So that's the end of geni.com as far as I'm concerned!

I used to do quite a bit of genealogical work there although it's quite a complex site and I never really learned to navigate it. But I put my family tree up there and I occasionally get emails from people who have found it and are interested in the wider reaches of the family.

A couple of years ago, the site was taken over by a commercial company called MyHeritage. They are located in Israel, I believe. They have tried consistently to get geni.com users to sign up to their paid-for version, but I never wanted to. Until now though, I have been able to bypass their pestering popups.

Not any more. Yesterday I received some fascinating information by email from a man who is researching the Jewish families of Cracow and wanted my help. He sent me what he had already amassed about my family (a lot of which I knew already but there are some extra goodies) and I sent him in return some family photographs for his collection.

Today I decided to log in to geni.com and add the extra material to my family tree. But I could not get to it. Every attempt led to a MyHeritage application form with no exit except an Accept button. You have to sign up to an annual subscription to MyHeritage to get any further. Admittedly, this is on a one-month free trial and you are supposed to be able to cancel at any time during this month, but I don't trust them and I am not playing that game. The extra material will go into my local family database on Gramps and I will no longer bother with the online version.

Must admit I've never understood the infatuation with genealogy sites.

You (and the family you rope in) are the product. Simple as that.
Walk away.

Originally Posted by syg00 Must admit I've never understood the infatuation with genealogy sites. You (and the family you rope in) are the product. Simple as that. Walk away.

+1 worse than "social networking" in several ways...

You do sometimes make interesting contacts that way, people who are related and whom you didn't know about. For instance I was contacted by the French grandson of a first cousin who proved to be quite an interesting person. I didn't even know that he existed. I also heard from a woman who was writing a dissertation on a more distant cousin called Norbert Kroo that I did know about, but I didn't know that he had been a well-known mathematician. She sent me a copy of the final version.

Another American woman is writing a book about Alex Weissberg, a first cousin of my mother who was quite well known as an author. And there is this new man who has provided new info for me. Without the tree on geni.com, I wouldn't have heard from any of them.

As to roping in the family, I was careful to put no living people in the public tree except myself.

Well you've been "connected" to the living via the non living (thats the whole point). So the "connecting people" mechanic of a "social network", data mining/profiling is certaitnly part of the bussiness model of these sites.

I've heard about people finding lost family on "social networks"... geneology sites are just more specific, just as some of these platforms are specic to careers or e.g. software development. Under the surface they're all much the same thing.

FamilySearch is a non-profit genealogy site (run by the Latter-day Saints).

I think it has affiliate deals with companies for certain extended functionality, but the basic stuff just requires a free account.