• Geni

Geni

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Overview

Geni has a rating of 1.5 stars from 78 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about Geni most frequently mention family tree, free trial, and customer service problems. Geni ranks 55th among Genealogy sites.

  • Service
    15
  • Value
    14
  • Shipping
    5
  • Returns
    8
  • Quality
    16
How would you rate Geni?
Top Positive Review

“I entered geni.com in good faith posting my children's...”

SUE L.
9/10/14

I entered geni.com in good faith posting my children's childhood pictures, graduations to date and so on. Since this time, I have been locked out of my free account, with a message 'You do not have permission to view this page.' when I try to reset my password. Although I have advised GENI on many occasions now, at their email address of *******@geni.com, I am still locked. They have allowed me to join again, but I cannot seem to link to any family unless a pay a subscription fee. Yes, it says its free, but it asks for credit card details. Has this happened to anyone else?

Top Critical Review

“NEVER USE IT!”

Yacine B.
7/11/15

This website is fishy as mentioned by several other users, no contact details, no technical assistance, its simply not acceptable. I tried unsuccessfully to amend my privacy setting for more than five months and I lodged several claims on their pseudo 'request' section with zero response. You've been warned, keep away from this site.

Reviews (78)

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family tree (23) john curtis (1)
Thumbnail of user davidr198
California
1 review
68 helpful votes
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October 9th, 2015

Geni.com is very adept at privacy violating, and sends out tons of spam...

I will NOT be fixing any errors, nor will I be approving any merges any more...
I will just be standing by and watching 43 years of Genealogy research just fall apart, because Geni says they own my tree now, and allow anyone (except myself) to edit (or worse, delete) my data...

I feel completely violated by Geni, especially when I get 400 emails in the last 3 years that say "A Geni profile you manage has been deleted"... no permission request from the deleter, just a deletion... Including my son getting deleted by someone who lives in India, and has no conceivable relationship to me going back thousands of years... And a cousin deleting 37 names because he was angry that I posted maiden names of DEAD females...

Also, I NEVER asked, (nor gave permission) to be merged into the Giant tree...
(I DON'T care... and don't need to know if I am related to Jesus by a convoluted path of 200 marriages...)

One of their curators plagiarized my entire tree...
Another of your volunteer curators (who has a shill review on this site) has told me to "just deal with it" and that it's "all part of collaboration"...

The physical address listed for Geni is a Private P. O. Box, I know, I live not far from that address... also, beware of "shill" reviews on this site...

Thanks Geni.com, for ruining a 43 year long hobby...

Thumbnail of user mikeb1159
Florida
16 reviews
17 helpful votes
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July 5th, 2022

Been using Geni.com for months. Able to access photos no problem. Now it is telling me I have to log in. Log in and all it does is ask me to pay for geni premium site, $140 a year. Can't even access people on search results on new computer. Wants me to pay for premium. Over and over and over. All it will do is ask me to pay for premium site. FREE MY $#*!!

Went back to phone, where I have been using site for nearly a year, and now it is asking me to pay for premium to access photos. So far, I can still access ancestors' profile, but for how long? Keep getting "start free trial" "only $140 a year". Site is useless now. All they want is MONEY, MONEY, MONEY!

USED TO BE A GOOD SOURCE FOR RESEARCHING FAMILY TREE. RECOMMENDED IT TO SEVERAL PEOPLE OVER THE PAST YEAR. NO MORE!

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Thumbnail of user michaels1934
Michael S. – Geni Rep

Mike, nothing changed. Photos are still free on Geni. Search has always been a paid feature. If you can't log in, did you try resetting your password?

Thumbnail of user johnnyd2
Nevada
1 review
30 helpful votes
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October 28th, 2010

This website uses deceptive practice to get you to enter information. They then attempt to wrest control of the information from you. If you complain as i di, they suspend your account, and then use your own account to delete the complaints you made, thus giving the appearance you yourself deleted them, as if they were resolved. They then refuse to return or delete any information you have added such as personal family photos, and documents, and give your account to one of their stooges who now controls not only all the branches of the tree you may have laboriously added, but also your private and personal information. Beware of this outift! I received a request to merge, complained about its deceptive nature, one day later exactly not only had my account suspended as retaliation for complaining, but my account is now being used by someone i don't know to manage private family material. These people are the worst sort, avoid them at all costs and by all means google them before you join.

