Connecting to A.J. Jacobs on Geni.com - Post 2

In Connecting to A.J. Jacobs on Geni.com - Post 1, I started a new Geni.com tree in an effort to see how difficult it is to find connections to A.J. Jacobs.

I received information from Amanda Tantisalidchai of Geni.com providing this information:

"Thanks for your post on how to connect to A.J. Jacobs on Geni. Your post actually comes at a very interesting time. We've recently been working on making it free for users to view and request to merge any matches that will connect them into the World Family Tree. We've been doing this on a trial basis since early December, with trees that had such matches at that time. We're now extending that privilege to new trees as well.

"As for the Tree Matches that failed to show up in your example, please allow me to clarify. All users are alerted when new Tree Matches are found. We have recently rewritten our process for finding and storing Geni Tree Matches and are in the process of refreshing matches across the entire system. Currently, matches are running a few days behind, but once we're done refreshing the entire Geni database, they should once again appear almost instantaneously. We have manually refreshed the matches in your test tree, which has now surfaced the matches on your grandparents. This, along with the newly-free matches, means you can now view and request the merges on your grandparents to join the World Family Tree.

"Geni's collaborative community of users and Curators are constantly helping people get connect to the World Family Tree everyday. For those looking for more information on how to connect with AJ on Geni, we have set up a Global Family Reunion project (http://www.geni.com/projects/Global-Family-Reunion/17884). We also have a quick tool for users to discover their connection to AJ here http://www.geni.com/aj. "

Subsequently, Amanda also offered that "all users can use the relationship calculator to see how they are related to others."  That's great!

Thank you to Amanda for the information, and for the "help" in refreshing he matches in my test tree.

After I received the email above, I logged into my "test" Basic account and looked for the "Merge Center" in the "Research" tab on my Geni home page:

 I clicked on the "Merge Center" item and the Merge Center page came up.  It listed four matches that had "Tree Matches" (the blue background icon):

I clicked on the Tree Match for my grandfather, Lyle L. Carringer, and the Tree Match information appeared:

I clicked on the "Compare profiles" in the right-hand column, and was asked "Are these profiles the same person?"

They are the same person, so I want to merge them.  I clicked on the blue "Yes, request to merge" button at the bottom of the screen above.

Last night, I logged into my "real" Geni.com Pro account and accepted the merge request, and merged my grandfather on that tree with my grandfather in the "test" tree.  I could have merged my grandmother, mother and father also, but I haven't done that yet.

I logged onto my "test" tree again today, and my home page said that my "real" tree owner had merged the request from the "test" tree:

I clicked on the "Tree" link in the top menu, and see that my "test" tree now has 283 people in it (only some are shown below):

However, because I did not request a merge with the other three persons on the Tree Match list, the tree is somewhat mixed up with two entries for my parents and my grandmother.  I need to fix that! I should have requested a merge of all four when I had the chance.

So it appears that, once duplicate profiles are found by the Geni.com matching system, a request to merge the duplicate profiles can be made to the profile owner, and once the merge is approved and consummated, the profile is merged and the Geni World Tree persons connected to that person appear on the person's tree.  

As noted in the first post, the user needs to add enough generations of ancestors so that the Geni matching system finds duplicate profiles, and then the requested and approved merge will add persons to the tree.  The merge approval seems to rely on the profile owner, who may not respond immediately to a request.  

This is somewhat complicated, but it works.  It would be easier if my "test" tree had a Pro account.

The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2015/02/connecting-to-aj-jacobs-on-genicom-post.html

copyright (c) 2015, Randall J. Seaver