Show Notes: When it comes to choosing an online family tree, there are lots of different options. It can be a challenging decision as to where to put yours. In this video and show notes article we’re going to take a look at WikiTree.com. You’ll learn what it is, how you to use it effectively, and how you can use it in conjunction with your own private family tree on your own computer. My guest is Chris Witten, the President and Founder of WikiTree.
Lisa: We are always interested in those websites that are going to help us build out our family tree, and learn more about our family history. WikiTree has been doing that for several years now. Please tell people about what you do at WikiTree.
Chris: WikiTree is completely free. It’s open to everybody. It’s a genealogy community. So, it’s all for collaboration. We’re growing a single-family tree.
We like to say it’s not your tree or my tree, it’s our tree that we all share. A lot of people are familiar with the FamilySearch tree, and it’s somewhat like that. There’s also Genie and a few others around the world that are doing the single family tree idea where everybody collaborates in one environment.
What sets WikiTree apart, I think, is really that we are a community. It’s very much a supportive group. We place a big emphasis on sourcing. So, we’re the most accurate, single-family tree available. And we have a lot of fun.
Is the WikiTree Family Tree Accurate?
Lisa: I know that for many people it makes them happy when they hear that there is an emphasis on sourcing. Of course, if we get connected with a tree that isn’t correct, then we have more problems than we started with. Tell us a little bit more about that. What are the some of the mechanisms on your website that help and facilitate the sourcing of the information that is going into the trees?
Chris: Well, first and foremost, we ask that every piece of information that somebody puts on WikiTree has a source. So even if you’re saying this is from my Aunt Sally, or this is the family tree that was handed down to me, you have to at least say where it came from. And then that gives people a starting point for the collaboration. If somebody else then comes along and says, “Well, you know what, I have different information. What’s your source?” You can then compare and come to a conclusion.
Lisa: That does sound a bit like the FamilySearch tree in terms of it being one tree. Does that create any other challenges? What do people disagree about when it comes to the information that they’re putting on the website?
Chris: Oh, yeah, people disagree all the time. I mean, that’s what happens when human beings get together and try to work together. They will argue and have problems.
Probably one of the most really special things about WikiTree is this culture that we’ve developed over the years, because we’ve been around 14 years. It’s very much community based, like I don’t know, if I mentioned, it’s totally free, free for everybody. And we don’t have any full time employees. This isn’t run by this big team of people. It’s almost entirely volunteer based. The team we have is just part time and they are there to support the community. So there is a whole set of policies and procedures that’s developed over the years from the ground up to work out problems like this.
How Can WikiTree be Free?
Lisa: How did you decide from the beginning that free was going to be the price? And how do you keep the lights on when you do it for free? What’s the model there?
Chris: It has been challenging at times. For the first seven years I did this, and it was a struggle. We quite honestly lost money. But we figured out and had to reach a point where we’re getting enough visitors that we can pay for ourselves with advertising. We now get about a million and a half visitors a month. So, we do have the big advertisers. Like if you come on WikiTree, you’ll see MyHeritage and Ancestry ads, and ads for DNA tests. But if you sign our honor code, and you register as a member, the ads essentially disappear. Members don’t even see ads. And for non-members, the ads they see are not as offensive as what you see in a lot of places out there on the internet. So really, it’s just a balance that we had to reach. And we reached it years ago. So now it’s quite comfortable where the community doesn’t even have to see the ads. It’s all free for everybody.
How to Get Started with WikiTree
Lisa: What do you recommend is the best way to get engaged with the website?
Chris: Yeah, that’s a good question. The biggest complaint about WikiTree is that it can be overwhelming, because it’s a very large community. And it’s evolved over a long time. It’s very elaborate, like, there are just thousands of little corners of WikiTree where you have people collaborating on their Mayflower ancestors over here, and working on translating obscure Latin documents over there. There are also a lot of independent developers who have created tools that work with WikiTree. And so some of those can be a little bit complicated and intimidating. We try to keep it all simple, but we do realize that it can be a bit much for the new user. So, the first thing you do is you just register, just log in, and you get that free Guest account.
What is the WikiTree Honor Code?
If you want to put something on your profile, you upgrade that to what we call a family member account. A lot of us have family member accounts for our family members. So, the third step is to sign that honor code that I mentioned before, and that’s just these 10 basic principles. Things like saying, we cite sources, that’s number one. We collaborate, we work together, we give credit, when credit is due, we respect copyrights, we respect privacy. So, it’s this very simple 10 point Honor Code. Read it in two minutes. And as long as you agree with that, you say yes, and then you move forward to the next step.
