Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Another look at Mundia.com - FAIL!

I saw the Mundia Blog post today titled Introducing the Family Tree Side Panel and thought that the new feature looked interesting.  I decided to look at the website again to see how it's changed.  I last reported on Mundia on 15 December 2009 in Mundia.com on Facebook.

What is Mundia.com, you ask?  Mundia.com is a free family tree site that adds family trees submitted by GEDCOM uploads, or by building a tree one person at a time, and they are incorporated into the Ancestry.com Member Tree system.  Mundia is owned by Ancestry.com.

Here is the home page for http://www.mundia.com/ for persons not already signed in:



The home page has a sign-up box, and a sign-in link at the top of the page.  Below the world map, there is a number that denotes the number of persons in the Mundia family tree system - it was over 2.3 billion persons when I captured the screen.  These are, of course, the number of persons in the Ancestry.com Member Tree system - both public and private. 

I logged in using my Ancestry.com account, and saw my home page:



It told me that I had four messages (they're the same ones in my Ancestry.com Messages).  It noted that I have -2.3 billion members in my family tree.  Hmmm, what's that mean?  I clicked on the "Go to my family tree" link in the lower left-hand corner of the screen above, and saw:


An "Error Loading Page" message shows on the screen above.  Aha!  I know what happened.  I deleted earlier family trees late last year and Mundia cannot find the earlier database.  Right?  Okay, how do I make it show my current Ancestry Member Tree?  Ah, there's a "Manage your tree" link on my home page.  I clicked on that, and saw:



I clicked on the green "Set as my private tree" next to the "Randy Seaver's Genealogy Database" and the system worked...and worked... and after two minutes (I timed it), the dreaded FAIL page appeared:

  Why can't Internet Explorer display the webpage?  I tried this three times and it happened each time.  I know, why waste so much time doing it three times - that's a sign of sheer stupidity.  And why write about it - don't I have anything else to blog about these days?  I blog about it because I want Ancestry.com to fix the problem, because if it happens to me, it happens to everybody. 

I went back from the start - the sign-in page, signed in, and clicked on "Manage my tree" and selected the right database, and got the same result.  Therefore, it will probably occur for any user that has deleted their earlier selected tree.

19 comments:

paulcito said...

Yes, This exact thing happened to me - and continues to happen as of today. I am not sure i see the need for Mindia -- why not just make ancestry.com truly milti-language and leave it at that?

AnnieB said...

My issue is even worse, as of today, 26 May 2011. I went to the mundia.com site because of a a post on the ancestry.com site, suggesting that "outsiders" can make changes to my ancestry.com tree, by way of mundia.

I logged into mundia, using my ancestry.com credentials. I get as far as the "loading" page for my primary ancestry.com tree - which takes FOREVER - I have not timed it but it takes a long time. When asked to accept the mundia terms, I do, and then am dumped out to a "email address already in use" page! I've tried 2 browsers on 2 computers, multiple times. I've given feedback - no reply.

One can only hope that ancestry et al have shut down mundia, after 2 years in Beta!

AnnieB said...

-

Steve Hayes said...

I find that Mundia encourages cut-and-paste genealogy. It makes it easier to copy something from someone else's tree than to contact the person and discuss the family and share information.

Anonymous said...

I am really annoyed about Mundia. I have been paying and building a tree for years on Ancestry.com and recently I clicked Mundia and found my Grand Mothers face, my Family pic staring at me. I do not mind sharing my Nanas pic with the World but not for free.

I have gradually seen a rise from $240 a year to near $400 AUS which is very hard for me to sustain.

Anonymous said...

I love that Mundia is free, because I can't pay the fee Ancestry requires, but what does it matter? It doesn't work most of the time! How frustrating!

Anonymous said...

I have maintained a private tree on ancestry for years, so imagine my surprise to see my private photos publicly posted on mundia without my knowledge. Why aren't folks screaming about the breach in privacy committed by ancestry?

M J Bowman said...

I suspect the only reason people aren't screaming is that they don't know about it. I just stumbled on Mundia and found my whole Ancestry.com tree with not one single source listed. What kind of lesson is this for the new family historian? Just copy other people's trees, don't worry about how accurate it is... GRRRRRR

AnnieB said...

9 times out of 10, when I try to access Mundia, the connection times out. I have a broadband cable connection and never have that problem with any other site.

I just wish they would disable the site.

Darrel in Regina, SK said...

Why would anyone bother to put up a "private" family tree that nobody can ever look at? Seems stupid to me.

Anonymous said...

I HAVE NOT READ ALL OF THESE COMMENTS. However, P-L-E-A-S-E NOTE that, as I understand it, if you delete your Tree in Mundia, you also delete it in Ancestry!

Mundia clearly states that its terms and conditions and privacy rules are NOT the same as Ancestry. However, they do not even give you a Yes/No radio button to choose NO. So I had to back out of it and hope I am not signed in.

Anonymous said...

Get around it and make your Tree in Ancestry private, then it will be private in Mundia. That is the best way to beat them.

Anonymous said...

Why post a tree if it is Private? I thought the whole idea was to connect to relatives you never knew you had. I can't afford Ancestry.com but take advantage of their free weekends. Like Mundia except for the latest error when trying to explore my husband family. Found a tree that contains his ancestors but can't open up some of the tags & now can't open the tree. BUT I do have the email of the contributor so I can get the info.

Anonymous said...

I have been working on my family tree for weeks now and the fact that it is public does not bother me. What bothers me is that While working on it today the whole thing suddenly vanished. All my work was deleted. Its safe to say I am pretty angry. I emailed and asked why and have yet to receive a reply.

Anonymous said...

I'm not impressed with Mundia. I looked at my Grandfather's tree -- I am old enough that I actually knew him and his siblings in the 1960s -- and found that someone had put additional people into the list, people who weren't ever in our family. Furthermore, one sister who did exist was omitted. We do have a very common last name, but I feel like someone just slapped all the names from the home town into the tree. Going up two generations, I found they had listed "children" born when my great great grandmother would have been 62. Not a whole lot of women delivered babies at age 62 in the late 1800s. (I'd say NONE did). Too many inaccuracies for me to bother with. I'll stick with actual historical sources.

caitlin said...

April 2014
Does no one realise Mundia has been shut down because it was free.

The opening search page still works - just accessing the trees has been blocked.

It was originally set up as part of ancestry .com run by the mormons.

Their fees are ludicrous which is why people rushed to Mundia. Mormons lost customers and revenue and shut it down.

SHAME

DannieB said...

Caitlin -

That's how rumors and false speculation get out on the 'net.

Ancestry is NOT "run by the Mormons."

Try get your facts straight before you post.

Vmshopper said...

Mundia is certainly NOT shut down. I just stumbled upon it a couple days ago, created an account, started a tree, and messaged a couple people whose trees intersect with mine. It DOES seem very buggy, though and I have been confused from the start about it's link to Ancestry. I am not a member of Ancestry, but it appears I am viewing trees and other info from there on Mundia, and messaging Ancestry.com members, too. Why are they letting me do that for free? I don't know.

AnnieB said...

But it will - thankfully! - be gone shortly!

Ancestry.com has announced officially that it will be shut down.

http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2014/06/04/ancestry-com-focuses-on-core-offerings/