Monkeys, and CoCoNuts too...I Could Go Bananas

I can imagine Adam and Eve talking about their family tree. It was really a one-way street, all branches and no roots.

I finally got in touch with k_c34, who told me a bit about herself. I'll have to go over that with Grannie. I realized that for some of these people, the folks I grew up with are somewhat legendary. They lived four and five generations back. That makes me old, especially when I read their stories and am jarred by the fact that I used to visit with that person's great-grandfather.

Anyway, my concerns over Geni.com were enhanced over the weekend when Maria started her own tree and invited me to join it. I discovered new weaknesses in Geni's security as a result of the merge of trees. HP got to see what the tree actually looked like while he was here; his comment is under the previous post.

Then he sent a followup email :

ok... i'm looking ALL OVER trying to find that stuff you showed me on Geni that uncle John and Maria posted, but I can't find it. Do I HAVE to create an account to be able to see it and FIX it???? What if I don't WANT an account???

I found the stuff Steve Webel posted and have already emailed him about fixing it, but I can't find the other stuff that uncle John posted and Maria updated with totally incorrect info and info about my minor kids that i DON'T WANT POSTED on the internet for their safety and privacy. what gives??? how do I get to this info that you showed me at your house so I can DELETE / edit it?? Do I need to sign up for an account, is that the only way???

hp

and I replied

You be right. The only way you can make any changes to YOUR information is to sign up on Geni. Then nobody but you can make any edits to your profile. Until that time, depending on the permissions level, anybody you never heard of before can edit your profile as long as they are within 4 generations (default) of you on the tree. Example -- Erin Kun's husband's cousin. After all the disarray that was introduced by the merge, I deleted all of the info for your kids except name and birth order (so they would appear correctly in the tree) and reset the permissions so that I was the only person who could change their info in my tree (I could do that only because I put them there). If they are in somebody else's tree, you have to contact them to make any changes.

You can view the tree without edit permission if somebody issues an invitation to you as a friend.

After seeing what the merge did, I am convinced more than ever that Geni.com is a privacy sieve. In fact, I may start a new tree, and not let anybody join it, simply because once they join, they have the capability of adding to the tree and then merging it; it is no longer under the control of the originator. Better yet, there is GPL genealogy software out there (GRAMPS) which is better than anything Geni is using, and its free, and it stays resident on your own machine or server. You need to have X11 installed to run it via the terminal. GRAMPS was written in Python for Linux but there are releases for Windows, OSX, and BSD; the Windows and OSX versions do not have the support the Linux and BSD versions have. That is why it is better to run it under the Mac terminal in UNIX.

Because of the links via John Hunyadi, there are well over 400 people in my tree now, and a large number of them I have never met. The fact that they would have access to information that they could only otherwise get via a court order is worrisome.

I downloaded a GEDCOM file of my tree, and went looking for a GEDCOM reader. Guess what? GEDCOM is a protocol developed by the LDS for their genealogy searches. I wonder how much of the Geni.com stuff ends up in some LDS database?

I wonder when we see the first embezzlement case come to trial where the embezzler was able to hack an account with privacy question information he got about a very distant relative on Geni.com? Take a look at the people who started Geni.com -- PayPal, among others!!

Unmentioned is the little factoid that once you put something in Geni's database, you may delete it from view, but they have the right to retain the information forever. So, once somebody inserts your private information on the web somewhere, it is no longer private, ever again. Delete keys only hide the information from the person at the keyboard. Sort of like closing your eyes to make the "F" on your report card go away.

Then there are the monkeys. We had a houseful overnight. Kids sleeping everywhere. Kids running everywhere. Kids slamming doors, looking for things to occupy themselves with. I began to think it was payback time. My mind went back to the day when John and I went around Grandpa's barn throwing rocks through the windows just to hear the sound of breaking glass. Nothing malicious, just the delight of tinkling glass. Brought to mind by the slamming of doors. Nothing malicious, just the delight of hearing a big bang. Believe it or not, Grandpa Jim understands. He has also gained a new measure of respect and admiration for his own Grandpa, remembering a quiet man who wore a very sick look on his face that day. My ancestors were indeed remarkable people; I have it relatively (there is that word, again) easy.