UPDATE: I rarely visit Geni and that means I don't check my messages more than every few months. I am no longer spending time on the family history and end up with many messages that are not easily handled. HOWEVER, I would still be VERY interested in hearing from CLOSE relatives through the HILL, HANNAN, KANE, LAU CHONG, DeCOSTA, or CARVALHO family branches. Thanks!

See my website, Valeehill, for research updates & biographical entries and my Family History Collection at Flickr for photograph and document albums.

I’ve been interested in my family’s history since childhood but didn’t get serious about exploring it until 1997. I imported a GEDCOM to Geni the first day that feature was available. The tree contained nearly 12,000 individuals at that point, which resulted in many hundreds of people shown as living that were not. I’ve taken care of most of those “zombies”; yet many remain to be dealt with.

For the most part, I do not do merges when the facts are vague or conflicting. I prefer to leave merging up to those who have more knowledge of that individual. My preference is to concentrate on the profiles of those of whom I am more closely related or have personally researched. I’ve been relinquishing the profile management of people I currently show no relationship to, most profiles prior to the 18th century, and almost all famous profiles. I feel there are enough knowledgeable Geni Members interested in managing them.

My current Geni plan:

* Continue relinquishing the management of profiles to those more closely related and/or interested*

• Continue merging the profiles of those individuals related more closely to me.
• Continue removing unrelated matches.
• Adding profile photos to as many individuals as possible.
• Adding data for which I have a reliable source.
• Cleaning up timelines.
• Adding documents and text sources to support my data.
• Manage Geni and my personal database concurrently.

My current Geni goal:

• Find and collaborate with motivated cousins.
• Have the profiles I manage be as detailed and accurate as possible.
• Steer clear of most discussions and concentrate on the history.