Why I Love WikiTree

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Collaboration

The logo above is one of the main reasons I love WikiTree and the same reason some do not. Collaboration means working with other genealogists, who sometimes disagree about the facts! The WikiTree community really is collaborative and helpful. In fact, many members spend their time welcoming new members, answering questions, helping people with problems, and even adding sources to unsourced profiles. 

Privacy Controls

The privacy controls on WikiTree profiles are unmatched by any other site I've seen.
Every profile on WikiTree has an independently-managed Privacy Level and Trusted List. If you're on the profile's Trusted List you can access everything. If you're not on the Trusted List, what you can see and do depends on the Privacy Level. - https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Privacy
For instance, profiles of living people where the person is not a WikiTree member are unlisted. 
Unlisted profiles are entirely hidden from everyone except those on the Trusted List. Unlisted names do not appear in search results or surname index pages. - https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Help:Privacy
The Trusted list is other relatives with whom you want to collaborate. So you can safely add newborn babies to your tree, add pictures, stories or whatever you want. That profile can function as an online baby book, if that is what you want. Only people you trust will even be able to search for the profile.

WikiTree privacy levels are graduated; from unlisted, private, private with public biography, private with public biography and family tree, public, and open. It is worthwhile to read the Privacy page and see how adjustable it is, especially for anyone with sensitive information.

Historical people, those who were born more than 150 years ago, or died more than 100 years ago, are open. 
Anyone can view the information on an Open profile, and any WikiTree member in good standing with a confirmed e-mail address who has signed the Wiki Genealogist Honor Code can edit it. All edits are tracked, credited to the appropriate member, and can be reversed. 
 

WikiTree Leaders  

If an "edit war" crops up, there are responsive staff to help out. Members generally help one another rather than warring! There have been cases where profile biographies contained conflicting information, but all parties worked on more research to resolve the difficulties. Sourcing all facts is strongly encouraged. I've found the best way to get good citations is to ensure that each person I'm working on is well-sourced in the FamilySearch Family Tree, and then copy-pasting the citations right from the FamilySearch FamilyTree person profile source page. 

Wiki Genealogist Honor Code  

WikiTree is free, but it's not a free-for-all. Our community is collaborating to create something special: an accurate single family tree that's free and open to the world. This grand project requires mutual trust and a common understanding of how the community works.

If you were invited by a family member and are just creating or editing a few private family profiles, the following isn't critical. Those who participate at a higher level must agree to this shared code of ethics and principles. - https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Special:Honor_Code
I happily signed the Honor Code.

DNA Match Tools

Because Wikitree is a wiki, and a collaborative tree, it does take some getting used to. However, input tools continue to get better! and more tools, such as the DNA test tools keep showing up. First, they created a way to link in DNA tests, which quite cleverly show up in every relative and ancestor who shares the DNA for the test you took. For instance, men up my dad's Y-DNA Cowan line will show my dad as a possible match. The same is true for autosomal and mitochondrial tests. 

You can link your Wikitree profile to your Gedmatch profile, which is very useful, since that shows up in shared ancestor profiles, and you can easily click over to do a comparison on Gedmatch. 

Very recently, they have created a way to connect your MitoYDNA profiles to Wikitree which lets you do match analysis right from a Wikitree profile!

See the videos at the MitoYDNA YouTube Channel for more about this: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDHVOlEX8n6WCojXShgejoQ/ 

If you want a way to display your research in a way that will last, and will be found by cousins, I recommend trying WikiTree.

Valorie Zimmerman

Comments

  1. Chris WhittenJuly 21, 2020 at 4:02 AM

    Hi Valorie. Thanks for this great review, and thanks for being part of our community.

    ReplyDelete

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