Hi, last weekend, I was messaged by a person who wanted to merge trees with me. I said no, although we then had a friendly enough exchange. I live in Europe. Next morning, I awoke to find the guy had created profiles for family members who were alive, but marked them as deceased, which of course created a loophole for him to create the profiles in the first place. He simply looked up my father's obit online and started creating profiles. I find this is a gross breach of privacy. The person's name is Dimitri Vulis. He apparently has his hand in hundreds of family trees on Geni. Also, a guy named Alek Jakobowicz altered my grandfather's profile, adding details about his birth place. I don't understand what moves people to get involved with peoples' private lives in this way. I started my tree here last year with the simple interest of searching backwards for ancestors. I did not include living family members (sisters, cousins, nephews and nieces) because I feel this is something private. Why would I create online profiles for people without their permission? Yet, Mr. Vulis did exactly that. How am I to know that his intentions are purely innocent? I was of the understanding that only people who related within 4th cousin relation (which is quite remote, btw!) can create profiles for family members. I believe that by marking the status as deceased, Mr. Vulis created a loophole to go to people's trees and create profiles where none existed. Your website has too many such loopholes!! Because of this, I was moved to delete all of the profiles he created after taking over management of them and insisting that he remove himself as co-manager, which he did. Although he apologized for invading my family's privacy, I am still feeling rather alarmed about this situation, and I will be deleting my account shortly. This is not okay. I am very angry.
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8 comments
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Carol Werbow I would like to note that the person I mentioned above is named Josefowicz, not Jacobowicz. Perhaps these people mean no harm, but I find the attention to my family intrusive and not welcome.
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Jeroen M.W. van Dijk Please contact a curator about this kind problems. Normally always someone is online of us.
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Jeroen M.W. van Dijk Every one has the right to add profiles in the shared tree. We are all related to each other, by law or by blood.
And on Geni we work on our family tree. We work to gether as that we get us further. Working alone is faster, but with working to gether we get further.
Of course if someone is working in an isolated tree that is another situation. If that is the case then let me or any other curator know. Very likely there is a curator that speaks your native language and lives in the your timezone.
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Lilija DAMIJONAITĖ Sveiki,
Mano GENI medyje prisijungė Mickų giminės medis. Aš to nenoriu. prašau panaikinti su manimi nesusietus žmones, t.y. Jonas Mickus, Vida Girniukaitienė, Ringaudas Mickus, Anelė Mickienė.
Ačiū
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Lilija DAMIJONAITĖ Hello,
My GENI tree joined the Mickus tree family. I dont want that. I ask you to remove unrelated to me : Jonas Mickus, Vida Girniukaitienė, Rimgaudas Mickus,Anelė Mickiene.
Thank you
Lilija
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Jeroen M.W. van Dijk Let see if I can be of help for lilija, but please, please do not post requests like this on this place. This forum for bugs and not the place for stuff that needs quick response or quick quick response is wished or wanted.
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Dana Helen Pesola I am reporting this 'bug' here because I have no other way to access your staff. You have allowed outsiders to access our private trees, which I understood to be "private" and only accessed by invited family members. Someone is altering my known family data, changing my Grandfather's name, birth year, birth place. They have changed data on other family members and have added a multitude of profiles to my tree without my permission. My tree is now a mess and I have no way to contact Geni to get that removed. Many many people in your forum have the exact same complaint. You need to address this, please. Thank you.
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Bjørn P. Brox Geni is not a site for individual trees, - from day one the goal has been a common world tree where everyone work together building it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-QS5G64gcI
https://www.geni.com/worldfamilytree/learn-more
Dana, - within your own family group there are as many as 99 other users and it would be natural that you does not know them all. The profiles they are adding and editing might even be closer relatives or in-laws from their point than yours, so you are the stranger in their tree if you want to use that term.
The examples of edits I found was for example done by the wife's great nephew of the profile.
These "strangers" might even have better sources than you, so I suggest you contact those who are dong these changes to compare sources and agree what is the most correct information. If you click their name in the revisions you get to their profiles you will find a send message there.
For public profiles you can even start a public discussion to get help from the rest of the world if you need helt på find correct information.
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