Thumbnail of user wouterd8
Belgium
1 review
6 helpful votes
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December 6th, 2020

I like the ideas of collaboration and merging: everyone's unique: one person has only one profile. I'm using it since 2011 and for me it offers more then the more expensive alternatives.

Thumbnail of user liliths4
South Africa
1 review
4 helpful votes
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May 25th, 2022

I tried the free trial to see if I wanted to join and money was taken from my account. It's been a month and the money has not been refunded. They keep closing my ticket as "solved".

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Thumbnail of user michaels1934
Michael S. – Geni Rep

Lilith, as was explained to you by our Customer Service associate, when you started a free trial on Geni your credit card was authorized (not charged) US$1.00 to verify that the card was valid. The authorization never becomes a charge and takes no money from your account. You cancelled the trial before it ended, so you were never charged anything by Geni. You can contact your bank to verify this.

Thumbnail of user wi9532
GB
1 review
45 helpful votes
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July 3rd, 2017

MY TREE WAS ALSO STOLEN WITHOUT ASKING. And how I found out was through === ALL other sites sending me ALL of my pictures that only I had even pictures of my 2 brothers that died in the 30's and telling me that they had a match. I had been doing my tree for over 15 yrs. And it cost me a fortune and without asking they got all of my information for nothing. It completely destroyed me and I have never been on the site since.

Tip for consumers:
do not use it at all

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Thumbnail of user stenf2
Denmark
1 review
32 helpful votes
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July 26th, 2017

Too exepensive. They kidnap the data of millions of people to make a profit, who will pay 120 dollars for a view of the family tree each year. Stay away people.

Thumbnail of user lorim96
Indiana
2 reviews
10 helpful votes
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March 14th, 2022

I just deleted my subscription. Unfortunately I should have done my homework prior to giving my billing info there. I'll now have to put a stop to any future billing as I'm not even able to make edits on my family tree so what leads me to believe that they won't bill me again? I had put in birth info that was incorrect but tried to change it and nothing allowed me to do so. If you are allowing misinformation to be added to a name then why do YOU only have the control to not allow the changes to be made? There are so many knots in my family tree now that anyone who chooses to use this site will be mislead and we'll have names added that have nothing to do with our family. It really shouldn't be this hard to make changes. So the cycle will continue on and on with misinformation. I honestly don't believe your curators are digging into each and every geneological background and keeping the it correct. I know your response will be that they can't do this but it's up to the person putting the information in to be correct. I tried that. I've wanted to track my lineage but with the lack of ability even with a PAID subscription it's impossible. I have read through the reviews and we all seem to have the same complaint. I'm sure i'll be given the same reply from Michael as everyone else. You're absolutely right. Geni is not for me. I've resolved that issue on my end by the cancelation. Now if you would resolve from your end and remove what i've inputted as misinformation not intended to remain on my tree that would be nice. But it'll be there forever and the worst part is that i PAID for it.

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Thumbnail of user bridgettep3
New York
1 review
42 helpful votes
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January 3rd, 2018

A Geni user stole my PRIVATE info from a private email correspondence I had with him I NEVER gave him permission to share that info with ANYONE! He used all of it and put it on his GENI page. This man is not related to my family.the info I gave him could NOT be found on a website ANYWHERE, until this shady man stole it!
Geni was notified that this compromises my familys safety, to date several months later, they have done NOTHING to rectify this!
STAY AWAY FROM GENI AND MYHERITAGE! SHADY COMPANY, THAT DOESNT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT YOUR PRIVACY!

Thumbnail of user molliec43
Idaho
1 review
2 helpful votes
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January 20th, 2023

These fools contacted me using my dead mother, but saying that she was about to be 85 years old! They don't even know that she's gone! Wow! Idiots. Would NEVER USE. THIS IS PROBABLY THE EXTREMISTS.

Thumbnail of user michaels1934
Michael S. – Geni Rep

The family trees on Geni are built and maintained by our users; we do not automatically mark profiles deceased, that would be up to the person who built and maintains the tree. Our condolences on the passing of your mother; if you would like to email us at privacy@geni.com we can mark the profile deceased and/or remove any information about you and your family that you no longer want on Geni.

