I notice that they automatically go to My Heritage where my geni username & password do not work.
So to get more info, you're basically telling me to pay into some other site. I am not about to go Pro here or at some other site until someone gives me proof that they are able to link relatives and ancestors from my father's side.
Neither I, my mother when she was alive, nor any of my siblings ever got anywhere finding uncles, aunts, or cousins from our father. We never even knew our paternal grandparents' birthdays. We do not know if any of them ever came here to the United States either.
Even the government has been useless in this quest for information. Our father had battle fatigue what we now call PTSD which made for long term memory loss. It is surprising that he was still able to raise the nine of us. He could be the father but never was able to be a real dad.
Also on the family tree, it will not allow me to place my father's place of birth. He was born in the village of Berescie, Ukraine which is in Galicia, the northwestern part of the Ukraine. At the time he was born, the area still belonged to Poland. The family then moved a short distance to Dubrovitsa where until age twelve, my father grew up.
1939, the Soviets conscripted him for the war never to see his parents or siblings again. He was placed on a German farm to feed back info to the Soviets. Stalin did this with the youth because even at the beginning of the war, Stalin did not trust his ally at that time which was Hitler. It was both strategic and tactical but for Stalin, it was his own paranoic tendencies.
At the same time during the war, our father helped out with the Underground. This was how he was able to witness the atrocities of the concentration camps including the working gas chambers. This also was largely the reason for his battle fatigue. For most of the world, the war ended supposedly in 1945. Our father was then eighteen. The war did not end for men like our father. He could not go back home to family as Stalin used them as war collateral and would of had him killed. This is how thousands of men became displaced citizens without countries to go back to.
1946 saw our father help out with the European Red Cross in the rebuilding of Europe. He was still living on that German farm in Oberussel, Germany. This area of Germany came under the auspices of the American government when the occupation of Germany was being initiated. He was enlisted by the American government into a Labor Service Company #4506 in 1947. For the next three years, our father served in the American army.
Bullets were still flying during the time from 1945 until 1950. Because communication was still so primitive and relied on word of mouth, it was still a dangerous time in which to be there in Europe. These men were trying to keep the candle of freedom alive long after the allies had left Europe. They were protecting not just one country but the world as they had no real homes to go back to. It surprises me that these LSCs never got the recognition that they truly deserve. Some even lost their lives during the occupation. No medals, no awards, and not even a mention of these LSCs in history books was and still is a travesty that shows no justice towards these men.
Our father even did secret work for the government which was never released. Even his record from the LSC was whitewashed from any secret operations. In 1947, our OSS was changing into the CIA and the Mossad was being organized for Israel. I believe our father had a hand in that because of some photos he had which I now possess. They were reconaissance photos and our father was no photographer. He also had military maps of the surrounding area where he was born and a motor pool jeep repair manual. Our father never drove a vehicle. Even after he was discharged by the American army and emigrating to the Untied States, he was still guarding machinery on the way here.
He emigrated out of Hamburg, Germany in 1950 and came in through the military induction port of Port Jefferson, NY not Ellis Island. All of what I am saying here was gleaned from memory flashes that our father sometimes had, coupled with the items I mentioned. Our father's mind was like a jigsaw and even he did not recall his parents' birthdates. Both his parents died there in Dubrovitsa in the mid-sixties and communication by mail abruptly ended as well. None of us are rich to afford trips to these places to check on relative links. I have been trying to find help for some years now with no success.
Unless Geni can provide proof that there is a possibility of finding information about our father's birth family, then you are no better than all the rest of these so-called genealogical sites. I will not pay for something that is not there. All of these sites have nice free trees but the info comes from us. There is nothing so far that we can't find ourselves. Before you, I have gone to Ancestry, Rootweb, and Tribal. So far, it's been the same.