How to Get Help with WikiTree
If you want help, it’s there. There’s this really vibrant community in the discussion forum. There’s live online chat or video chats you can do. There are one on one personal mentors you can get. There are training programs in various projects. So you can be as involved as you want to be in whatever areas you want to be involved in. I just recommend taking it one step at a time and trying not to get overwhelmed.
Can I Export WikiTree and Import it into my Genealogy Software?
Lisa: Right. I know many people will have software that they use on their computer that they use to build their family tree. What’s the balance between using your own personally controlled software to build your family and using the collaborative online WikiTree? It sounds like you can benefit from the collective knowledge. Is there a way to export portions of the tree that you want to have in your own database? How do they interact with each other?
Chris: Well, we do have a GEDCOM, and import / export capability. I’m sure a lot of your listeners know what GEDCOM is. It’s a terrific, standardized format developed many years ago by Family Search. So that that standard is almost universal.
Watch and read:All About GEDCOM(interview with Gordon Clarke, FamilySearch’s GEDCOM Developer Relations Manager)
Whatever program you’re using, or website you’re using, will almost certainly allow you to import and export trees in this format. Because it’s a completely collaborative environment where we’re all working together, you can’t simply keep your tree in sync with WikiTree, because that would involve overriding what other people have done really. Like if you could just click a button and import your whole tree that would end up creating these records that would overwrite the collaborative work.
The export is just like it works anywhere else. If you want to download a tree, you can. If you want to upload, you just have to do it one profile at a time. What we do is, you would upload your GEDCOM and it would say, “this it looks like of the thousand people in your tree, 100 seem to already exist on WikiTree.” So take a look at these potential matches.
And by the way, that’s a great way to do a quick search if you want to see if your ancestors are already on WikiTree. So, you get this GED Compare process we call it, and you can look one at a time, left and right side. You know, here’s what’s on WikiTree, here’s what’s in your system. Do you want to move this? Do you want to move that? And then you would cite your sources at the bottom.
WikiTree Search Strategies
Lisa: You mentioned search. When we go to the homepage, we see that we can search. There’s a first name, last name, there’s letters for the last name, we can do surname searches, etc. Does WikiTree support any other kind of searching or search operators? Is there a Search Help page to help us make sure that we’re finding what we want to find?
Chris: Sure. If you go ahead and just try a search on WikiTree.com, you’ll see it right there. If you don’t enter anything, if you just click the search button, you would be taken to the search page that has more advanced options on it and has all kinds of help links. And if you’re looking for somebody, and you can’t find them, or you’re unclear on how to use the search engine, click over to the forumand just ask.
DNA on WikiTree
Lisa: I also noticed that on the homepage, it said something about DNA connections, and people are definitely interested in DNA, and it’s the way it intersects with genealogy. How does that work on WikiTree? What should we be looking for in terms of our DNA tree test connections?
Chris: DNA for us is a way to verify the tree that we’re growing, The basic work always has to be done in the traditional way, right? Like, genealogy has grown in the way we’ve always done it through records. That’s the only way you’re going to get names. But that traditional genealogy research can then be verified, or disproven with DNA. So, that’s what a lot of members do on WikiTree.
We do use DNA, and we facilitate this in some interesting ways that are done nowhere else. For example, on every single profile, every person profile, every ancestor, every cousin, were a DNA test, or more than one DNA test has been taken, which could help verify connections to that ancestor, it’ll show that. It’ll say, Lisa Louise Cooke has taken an Ancestry.com test. And it’s on GedMatch. And Chris witness taken a DNA test that I got from MyHeritage, and it’s also on GedMatch, click here. And you can compare those two. And that’ll take you right to GedMatch, where you can look to see if we match the way that we should. And on that profile on like, let’s say we’re first cousins, and so we share grandparent. It’ll say then that we would expect to share 12% of our DNA. So, if we then go to GedMatch and we don’t share 12% that’s a red flag. Or if we do, that’s a big step to confirmation.
Privacy Controls on WikiTree
Lisa: Finally, I want to ask you about privacy because it mentions privacy on your site as well. I know that’s on the forefront of people’s minds. What kind of privacy controls can people expect a WikiTree?
Chris: We take privacy really seriously. To me, and especially to the non-genealogist family members, if you can’t connect living people to the tree, it loses a lot of its family history and a lot of its interest. So, we need to be able to connect living people. And we want to include family photos. Photos of living people. But if you’re doing that, you need privacy controls.