Thumbnail of user nunyab13
Maryland
1 review
35 helpful votes
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December 5th, 2014

The information published on this site is wrong and suspected of participating in SCAMS that targets SENIOR CITIZENS. Attempts to contact the web admin were impossible.

Quality
Thumbnail of user martb27
Canada
1 review
32 helpful votes
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August 24th, 2016

I am baned from geni.com cant participate in discution cant send receive messages

And all of from the best of some volonteer curator. Custosmer service ist help at all so dont wasted your precious time if you got reported

RHngative blue blood french canadian noble family are not welcome on geni. The only purpose of this site is conect ppl that dont have family ancestry... its a park ride for skyzophrenia enjoy GENI.COM a place you can enjoy Boer descent and bastardry and fictious genealogy and mormon hiding in jewish oligarchy
God is on geni lolll

Thumbnail of user evelyna8
Oregon
1 review
51 helpful votes
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November 28th, 2015

When I first joined Geni it was a great online family tree management tool. But then they either sold to or merged with MyHeritage. Even tho I paid what to me was lot of money to be a Geni Pro Customer, I find it's now only a collection tank of your and my family research which THEY now capitalize on by charging us extra fees to use one another's info! Yes, I can do research through Geni... but then to view the info (yours) they say is there, I need to sign up and pay a second hefty fee to MyHeritage to view it! If I do as they want, I'm then paying more than twice what other similar online family tree services charge! Sad to say I now see Geni as a costly "hook" (which WE ironically pay to be hooked on) so they can reel us in to MyHeritage and be charged again (the same amount too) for a service we already paid for!

Even tho I enjoy access to their World Tree, I cannot afford both accounts to do research I'm already entitled access to through one. Because I consider what they're doing is a form of usury... I regret I will NOT be continuing with GENI and will pay my fees to another service... and it WON'T be MyHeritage!.

By the way... if you're serious about being part of a world tree, AND ABLE TO FREELY RESOURCE ITS INFORMATION, you might want to look into wikitree.com. They're building a FREE world tree. It's nothing fancy... but at least you're able to research AND freely share info.

Good luck! I wish you well in building your family tree and research info.

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Thumbnail of user arcadiod
Canada
2 reviews
21 helpful votes
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April 9th, 2018

Have never see such a bad website in all of the years I have been using the web. Terreble set up, can do anything right with it.

Thumbnail of user terryo120
Minnesota
2 reviews
6 helpful votes
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October 1st, 2020

Stick with Wikitree for this sort of tree. Or Ancestry or a PC or Mac based tree like RootsMagic. After I added my GEDCOM to Geni, there were so many issues to deal with, and I accidently added my exwife's info which was on my GEDCOM. Once it is added, it is there for good. You can disconnect someone, but you are told you are "splitting the tree." Then you get merged with a tree that is rampant with misinformation. I have worked hard to correct trees that are just wrong when I see them, and now MY tree on Geni is merged into these trees that are just wrong. I can disconnect from the wrong ancestors, but it becomes a big mess when 30 other people are saying that the tree goes in another direction than what you are saying. On wikitree they are good at requiring source information, and they keep tree management down to a single person, so if you have an issue with something, you are only trying to convince one person that something needs to change, and you can provide one person with a source to prove that a change needs to be made. I just contacted a "curator" for an ancestor who mysteriously has a middle initial on Geni. He has no middle initial, he was born in 1610 in England, and there are no sources to support any such thing. The "curator" asked me if I contacted the other managers of the profile, which is 27 people, and that maybe one of them knows something. Sorry, I am not doing that, honey, you are the curator, so curate! Don't upload a GEDCOM to Geni. You will be sorry you did.

Thumbnail of user sandrak192
Australia
1 review
13 helpful votes
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May 12th, 2019

Am unable to cancel my so called free trial. Keep telling me to click on "Make Changes to Your Geni Pro Subscription" but there is no button!

Thumbnail of user michaels1934
Michael S. – Geni Rep

Sandra, it's possible you're not actually on the Free Trial, then. (The Geni "Basic" account is completely free). Please email subscriptions@geni.com and we'll be sure to take care of this for you.

