WikiTree Challenge Reveal – Spoiler Alert: Brick Walls Falling

Roberta Estes

3 years ago

I have to tell you – this was just so doggone much fun!

I was a guest of the WikiTree Challenge, a community sourcing and discovery event. The WikiTree volunteer researchers were just amazing.

I already had a tree on WikiTree, which is a combination of my “own” tree and the same ancestors that other people share on WikiTree. WikiTree is a “one big tree” genealogy site. If you take a look at my tree, then scroll down, you’ll see three categories of Research, Tools, and Contacts available to everyone

This screenshot is just an example – there are lots more features and tools available.

And before you say it out loud, yes, I know about the errors and misinformation on “one big tree sites” and how FRUSTRATING it is to find erroneous information and either have no ability to fix it, or it’s almost impossible.

I’ve found WikiTree to be different.

Eight Reasons Why I Like WikiTree

Let me explain for a brief minute how WikiTree works and why I like it.

WikiTree is entirely free, all-volunteer, and encourages cooperation and collaboration between and among genealogists.
You can upload your GEDCOM file and connect your ancestors, or you can simply enter yourself and your ancestors until you connect with an ancestor that already exists in WikiTree. In my case, that would have been my grandparents. WikiTree has many profiles of ancestors, so that process shouldn’t take long unless you have a family from an under-represented region of the world.
WikiTree has volunteer moderators who are experienced and assist if issues arise. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you think something is in error for your ancestor. You leave a comment on that ancestor’s profile card, but the profile manager doesn’t respond. You’d like to have the questionable data evaluated, so you have the option to ask for assistance from one of the moderators.
WikiTree has a GtoG (Genealogist to Genealogist) Forum where you can ask, or answer questions.
You can post questions, comments and in many cases, edit the profiles to provide additional information.
The research comments remain in the thread of the ancestor, including links to other resources.
Descendants can post their Y and mitochondrial DNA information if they descent appropriately to be relevant to that ancestor – along with autosomal information so you can see if you match.
WikiTree is free and doesn’t replace any other resource. In other words, you still need to test your DNA elsewhere, and you need those data and document subscriptions for research resources. You record the findings and documents from all the sites in one location in WikiTree for each ancestor.

WikiTree is Fun

As we genealogists all know, there are trees and various sources of data in many, many individual places, much of it online. However, there’s still a huge amount that isn’t online, hidden in musty courthouse basements, and/or resides in researchers’ file folders.

WikiTree is a central location where all of those various resources and hints can be sifted through and gathered together – and it’s available for everyone free and without a subscription. I think of it as my wiki genealogy repository. Otherwise, my ancestor’s data is scattered in many locations – and held in many trees online – none of which I can influence except my own. I can and do contribute on WikiTree.

Unlike some subscription services, researchers can have an ongoing dialogue about, let’s say, whether Abraham Estes’s wife, Barbara’s birth surname was Brock – or not.

Her surname has (erroneously) been reported as Brock since the 1980s when a NOVEL was written using Abraham and Barbara as characters and ascribed Brock as her surname. Literally, almost every tree on the subscription sites shows Barbara’s surname as Brock, but there is not one single shred of evidence that it was. Even the author later said he was sorry he had done that and had no idea people would latch on to that as gospel. After all, it was a novel. But they did.

You can take a look at Barbara’s profile here and the comments and documentation as well. In essence, WikiTree is your opportunity, aside from your own tree wherever you place it, to be sure there is at least one public location where your ancestor’s information is provided and compiled correctly – and that the discussion of why is preserved.

When I’m researching, I appreciate that I can see the back and forth dialogue. WikiTree assures that exchanges remain respectful.

My Challenge Week

My WikiTree challenge week ran from 10-13 to 10-20. In advance, I reviewed my ancestors and commented where I thought there were questions or issues. Yes, I was hoping for help, especially with certain particularly thorny ancestors.

It was all I could do to behave and not peek during the week. I can’t even express how excited I was.

I didn’t have any specific expectations, in part because I’ve been a genealogist for so long. But of course, I was hoping for some brick wall breakthroughs!