Profiles have seven different levels. And you have some options for customizing. If you have somebody who is not a WikiTree member, but they’re living, they have to be unlisted. We have this privacy level called unlisted. That essentially means that their information cannot be found on WikiTree, except by you and your family members that you specifically put on what we call the trusted list. And then we have four different levels of private, but with a public biography. Private but with a public tree. And so, these are all levels that you can choose.
If you’re a member, there’s privacy around your own profile. And then for every non-living person, the recently deceased can be private but once somebody was born 100 years ago or died 100 years ago born 150 years ago, they have to be fully open. They have to be fully collaborative. So, every profile has those seven privacy levels. You have a fair amount of control on your modern family history about what’s private and what isn’t. But then for the sake of collaboration, the deeper ancestry is meant to be broad collaboration, because that’s really what WikiTree is all about.
How to Get the Most Out of WikiTree
Lisa: I can’t let you go without asking you, what is your best advice for us as we make the most out of using the website?
Chris: Just come try it. It’s free. You have nothing to lose. And there’s a community of people to support you.
Lisa: Sounds like folks are going to find other friendly genealogists who have the same interest in family history as we do. That’s a nice place to be. Chris Witten, thank you so much for joining us here today. I appreciate it.
I’d love to hear from you. Have you used WikiTree? Do you have a success story? Do you have a problem story? We’d love to learn from each other. So head down to the comments below and leave us a comment and let us know what your experience with WikiTree.com is.
As you may have already noticed, a lot of websites these days host millions of family trees: MyHeritage.com, Ancestry.com, FamilySearch.org, Geni.com, FindMyPast.com, Archives.com and more. There are virtual forests and forests of family trees out there! How can you find a tree that includes your family? How can you be sure it’s yours? How do you know that what you see is accurate?
Get started with these 7 Steps: How to Find Your Family Tree Online:
1. Choose a site from the list above and create a free log in.
Which should you choose?
FamilySearch.org is the only one that offers totally free access to all user-submitted family trees as well as the historical records that can help you with your research. However, the other sites offer a variety of free access options, especially to user-submitted trees.
MyHeritageis known for its international user base (check out its user map here) and multi-language access.
Some sites have different portals that specialize in records from different countries. For example, Ancestry.com (with a U.S. focus) owns Ancestry.ca for Canadian genealogy, Ancestry.co.uk for the United Kingdom and Ancestry.com.au for Australian records. Similarly, FindMyPast.co.uk (U.K. focus) also hosts FindMyPast.com (U.S.), FindMyPast.ie (Ireland) andFindMyPast.com.au(Australia). Check out additional sites for specific countries (including non-English-speaking) here. If your family recently immigrated, look for a site about “the old country.’ If you have pretty deep roots in your current country, or you’re not sure, pick a site that specializes in your current home.
2. Enter the name of one of your relatives in the Search bar.
Each site files its family trees a little differently: some with historical records and some separately. Search trees at FamilySearch here. On Ancestry.com, look under the Search option for Public Member Trees. Enter names of your relatives, along with any other details you know (like a birth date and place or a spouse’s name). Try different combinations, sometimes using the person’s first and middle name, trying a maiden name, entering a nickname, etc. Increase your odds of finding people by entering a range of years (like 1880-1890) for a date and a more general place, like a state, rather than the name of a little town. If you get too many results, enter more specific information.
Which relative(s) should you choose?
One who is deceased, if possible. Records about living people may be restricted for some places (but not all).
If possible, one with a relatively unusual name. They may be easier to spot.
One you know several things about: a full name (including maiden for women), dates and places of birth, marriage and death; burial place; where they lived during their lifetime; names of their spouse(s), sibling(s) and/or child(ren).
One who lived as long ago as possible, to increase the chance that someone has posted a tree. But a grandparent is a great starting point, if that’s as far back as you know. If your grandparent is still alive, ask them their parents’ names, and start with your great-grandparent.
Need to learn more about your relatives first? Read this article on how to gather information about your family.
3. Click on results labeled as “family trees.” Are they “yours?”
Browse the search results. Do any of these names and details look familiar? Everything doesn’t have to be a perfect match for a tree to include your roots. Sometimes different information is handed down through different branches of a family. Sometimes people get their information from sources that don’t match yours. Sometimes people just guess or patch together parts of different family trees without looking closely to see if they’re right.