Thumbnail of user dans71
Washington
1 review
37 helpful votes
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August 9th, 2013

BEWARE!
The "2 week free trial" of Geni Pro is actually only 13 days. You will be charged on the 14th day at 12:01am.

Thumbnail of user sam2152
California
1 review
31 helpful votes
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July 7th, 2013

I first joined geni.com with a Pro membership paid monthly but they charged for a full year up front. After much complaining, they agreed to 3 months which is the length of time I wanted to use it as a trial. This was in 2011. I'll try to keep this simple.
PROS
-Great help as far as interacting with other family researchers and references to other web sites for documents.
-If you hit a block, you can see what others have but DO NOT add to your tree until you've checked the source! It was helpful to me when the family moved and someone else had the name of the city and country of where they came from. I searched that city and found some documents.
CONS
-No quality control. NONE! You can put whatever you want on that tree. Someone else had entered a family member's information incorrectly and when I brought it to their attention they were reluctant to change it. I told them that I knew this person in life and even had documents. They didn't want to see documents. After much discussion and e-mailing that person's moderator, they changed it (but I could have been lying; they didn't check)
-When I joined, you could not upload trees in any format (such as gedcom). I had to enter each person individually.
-Not user friendly. Difficult to navigate.
-Married women appear with their married name with maiden name in parenthesis. This was a bit confusing and different than most genealogy programs.
-If you try to delete information, it pops right back. When I asked about this I was told "a distant relative put that information up after I took it down." The moderator name was listed and when I followed their line, they were not related.
The moderator of a person on the tree is first person to add it. I may be more closely related but the first one to enter has complete control. If 2 people should be merged, it is up to the moderator to determine what information stays attached to that person or what is deleted.
I have discontinued my paid membership but stay on their e-mail list just so I can see what they have on my family.
If you see their advertising, the focus is on creating the largest tree, not the most accurate. Sad because the concept is good.

Thumbnail of user let10
Canada
1 review
26 helpful votes
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May 9th, 2019

Honestly, f**k Geni. I'm not even bothered about being polite because i'm mad. Suck on that. (I don't want my review removed so i'm gonna have to censor myself *******@sitejabber PLEASE don't remove my review i need to vent somewhere).

I started building my family tree on Geni a few weeks ago and since then i've been putting many, many hours and a LOT of bloody work into my family tree. I added I would say an odd 300 ancestors in those past weeks. It was a LOT of work. A whole gdamm lot. Then, a day or two after i'm (mostly) finished and i'm admiring my tree that I made on my own, some random lady who i have no bloody idea who she is contacts me and tells me that she modified my tree and that she edited it. What the f***? I blocked her but the damage is done and even after i blocked and reported her, she STILLS messes around in my tree! Like bih tf! I'm so f mad like I know there is a more polite and calm way of describing this but i'm too pissed to be polite sorry.

So long story short, my whole tree, that took me weeks to build, with sweat and almost tears, was messed up overnight by some random af woman. Now when i look at my tree a whole 300 years ish is missing as well as many, MANY ancestors, and instead, their siblings are in there. Like i'm interested in only my direct ancestors, not their siblings or second spouses, yet geni think i effing do. At NO point did Geni or this random woman ask me for my permission for them to modify my tree. They said that it's for the ~global tree~ um no i'm doing this for myself. It's MY tree. I am the one who worked hard on it. I didn't make it to share with random strangers. I should have done it on paper instead but there are so many people to write down that i'm discouraged from doing it. So i guess all my work went down the drain.

So if you wanted to make your own tree on Geni, DONT DO IT SIS. Because some random dude miles away from you is gonna rearrange it and you will be PISSED. Ugh rant over. But even in a calm state of mind my point still stands. Don't build your tree on geni.

Thumbnail of user michaels1934
Michael S. – Geni Rep

Geni is a single, shared, collaborative tree where the goal is to combine all of our users family trees into a single tree of the world. If you build a tree on Geni expecting it to only contain the profiles you add, you are going to be disappointed.

Thumbnail of user staya3
Kansas
1 review
39 helpful votes
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August 4th, 2014

Stay away from this site! I agree with all of the negative comments about this site and have had the same experiences!

