Geni, Wikitree, Family Search Family Tree, etc

[Eric Hatfield]

I have been doing family history for about 10 years, and DNA for almost 5, but I seem to get enthusiastic for a while, then run out of steam. So I have found myself trying out all sorts of things without really knowing for sure what I am doing.

So I have an account with Geni, but I don't know what I am doing with it, and I have looked at Wikitree and FSFT without doing much. I also have trees (and DNA) on Family Tree DNA, Ancestry and My Heritage.

Having several trees makes it a lot of work to keep them all up-to-date, so I don't always do that, unfortunately. I can't help feeling it would take a bit of work to even understand all these different services, let alone keep them all current.

What do other people here do? Are you like me, a bit all over the shop? Do you just use one or two services? (If so, which have you found most useful?) Or do you find it useful to keep current at a lot of sites?

I need to decide, so others' experience would be very helpful thanks.

[Pheno]

I am probably not much of an example but I maintain a tree on only one online site (although with several trees on that one site) and one family tree on home software.  Not quite so much trouble to keep them up to date then.

I have my dna attached to my online tree although have uploaded the raw data to other sites but I do not maintain a tree on these other sites, so am probably not making the best use of them, but at least not paying for several subscriptions.

I think it might be more beneficial to you to maintain less trees as it will then be more likely to be up to date.

Pheno

[Craclyn]

Geni, Wikitree and Familysearch all have collaborative trees. They can be useful, but in addition to using those sites you should keep your primary research on a site where you have full control over changes.

[Eric Hatfield]

Do you use all three collaborative trees? Do you find them all useful and worthwhile keeping up?

[Craclyn]

I did not spend much time adding anything to Geni. I have added quite a lot to both Wikitree and Familysearch. They have different techniques for controlling the integrity of information, requirements for sourcing information and rules for resolving the conflicts which arise when two users disagree about facts for a shared ancestor. Wikitree has a higher learning curve to get started. Familysearch has a lot more duplicate poorly sourced profiles leading to issues about which one to connect with.

[tillypeg]

I am probably not much of an example but I maintain a tree on only one online site (although with several trees on that one site) and one family tree on home software.  Not quite so much trouble to keep them up to date then.

I do exactly the same, Pheno.  Also have my trusty paper back-up (well, actually about 20 ring binders )  That's plenty for me to keep up to date.

[RobinRedBreast]

Familysearch has a lot more duplicate poorly sourced profiles leading to issues about which one to connect with.

Yes. I agree. 

I also find that with Familysearch trees.
I have mixed feelings about Familysearch trees:

I feel that when you look back at the end result, after you have merged people, and unmerged sources and merged them to other sources, etc, etc it seems actually more satisfying to me than on Ancestry. I'm not sure why, but in a way it does. That is a strange observation to make I know. 

But the problem I find with familysearch is that you can't just "get on with" putting people onto your tree.
Well, I mean you can. But to add sources to that person you have to merge them with a person who may already be attached to that particular source or sources.

And because of the above, it takes 3 or 4 times as long to add people to your family tree than it does on Ancestry.