Tech tutorial: What exactly are you looking at when you look at a family tree online? Before the days of internet genealogy, researchers organized family history findings on their home computers in one of several specially-designed software programs. These programs could generate .GED files (often referred to as GEDCOMs) that would allow researchers using different software to share their findings. Many people have now uploaded their GED files to genealogy sites like the ones we’re talking about–or they’ve just built a family tree from scratch right on the site.
4. Evaluate the accuracy of what you find.
The best way to judge the accuracy of a family tree without researching it yourself is to see what proof is offered. Do you see any records mentioned (like footnotes) or attached to the tree? Common records include tombstone images; government or church vital records (birth, marriage or death records) and census listings. Do you see photos attached? Photos may indicate the submitter has access to family records or albums (bonus!).
If a tree mentions lots of sources, it’s more likely to be accurate–at least for the pieces of information that are sourced. If a tree doesn’t have sources, it doesn’t mean it’s wrong, it just means you don’t know if it’s right.
Sometimes you’ll find a “branch” on a tree that goes back many generations without a single source mentioned. Beware! Sometimes these branches are just copied from other trees. This may particularly be true if a branch is connected to a royal line. Royal lines are well-documented in history and some people have created family trees with the hope of running into royal relatives. These connections may not have been thoroughly researched–they might just represent “wishful thinking.” Again, look for sources.
5. Optional step: reach out to the submitter of promising-looking family trees.
Some sites allow you to contact them through confidential email routed through the site (you may have to purchase a subscription first). You might contact a submitter to meet a possible cousin, share information you have or ask for more details about what they posted. If you contact them, be polite–don’t open with “you got my grandfather’s birthday wrong” or you may never hear back. You may not hear back anyway, if the submitter is no longer researching, their email changed or they have passed away.
6. Google your surname along with the phrase “family tree” or “genealogy.”
See if any personal websites pop up with your family tree (or other family history information) in them. Evaluate the information by looking for accurate details (as far as you know) and lots of sources mentioned. Look for an “About” or “Contact” page to learn more about the submitter of this information.
7. Verify it yourself. Wandering through forests of online family trees may give you the urge to create your own tree. An accurate, and sourced tree! If so, good for you. Keep reading the articles suggested below to learn how to get started!
Video: All About Google Drive Google Drive is a free service packed with tools to make your genealogy life easier. Learn what it’s all about and how to use it in this 30 minute session with Google expert Lisa Louise Cooke, author of the book The Genealogist’s Google...
Elevenses with Lisa Episode 25 Video and Show Notes
Live show air date: September 17, 2020
Viewer Voices: Celebrating Your Family History!
In this episode, we’re celebrating both your unique genealogy path, and the one that we have taken together as a community. The Elevenses with Lisa show has really grown into a vibrant, caring family. Whether it’s something I’m teaching, or a conversation happening in the comments section, there’s always something new to learn!
So, I invite you to sit back and relax with your favorite cup of tea while I share some of your stories, answer some questions, and pretty much talk about whatever tickles our fancy. Click below to watch the video, and follow along here on this show notes page.
Some Googly Questions & Comments
Cathy Gallaghers’s question: “I, like so many others, really enjoy listening to your podcasts and Elevenses!! I have learned a lot! I am having trouble with one concept. I have a “new cousin” that I learned about through DNA. She is a great detective in finding people, places and information.
I want to have our family tree on Google docs so that we can share the family tree and we can start organizing all of our information. What I’m having trouble with is how do you put the tree in google docs? I cannot copy and paste from Ancestry.
I just cannot see HOW to make this large tree in Google Docs AND have a place to have the documentation…I really want to work with this cousin.”
My Answer: I think having everything in your database and saving the database to Google Drive is the way to go. If you don’t have a software database, I encourage you to get one that synchronizes with Ancestry.
Recommended Viewing: Premium Video How to Take Control of and Preserve Your Family Tree Information. (Click here to learn more about joining us as a Premium Member.)
I use and recommend BackBlaze cloud backup – learn more here. (Using this link supports this free show – thank you!)
Google Docs are contained in Google Drive, but Google Drive also can have files that you have uploaded from other sources, like videos, and photos. So, there’s really no point in recreating things in Google Docs. Google Drive gives you a place to store everything as well as collaborate.