Thumbnail of user mc1181
Australia
1 review
2 helpful votes
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May 16th, 2022

Geni does not answer communication unless you pay high fees. Since fees are high this is not an option.

Tip for consumers:
Dont use or if people use expect nothing.

Products used:
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Thumbnail of user michaels1934
Michael S. – Geni Rep

Hi MC, all users are able to create support tickets at help.geni.com although it's true our subscribers get first priority. We also have over 200 volunteer curators and many other power users who are happy to help you, if you want to post to the public discussion "Attention Curators, Please Assist" at https://www.geni.com/discussions/245980

Thumbnail of user genealogye
Indiana
1 review
21 helpful votes
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January 1st, 2019

Entered info that did not present accurately. Tried to undo. You CANNOT. Tried to make contact with geni, you CANNOT.

Tip for consumers:
DON’T EVEN START THIS. CONTROL FREAKS AT THIS COMPANY.

Products used:
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Thumbnail of user michaels1934
Michael S. – Geni Rep

Hi Genealogy E, of course you can edit information that is entered incorrectly. I recommend you ask for help from our volunteer curators at the following discussion: https://www.geni.com/discussions/178003

Thumbnail of user brendap16
Massachusetts
1 review
48 helpful votes
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June 15th, 2015

I am not a member of Geni, and given the huge volume of complaints about this co., I am very pleased not to have joined. For one thing, I would never join anything which does not provide its members (aka customers) with any contact info. No phone #, no email address. That is very suspicious right out of the box - and must be extremely frustrating after you run into a problem and have no way to address it.

I had never heard of Geni.com until today, when I googled a man who is a public figure, and who I know to be alive. In the list of google leads there was one for Geni.com.
I opened it, thinking I might find the piece of info for which I was looking - his exact birthdate. What I found was a short page saying he is dead (he's not), and that his birth date was somewhere between 1915 and 1975. Really? That's a 60 year window! I don't know the day and month of his birthday, but I do know that as of February 2015 he was 69 - so his birth YEAR was either 1946 or 1945. That's a much smaller window than the 60 year range the Geni.com page gives for his birth.
And it said he was dead but that the date of his death is unknown. Probably because he's alive!

This man is Charlie Soap, the widower of Wilma Mankiller, who was the Chief of the Cherokee Nation. She passed away in 2010 from cancer, and her husband is now campaigning to become chief. And by NOW I mean there are new posts today on the Facebook page supporting his election - 'the friends of Charlie Soap'. The election is on June 27,2015 - just 12 days from now.

I know the Geni page was for him and not someone else named Charlie Soap, because it says he was the husband of Wilma Mankiller. She was well known enough for President Obama to speak about her when she died. There is also a Wikipedia page with her entire history, including birth and death dates. She was a public figure. HER HUSBAND IS A PUBLIC FIGURE - so it is not difficult to find accurate information about him. And for the record, he is 69 y/o and appears to be in excellent health. Geni.com's page stating that he is dead is so inaccurate as to be ridiculous.
Does anyone at Geni.com do ANY fact checking? Maybe you need to start!
It seems like putting such inaccurate info out there about a man who is running for the most powerful position in the Cherokee Nation (or about anyone, for that matter) could get your company into legal difficulties.
At the very least, correct that page. And I would like to suggest you send Mr. Soap a personal apology - for 'killing him off' while he's still very much alive. I also suggest that all information should be verified before being printed - about anyone.

Tip for consumers:
Don't! Based on what I have read from those who have used it, it seems like getting involved with this company is a good path to wasting money, being overcharged, and having no way of contacting them to work out those problems. Not to mention that as I have made clear in my review/post above - they don't seem to bother verifying information before printing it or allowing others to publish it on the Geni.com website.

Thumbnail of user scottw53
Virginia
1 review
36 helpful votes
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February 22nd, 2015

The information is not accurate. Most of the family trees have no sources or true documentation.

Thumbnail of user christophers322
Arizona
1 review
22 helpful votes
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July 11th, 2018

One day i check and i am related to someone famous, the next day, its through marriage only. This is happening more and more. THIS SITE IS CRAP!

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Michael S.

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