Followup to the Online Family Tree Controversy and Apology

Apparently, I was not too clear in using an example of the problem with the proliferation of family trees. As I found out, my use of Geni.com as an example, quickly resulted in the bad information about my Great-grandfather being corrected. Of course, the bad information in all of the other individually maintained family trees on other websites will likely remain uncorrected. Geni.com explains how their particular definitive family tree operates:

Geni is solving the problem of genealogy by inviting the world to build the definitive online family tree. Using the basic free service at Geni.com, users add and invite their close relatives to join their family tree. All Geni users can share photos, videos, and documents with their families. Geni’s Pro subscription service allows users to find matching trees and merge those into the single world family tree, which currently contains over 70 million living users and their ancestors. Additional pay services include enhanced research tools and premium support. Geni welcomes casual genealogists and experts who wish to discover new relatives and stay in touch with family. Geni is privately held and based in Los Angeles, California.

In November 2012, Geni was acquired by MyHeritage Ltd. and is now a MyHeritage company.

Of course, I did not intend to cast any aspersions on Geni.com, my example was merely taken for the purpose of showing how easily bad information can be incorporated into online family trees in general. I certain apologize for any misunderstandings my example may have caused. I got a number of comments explaining to me in detail why my example was ill-advised. Thanks to all those commentators. Geni.com is one of the few programs online that attempts to have a correctable, unified family tree.