I've been on Geni.com for a long time and like the clarity and simplicity of the platform. However, I have now done a DNA test, which is through Geni, but with MyHeritage. The test results are available on MyHeritage. but in order to import them to Geni, I have to first create a new account on familytreedna.com. I then have to link my MyHeritage data to that account. I then have to link that FTDAN account to my Geni account (all as per instructions on Geni). I can see the data on MyHeritage. On FTDNA it still does not show up. My understanding is that Geni is owned by MyHeritage. So why is this such a complicated process? It seems that MyHeritage is slowly but surely making us shift to their main site and I am beginning to ask myself whether in the long term, Geni.com is actually doomed, as it does not really provide any of the research tools that MyHeritage offers and has a lot fewer profiles than MyHeritage, thus fewer matches, unless one pays MyHeritage for a data subscription. I'd prefer to stay with Geni, and have as little as possible to do with MyHeritage, as I find their platform user-unfriendly and unaesthetic but I think Geni is progressively becoming less inefficient. So I am beginning to wonder why would I continue on Geni, rather than transfer everything to MyHeritage? Can someone convince me to stay on Geni.com? Can someone then explain how best to manage it so that I don't find myself constantly being connected through to MyHeritage? Alternatively, is there an easy way to shift all the data to MyHeritage, including photo's, stories, sources etc (I think gedcom files don't include anything except the core data)? Apologies for the rant. I'm not a pro genealogist and want to spend the time well, rather than being bogged down by the technology.
1 comment
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Job Waterreus There is a big difference between a site like Geni where you work together with other users to build a common Big World Tree and a site like MyHeritage (MH) where you build your own tree. That alone could be a good reason to stay with Geni.
I agree transferring DNA data from MH to Geni is cumbersome, but I hope they will streamline that in the future.
You can easily ignore references to MH if you do not want to pay for a data subscription (much of that info is available for free, but it takes more effort to find those free sources).
If you are a paying MH user or if you are a free guest user on a paid MH account you can see and confirm matches with MH trees (but be aware there are many trees without sources and many of those trees have mistakes)
Also if you are a basic user you can find profiles managed by your collaborators on the Geni search screen without hitting a pay wall, so if you are a basic user please collaborate with others working in the same part of the tree. That will also make it much easier to find and merge duplicate profiles.
I don't think you can easily transfer all your data to MH.
The main data can be transferred using GEDCOM (you can do a download from any profile you created), but you probably are also a manager of profiles you did not create so that makes it a bit more complicated. Also there is a limit on the number of profiles you can export, so it could be you would have to do multiple downloads and combine them. Depending on the number of profiles it could be you would need a paid MH account if you wanted to upload all the profiles you manage on Geni to MH.
For some additional data you may look at https://www.geni.com/account_settings/download_activity to see your activity on Geni (there may be profiles you worked on that you do not manage and those could be found using this info).
If you manage projects you may want to look at SmartCopy to download profile information for project profiles.
But still you would probably need to transfer at least some info by hand, because it is not in the downloads.
Also if you need multiple GEDCOM files you would nee a program to combine them without duplicating info.
Be aware that a GEDCOM download could have problems because of tree- and/or data conflicts and there also could be duplicate profiles in it.