I would like to communicate to a group of relatives beyond those in my Family Group (4th cousins and closer: 20 people). I would like to communicate with all living descendents of my great-grandfather (426 total, unknown number deceased). The difference in numbers of people should give an idea of the different scope of the problem. Where can I find that option, if available?
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Jeff, Geni Curator I don't think you can send out a mass message beyond your family group. However, you can send direct messages if you're targeting a specific person. One note, sending messages to living descendents of your great grandfather should include 4th cousins and closer - they should be in your family group.
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Virgílio Azuíl Páscoa Machado As I stated above, Family Groups are a severe Geni limitation. Consider my age. My great-grandfather is the 5th great-grandfather of some descendants (second cousins thrice removed) born since the early 90's which will have children of their own soon enough. I don't see, for example, how I can send messages about family reunions, using Geni. Any suggestions?
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Jeff, Geni Curator Second cousins are included in the family group, as are third, and forth by default. So I believe a message directed to your family group should be able to reach the group that you describe. As far as I'm aware, Geni gives you the ability to reach the largest breadth of family members at once of any platform. But any communication across any method is likely a subset of your family - so notification will need to be extended via forwarding of communication and word of mouth. So in any case, you'll be sending the message and asking your relatives to spread the word. In the case of the Geni platform, there has to be some privacy barriers to prevent people from getting unsolicited e-mails from distant relatives... and 4th cousin is pretty distant. This is unlikely to change as privacy is of a greater concern to the users than sending extended messages.
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Virgílio Azuíl Páscoa Machado Jeff, Thank you so much for your message and explanation. I do understand Geni's concerns, commend and respect them. Consider the numbers of my predicament: Family Group (4th cousins and closer: 20 people); descendents of my great-grandfather (426 total, unknown number deceased). I could do an approximate count of the living descendents, but even if half have passed away, I'm left with more than 200, ten times the number in my Family Group (it seems a bit odd to me that having such a large family, my Family Group has only 20 people). The method you suggest (notification will need to be extended via forwarding of communication and word of mouth... sending the message and asking your relatives to spread the word.) is the one that has been used by mailing list. I do have more than 20 email addresses, so no advantage of using Geni there. Do you have any knowledge of this matter having been discussed before? Do you know of any other venue where this can be raised? Maybe some innovative solutions will come to light. What about a option to receive messages concerning a certain tree of from a certain individual? How can we have more opinions and participation in this conversation? Thanks again for trying to be helpful. I do appreciate that. Regards.
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Jeff, Geni Curator I guess I'm confused on how you can have only 20 descendents in your family group (4th cousins and closer), but 426 descendents of your great-grandfather (2nd cousins and closer). Your family group should include descendents of your great-great-great grandfather, unless your only seeing descendents with Geni accounts. I'm not sure if being "removed" is considered an additional step (I didn't think so), but if it were, then you would still cover 2nd cousins twice removed, which should cover 4 generations. Anyway.. I don't believe there is anything I can do to help. :)
You could try posting in the discussion forum - someone might have a better answer. http://www.geni.com/discussions?discussion_type=general
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Virgílio Azuíl Páscoa Machado Jeff, Thanks for you help, kindness and patience. If you are confused by the numbers I quoted, imagine how I feel being a user only since last February, and active only since this past Labor Day Weekend (two weeks ago). I checked again and my Family Group now includes 22 people. I suspect your explanation holds the kee: I'm only seeing in my Family Group people with Geni accounts. They have only been slowly joining since I added them to the family tree during Labor Day Weekend. The number of descendents of my great-grandfather has only increased by one, to 427. It's odd (or there is a reason?) that nobody else participates in this talk. I'll seek clarification and eventually confirmation of your explanation in the discussion forum that you kindly pointed out to me. Thanks again for for generously partaking of your valuable time to try helping me. Warmest regards.
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Geni Support Team Hello Virgilio:
The number of people in your Family Group List will consist of only those that have joined Geni. (http://help.geni.com/entries/21192362-march-27-enhancements-to-family-group)
There is actually an option to send a message to a group. Go to your Inbox (located by clicking on the gray or red box with a number in the top right corner next to your name or http://www.geni.com/threads), click 'Compose', underneath the 'To' section it states 'Add Group' you may choose from 'Immediate Family, Family, Immediate Family of and Descendants of'. In your case, you would choose 'Descendants of', type in your great-grandfather's name, click on his name when it appears and then all of his descendants that are Geni users will appear in the 'To' section.
(Thank you Jeff for trying to assist Virgilio.)
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Virgílio Azuíl Páscoa Machado Hiromimarie, Ah Ah! Thank you so much. Yes, the limitation to those that have joined Geni persists, and I believe it is really the key to the matter. For the record, here are the results: Add Group Family, 22 people (same as Family Group); Add Descendants of (my great-grandfather), 13 people (no current partners). So, on to getting more people to join Geni... :-) Thank you so much for settling this matter and thanks again to Jeff, who gave the right information since the very beginning. He just was unaware of how recent my tree is and therefore how few people have already joined Geni. Glad to be here, giving you guys all this trouble, and being so well taken care of. :-) Warmest regards.
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