Cathy’s Comment
As you’ll recall in Episode 22 I showed you ways to use Google Earth to research your ancestors’ neighborhood. Cathy shared how she used what she learned from that episode in her research. She writes,
“BTW – I downloaded Google Earth Pro and have had a blast putting people on the map. My grandfather wrote a book called, “Passeggiata” the story of his life. He talks about a time when he went to New Haven CT and he wrote down each street he turned down and which direction he went in. I went to google earth and local maps but could NOT find this one street he talked about. When I got the map from David Rumsey and overlayed it – there was the street he talked about – JUST AS HE SAID. I was so excited!”
Speaking of Google Related Things
In episode 23I gave you an introductory tour of Google Photos, and I shared how Google Photos uses facial recognition to find people in your photos.
Well, Dana experienced this technology first-hand! Google Photos found her in a curved mirror reflection!
Dana found by Google Photos!
The First Woman to Vote in Florida
A couple of weeks ago on August 26, 2020 here in the United States we celebrated the 100 year anniversary of women securing the right to vote.
The House of Representatives passed the amendment on May 21, 1919. Two weeks later, the Senate did as well. The amendment was adopted when Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify on August 18, 1920. The 19th Amendment was formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution by proclamation of Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby on August 26, 1920.
It was a long road but finally women had the right to vote, and Elevenses with Lisa viewer Melanie Barton’s grandmother wasted no time doing so in 1920.
Melanie sent me her story, and I asked her to record it so I could turn it into a little video to share with all of you which you will see in this episode. (20:30 mark in the video.)
Epilogue: Shortly after voting Fay happily remarried. Here she is with her husband W.C. Bridges in Miami, FL.
House History Follow Up and Stitchery
Pamela Fane left a comment on Elevenses with LisaEpisode 20 on House History Research. She shared two wonderful stories about how the personal touch pays off when it comes to delving into house histories.
“I have land documents citing my ancestor lived on a farm in Bedfordshire, England. While on a trip to Bedfordshire in the mid 1990s I ventured down a long driveway toward the house. I saw a man on a farm tractor and asked him if I could take a photo of his house because my ancestor lived there in former times.
He was not overly friendly and asked me who that might be and when. I told him Thomas Fane lived there in 1761.
“Priestly Farm” by Pamela Fane
Oh, well then, he said, warming to his subject; when you finish with the front, go ’round to the back and make sure you get a photo of the wing that juts from the house because he built that and the man turned back to his tractor. Now there is a man who knows the history of his house.
One of the pictures I took of the front of the house I turned into a stitchery which sits on my hall table.”
In her second story her husband got in on the act.
“On another trip I was leaning over a fence gawking at another ancestor’s property, also in Bedfordshire, England.
My husband was encouraging me to knock on the door. I didn’t want to bother anyone; a photo would be good enough. Well, not good enough for my husband so he knocked on the door.
We were invited in and shown pages and pages of historical papers about the house. The owners were very interested in the history of their house and wanted to know about the people who lived there in former times. I was able to send them all sorts of information covering the 300 years my ancestors lived in the house.
That knock on the door was a win/win for both of us.”
An Ancestral Home in Miniature
After watch the episodes on house history and Irish research, Anne was keen to share a very special house that once belonged to her Irish ancestors. She emailed me a story she had written for her new blog Annecestreeforestwhich she started in January 2020. She also included a PowerPoint presentation with photos.
As I reviewed it I could see the video that it should be in my mind. I asked Anne to record a bit of her story and a descriptive tour which she happily did. The next day I put it all together as a video.
Anne wrote: “It took my grandfather (Alan R Cassidy) a full year, working every day, to build the replica. During that time, unbeknownst to me, he was diagnosed with cancer, and died shortly after giving me the house.
He was a loving person, a strong believer in family heritage, a proud Canadian, honoured to serve as a Chief Petty Officer in our navy, and as a carpenter thereafter for the government.
The highest praise he could give someone was “he is a good man” and he was definitely that.
William and Jane’s descendants include nurses, pilots, lawyers, carpenters, farmers, and an Order of Canada honoree. Their legacy touches us all and is remembered each time I look at the little house.”
Mirror cups
Let’s wrap up this episode with something really fun that’s not genealogy but is on topic because this show is called Elevenses with Lisa. The name comes from the traditional morning teatime / break time of 11:00.
Over the last 25 weeks I’ve shared my cups with you, and as you’ll remember Margaret shared her mother’s mix and match collection of teacups that it turned out were traditionally given at bridal showers.
Well, a few days ago Lindell Johnson sent me a little video she found about some exceptionally beautiful and innovative cups and saucers that bring a fresh perspective to driving tea, and art.