Finally, the big reveal day arrived!

You can watch the reveal here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwhxZmQ34VI

You can also see a summary of the highlights, here.

Given that challenges are a community event, WikiTree has made it fun by awarding points to researchers for various things. Scoring is explained here.

In addition to the WikiTree community, my blog followers who weren’t able to get on the WikiTree team at the last minute contributed as well by sending me hints and info. Thank you so very much. I love you folks!

Mindy Silva, the Challenge coordinator, began by creating a fan chart that showed where I had brick walls available to fall.

In fact, several of these walls did fall, leading to additional generations being added to that line as well.

I was gobsmacked.

In particular, the Henry Hill line out of Vermont has proven very confusing and the German Drechsel line is daunting.

I’m extremely grateful for the many Dutch records and how well they are preserved. This facilitated moving back several generations on two lines, here and here. Additionally, it was also discovered that one Piers de Jong changed his name in 1811. As if Dutch records and surnames aren’t difficult enough!

For Dorothy Edmiston, we have more information, but I still need to be convinced. My sticking point is that our only data source is a will in 1749 that refers to a Dorothy Edmiston as a daughter – but we know that our Dorothy was married to Thomas McSpadden in the mid-1730s. This is not a criticism, but in fact leads me to my next point.

It’s All Hints

I’ve heard it and even said it. One big trees are frustrating because there can be so much misinformation. The same is true for individual shared trees, too, of course, and they multiply like ants. In most cases, you can’t do anything about it, but you actually can at WikiTree.

Treat everything as a hint.

That’s my rule of thumb: It’s all hints!

Try to prove or disprove everything. You may well find that the proof is actually in the profile, or in the links to other resources. Remember to share your actual findings in the person’s profile so someone else doesn’t have to replow the field you just plowed.

Post your comments. Read the threads. There’s gold there. Even if you disprove something, it’s wonderful to know why it arose in the first place. In one case, someone finally found the original source of a family story and why a specific piece of information was given.

But There’s More

Sometimes I think we focus too much on breakthroughs and not enough of documenting what’s available. I try to do this in my 52 ancestor stories, but adding the resources in WikiTree and making sure they are accurate is important too.

More than 3100 edits of my ancestors’ profiles were completed during the challenge week.

In addition to everything else, lots, and I mean a LOT of cleanup and housekeeping took place.

For example, look how nice this profile page for my great-grandmother, Ellenore (Nora) Kirsch (Lore) looks now thanks to Cheryl Hess Smith’s hard work. I am so very glad to see the information from the articles I’ve written about my ancestors being integrated into these profiles. They asked and I gave permission for information from any of my articles to be used.

Trust me, Nora’s profile looked nothing like this before.

Are We Related?

Who are these people who spent so much time on my ancestors’ profiles? Am I related to them? Is that why they expended the effort? I expected the answer to be yes.

Just for fun, I decided to see if I am related to each person who worked on the challenge.

It’s easy to tell if or how you are related to someone on WikiTree.

Go to their profile, then under their profile information, select “Relationship to Me.”

If you don’t see these options, the profile owner may have opted to keep this type of information private.

If you want to see how you are related to me, click here for my profile. If we are related, tell me how and through which ancestor, along with your profile ID in the comments. Who knows, the WikiTree Challenge volunteers may have been working on your ancestor too!

For each of the team members who worked on my branches this week, I checked to see if and how we are related. The results are shown below, with birth surnames shown in parenthesis.

As I viewed the profile for each person, I was dumbstruck at the number of cumulative contributions by these volunteers. Are you ready for this – these 35 people have contributed well over 1.5 million times – and growing every single day.

Relationship to Me

Let me explain how this works.

Jayme Arrington was the MVP this week, meaning she made the highest number of contributions that received points. Thank you, Jayme.

Jayme and I are 12^th cousins once removed and I’ve provided the relationship link so you can take a look if you wish. Yes, each step needs to be proven for both people.

Jayme Arrington – MVP – 12C1

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