Anger at Geni.com

The online American based family tree website Geni (www.geni.com) seems to be having all barrels blasted at it by many of its users following a recent decision to convert its free accounts to a premium based service. The site recently announced a change to its user permissions as follows:

Geni Pro subscribers now have full permission to add on to, edit, and merge profiles in the historical parts of the tree. Non-Pros can no longer add new profiles to the historical tree or merge profiles

Essentially this means that unless you now have a paid for Geni Pro account, you can no longer continue to integrate your research with others or view other people's profiles on the site - a key part to how the site actually operates. Your tree can still be edited, but there are restrictions on how much you can now do - for example, you cannot apparently add profiles earlier than 3rd great grandfather. All a bit 'not cricket' really, with some now claiming to have been duped by the online company.

I first came across Geni at Who Do You Think You Are? Live three years ago, where I remember asking them to explain their funding model, which I could not understand. I even blogged about this lightheartedly at http://scottishancestry.blogspot.com/2008/05/who-do-you-think-you-are-live-report.html where I stated "And it is totally free, which I still don't understand...!". They even gave me a free t-shirt! I think I, like many others, assumed the funding would come from add on products. However, one real beef I had with the site was that it had a very aggressive e-mail policy at the time, to the point where I ended up listing the address as spam in my e-mail programme - not least because I had one or two users demanding equally aggressively that I allow them access to integrate my tree with theirs, which I refused as I had not verified their information.

Recently I was contacted by the site and asked to try the Geni Pro subscription, and even wrote an article about the main tree software, which is very good, for a leading computer magazine. However, it now seems that Geni may have just pulled the rug out from under a substantial part of its customer base, so I feel it only fair to alert anyone who read my piece to be aware of this new controversy.

I'll leave you to evaluate the arguments for yourself - the main Geni announcement on this is available at www.geni.com/blog/geni-pro-just-got-a-whole-lot-better-369661.html#disqus_thread. Reaction from several blogs is also available, most notably Thomas MacEntee's post on Geneabloggers at www.geneabloggers.com/geni-stuck-stupid/ which is a real from-the-heart appraisal from one of the site's previously major supporters. Other reactions are available from Dear Myrtle at http://blog.dearmyrtle.com/2011/08/genicom-didnt-ask-my-opinion.html , and Genea-Musings at www.geneamusings.com/2011/08/geni-pro-just-got-whole-lot-better-but.html

(With thanks to Geneabloggers for flagging it)

Chris