WikiTree Progress

Ensuring that our relations have a profile on WikiTree has eaten up most of my research time recently. Direct Ancestors have been my priority. 

Following are ancestor trees on RootsMagic. The yellow bars on left of names indicate that the person has a profile on WikiTree. The Orange dots on the right indicate that there is a hint on Ancestry, MyH, FMP or FamilySearch.

My Tree

My ancestors in the Emerald Isle have created some research challenges. I've had more success on the husband's lines.

My Husband's Tree

Looks like I have to do some more digging on Joseph Brooksbank - the red arrow suggests an issue. 

Colourful Efficiency

Back in May last year I blogged about using WikiTree as a means of futureproofing my research. At that stage I was pleased to report my 16 Great-Grandparents had profiles on Wikitree.

Since then, in a haphazard fashion, I have been going through my list of People in my RootsMagic database and then searching for them on Wikitree. If I can't find someone I create and add a Profile to Wikitree for them.  This has been inefficient as I often find myself looking for someone a second or third time. 

Once each Person has a Wikitree profile I place them in a "Wikitree Profile" Group in RootsMagic. The other day it dawned on me that I could create a filter that would allow me to quickly identify those individuals in my tree. I decided to use the RootsMagic Color Code Tool. 

WikiTree Tools - Color Codes

This nifty tool adds a small colour bar (lemon in this case) to the Name Label of each person in the Wikitree Profile Group. At a glance in the People View List in RootsMagic I can those cousins who do not have a Wikitree Profile.

The Yellow Bar on a Profile's name in RootsMagic indicates the presence of a Profile on Wikitree. 

After capturing this image I noted that a close relation did not have the Yellow Bar. Apologies to Greg Curry,  I will deal with that omission shortly.

I will also add this useful filter to the five other family trees I curate on RootsMagic.

Future Proofing with Wikitree

In a post on this day last month I said"

"WikiTree I am committed to Wikitree as a collaborative tree. I am working to ensure that my ancestors' and forebears' stories are not lost so I aim to give them all a profile on this platform. It's a future-proofing exercise."

Although they have promised to maintain my website after I am gone my descendants may not have time for this task. My ancestors will also have a home on Wikitree. 

I've spent many hours in this last month ensuring that my direct ancestors and those of my husband have a place on Wikitree. There's a lot more work to be done on these but at least they have a place.

100% complete for five generations on Wikitree

I am now working on their siblings and descendants (my cousins). Where possible I am also linking the ancestors of our living DNA matches into our lines. I rely on my database in RootsMagic on my home computer for my master list from which I currently work.

I found a recent webinar delivered for the Society of Australian Genealogists by Veronica Williams most helpful. Veronica was a guest speaker last Saturday at The Lake Macquarie Family History Group, I learnt a few more Wikitree tips from that excellent presentation.

On April 22 I had 3317 CC7 Connections on Wikitree, on May 20 I had 3765. This is pretty good as during that time I had to unlink a branch to remove connections that had been made in error. This will grow slowly as I spend more time on enriching the current profiles on my lines.