you have to invite each other to family group to get access. Being Pro would not help.

Private
Regardless of any other short comings that Geni may suffer from they are not criminals.
Make use of the 14-day trial just make sure you cancel it before the 14 days are over (actually they won't invoice you until 15 days, but make sure you know how to cancel before on the day to avoid a panic).

Private
You are expressing concerns about several different aspects of Geni and blaming them all on a cash grab.

Problems with people "mucking up" your earlier work will not be solved by paying for a PRO membership.

Private User
Don't believe everything you find on Geni but don't assume that just because a link is fantastic it is not true.

The biggest problem with the older parts of the tree is that any "evidence" is open to interpretation and often the only "evidence" is documents written hundreds of years after the people involved had died.

Statistically every European caucasian is a descendant of Charlemange so statistically thru him everyone is a royal. But then there is a saying about statistics and lies. :)

It would be nice if every Geni user uploaded scanned copies of original documents for every single profile they created so that we could follow the paths backwards with confidence but how realistic is that hope? Do you do this? I know i don't.
Thousands of profiles (millions?) are no more than just a name and a link to the next generation, not even an intelligent guess as to the year of birth. This lack of courtesy means that when a match is identified you may need to track a family for 3 or 4 generations trying to find a date recorded before you have any idea if the two people being compared were even born in the same century.

The largest gap between BASIC and PRO users in my opinion is the firewall that blocks the links on the Search function results.

Alex, thank you for your explanation. I do agree that it would be impossible to verify every generation listed the further one goes back on one's tree. I am mainly referring to listings of more recent centuries where I would assume that families were more documented, especially those of royal descent. I am aware of the importance that the proof is in the documentation, but as I am not affiliated with any archive I do not upload any documents. Are Geni connected to any archives to verify any of the information which may be queried? Any family tree information I post on my family tree on Geni I have verified myself beforehand.

Thank you Bjorn.

Private User, Geni's data subscription services are through MyHeritage using their Smart Matching, Record Matching, Smart Search.

Alex, - search results on profiles managed by collaborators does not have that limitation.
Again: The answer is collaboration...

Bjorn, i know what you mean but i think in this case collaboration is really just a "cheat" to by pass the Geni system.
The fact that you and i are collaborators gives us each access to each others files but have we ever actually _collaborated_ to work on anything? I can't remember but if we have i'm sure it has been thru the discussion forum.
I've actually put my name in the Collaboration Pool (i don't if you are there or not) which means i've collaborated with people that i've never heard of until they send thru a request. They certainly don't "collaborate" with me in the true sense of the word.

The firewall on the search results is very much a marketing tool and does nothing to improve Geni (except maybe raise more cash :) it is a business after all!). I've dropped back to BASIC this month and the search firewall is literally the only difference i have noticed, certainly not worth the $$$ for a yearly membership.

Roni,
When you say:
"Any family tree information I post on my family tree on Geni I have verified myself beforehand."

I believe that you are telling us the truth, but i am sure 99% of Geni users would say the same thing. The fact that there are disagreements between users means that we can't all be correct.
If you don't likst your sources in your profiles there is no way for anyone to verify your profiles so if one of yours matches someone elses profile but is slightly different and niether has references how are the rest of Geni to decide which is correct?
It is good that you are thinking about sources and good that you research your own but not everyone does and there is not way to tell which is which if you don't put it in the profiles. Lots of users put stuff on Geni then disappear never to be heard of again, were they conscientious researchers or just copy and paste monkeys? Or a mixture? Only their profiles can tell us and if they don't say anything how are we to know?
Having said that i'd like if it was easier to quote sources and it does become very tedious :)

That's my point Alex. I guess the answer is to try and verify the information oneself. I was thrown to find out a family line to English royalty and so would want the information to be correct. I do think that Geni is an excellent research website and I would not have gained this knowledge without it.

Well it's an excellent research website when the data is correct, otherwise it is just an excellent waste of time :)
I'm in a similiar situation to yourself in that i have recently found a connection to European royalty but am unable to confirm it, bastard children, missing generations, conflicting sources and everything written in latin!
Good luck with your research.

Anyway, I see that you are my 25th cousin once removed! :) Good luck to you too.

Allegedly ;)

I think that one factor in this mess may be that of different branches of families losing contact with each other and so divergences in family histories begin to emerge.One tactic is to go to the old fashioned family reunions where you can sort out conflicts of information plus to have all the genealogical tech heads to link up their email addresses and invites to each others family trees which could help in this case.