http://www.geni.comThis site says you can add a tree that you & your family can work on together. They promise privacy & security...still.
What they don't say is they're a beta site...meaning new & full of bugs. With a beta site not even the owners/creators really know what's going to happen. They require beta testers to use their software & report back about issues or bugs. A site like this has no business opening up to the public. But they did.
When I made the mistake of adding our tree there they didn't have all the features I eventually came to know & hate. They say add people but what they don't say is you'll manage them & be responsible for them unless they're alive & you can get them to come in & do it themselves. They say invite people but they give you no way to tell those people when you're inviting them first & foremost pick a new password but then also look around before adding more people...they may already be in there. So you invite people & next thing ya know you got a big mess to clean up.
Then they decided, because they want to build one world tree & prove everybody's related, that they could require us to merge duplicates & trees with total strangers who may or may not be family & clean up their messes too. You can't find out before a merge that you're about to be nailed with a mess...only afterwards.
Here's some more you learn afterwards:
1. You no longer have control over the profiles & memorials you merged...they're co-managed with at least one or more people. If one or both continue to merge it you could end up with a list of co-manager on this one profile or memorial.
2. The people you've invited or decided to collaborate with & the people they've invited or decided to collaborate with...everybody can see it...even if it's a living person who can't be invited to handle their own profile for some reason.
3. People have no etiquette. I dragged a few people in before we ever started merging with total strangers. We had a family forum. Some of us used it. We made group decisions or I worked with people on adding their branches for them. Then we connected with people who would edit living people's profiles just to change a name around...with their spouse there to do it for 'em if they really wanted to. People don't even think to ask a question. So next thing ya know the family you dragged in with you is a lil upset with you thanks to Geni forcing you to merge with total strangers who may or may not be family.
A few merges later & you're no longer working on your family tree with family. You're cleaning up messes. You're doing damage control. You're trying to figure out how to un-merge & go back to a private & secure family tree. But there's no such thing as un-merging. There's no such thing as getting out of the big tree.
At this point you either continue working on their science project or you hand it over to their mafia like beta testers to do it for you. Privacy & security? You can hang that up now. There's no delete button because they don't want you deleting part of their science project. So they tell you that you can't delete profiles & memorials that have been merged. You also can't delete people who only came in once & looked around but didn't set up a new password therefore didn't really create an account.
I decided since they're liars I'd delete my family's personal & private info whether they liked it or not. They tried to ban me from my own family tree but I was still able to delete all but around 3,400 of the people I was responsible for. When I got down to around 3,400 they deleted my account & proved themselves liars yet again. They were telling people if they deleted their accounts things they managed would go to family. When they deleted my account against my wishes, although there was plenty of family there to take them over, the things I managed went to somebody from another country nobody in my family knows. My parents...my great-grandparents...all of 'em. Most of them hadn't been merged with others so they had no right to steal them.
They've been reported to a Gov't agency, the BBB & their host...to say the least. Hopefully between one of them Geni won't be around much longer. If you're still a member there I'd highly recommend you download a GEDCOM file.
