Abandoned trees en non responding users

Fred,

I see Projects as solving the collaboration problem.

Start Projects around family lines and make sure a curator can help you load those profiles you don't have access to into the Project.

I've done this successfully with several people. They do the hard work of documenting and getting the line straightened out whilst I serve as "tech assist" to get the profiles in, designated as Master Profiles, etc.

Another advantage of Project Collaboration is that it solves the issue for the future. i.e., someone else has something to add to the profiles but can't gain access ... they join the Family line Project, and there they are.

Thank you, Erica ! This is very helpfull !

Anytime. Feel free to add me as a collaborator to any Project you feel could use the tech help. I'm always glad to learn and this is how I do.

Hi Erica, I've gone across a couple of blogs for GENI related help. But haven't found a suitable response.

I'm a community genealogist, and a fairly new user of GENI. I've build a project, well now we actually have 3 community-level projects and
there's a couple of collaborators/ profiles on each. We've also had each of these individuals who've joined either as collaborators/ profile managers creating their own trees. How do I link/ merge all these tree's together?

Also, the first issue I've come across is multiple duplicates of individual member records which are definitely worth a meger. However, I'm not being able to merge them (they don't even pop-up in my merge-center).

Do I have to be a paid subscriber on GENI to merge? Will it work the same way for any other collaborator or profile manager?

I know my questions are several, but since my community members on GENI are currently growing exponentially without a right direction I would appreciate your guidance.

Welcome Cousin Mahir! It's 15 degrees here in New York City, please *don't* tell me how warm it is where you are. :)

First, I've sent you a request to collaborate. That will give you access to my 550 odd collaborators. So that's my first question: is everyone collaborating with each other? Then you will be able to merge / edit each other's public / deceased profiles.

Which is my second question. Living / private persons can only be edited or merged when you are in the same Family Group. A family group is out to your 4th cousin (horizontally) and up to your 3rd great grandfather (vertically) if set to private / deceased, which is your family's choice. (Above 3rd generation I believe Geni only allows public profiles -- or should:):))

So I suspect the merge issues you are having are because the duplicates are set to private or private / living and you are not outside the Family Group.

Three options then, depending on the nature of the profile:

1. If living, request "add to family group" from the "more actions" menu on the profile.

2. If deceased, request the profile be changed to "public" and ensure the profiles are in the Project and / or collaboration rights with each other (request to collaborate" from the right side of the profile).

These are general rules I suggest you post in your projects to help educate your your community.

I am now "following" your projects so I'll get news and be aware of areas when I may be of tech support or other assistance through my "newsfeed," and if it's all right with you, I'm going to ask a couple of other curators to keep an eye out as well.

We have a curator in fact that makes screencasts. Perhaps your team, as you are learning the application and building your tree, can serve as his laboratory for screencasts that need to be made?

P.S. Once you've merged one profile with another, they bring along their duplicate siblings / parents / spouses and children, and you'll be prompted by Geni to initiate those merges.

So pretty much, once you've merged one set together, you've started the weaving together of the previously unconnected trees.

I didn't answer the question about PRO vs non-PRO.

I went PRO for several reasons:

1. To get rid of annoying ads
2. To better and more easily find "tree matches" (simple search is good but slow and inefficient: it's awesome when it just pops up for you as a match)
3. To be able to correct my *own* mistakes in the tree:> such as cutting off incorrect parents

I have been delighted with results. Frankly it costs about the same as buying a round of coffees for my colleagues and is far more entertaining.

I suggest at least one member of your community group go ahead and buy the PRO membership for the same reasons I suggested above. But it's not necessary, it will just make it easier to correct errors.

BUT -- there is nothing in what you want (one tree) that requires PRO membership at all. It gives you what I said and a few more goodies (larger export, larger tree viewing capabilities, premium gifts to send to auntie, like that ...). Merging is entirely the same.

You more than contribute Fred! If you come across anything you're trying to do that you can't do with your access rights, just request "curator" assistance and we'll be happy to try and sort it out for you.

I have a very good collaboration with some curators !
But isn't it weard that you have to pay to be able to repair your own mistakes ? It seems that the Geni staffmemberss are masochistst and love repairing mistakes of nonpaying contributors . . . . . . . . . (quod non)

LOL it's true. :)

Hi, I just discovered this discussion and found it interesting. I'm enjoying Geni and find that much of the issues you talk about here, I'm learning as I go. BUT, it would really be nice if Geni had some sort of instructions for new users, ongoing tips, if you will, when they first sign up. Not everyone has the patience I have to stick with it and figure it out.

And that brings me to a question I have. Is there a mechanism to deal with people who are non-responsive about merging their profiles or fixing obviously incorrect information? I have several merges and tree conflicts that are just hanging out there. The owners of the tree seem to have just lost interest. I would welcome your thoughts.

For the reason that many new users but also a lot of long ago started users can't find good instructions, I made a project for Dutch users, that is very helpfull. I try to follow and assist the Dutch users to learn the tricks for easy and right editing/correcting their data, relations, images and all what appears. Above that I give advices to research and use my Dutch network to visit archives for all users with Dutch origines who cannot find ancesors because they are not on the internet.

When I find the time for that this summer I will write an instruction in Dutch for our users.

Because I am not a pro user I collaborate with some curators to coorect serious mistakes.

Here is a profile: Private User which I recently went to and it said "Abandoned tree." I clicked on it and it stated that it couldn't find someone to turn the tree over to. There are some duplicates in the tree, which I was trying to fix, so what happens now?

Judy Baumgarten (Kornfeld) and Alice Zoe Marie Knapp If you will post a couple of links to potential merges, someone will take a look and advise you.

http://www.geni.com/merge/compare/6000000014589938622?fsession%5Fid...

http://www.geni.com/merge/compare/6000000014589994697?fsession%5Fid...

http://www.geni.com/merge/compare/6000000014590078266?fsession%5Fid...

http://www.geni.com/merge/compare/6000000014590018461?fsession%5Fid...

Any way these are some of the profiles...

Alice do you see the message:

These profiles are in different trees.

Caution: Merging these profiles will merge their trees and could require merging other duplicate profiles.

That means it's a "standalone" tree. It is not connected to the World Family tree. It cannot be merged unless / until the manager collaborates with a manager who IS in the World Family tree.

So send the other manager a "request to collaborate" from the "actions" menu on their profile.

If they are inactive, report as "abandoned tree."

Erica Howton I did report as "abandoned tree" then I got the message, that there were no other people to turn the tree over to, I do understand it is a stand alone tree and is not connected to the big tree, is there a way of making the trees invisible so if the person who owns the stand alone trees abandons their tree? This way a person doesn't think that there is really someone there when there isn't?

Alice - from your lips to g-d's ears! A future enhancement, perhaps. :)

For now I would "remove the match" so it doesn't keep coming up in your "match center."

That would be grand... Thank you for your help :)

AS THERE ARE NO RELEVANT TREES OR SITES AT PRESENT, I WOULD LIKE TO UNSUBSCRIBE "ABANDONED TREES AND NON RESPONDING USERS"