Wednesday, March 27, 2019

WikiTree Reaches 20 Million Profiles today!

I received this information from Eowyn Langhoff of WikiTree today:

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WikiTree Reaches 20 Million Profiles Today


Genealogy community collaborates to grow accurate single family tree

27 March 2019: Shortly after passing its 10-year anniversary, WikiTree has reached a major milestone: 20 million person profiles on its single family tree, a tree that’s 100% free and accessible to everyone forever.

Since its start in 2008, WikiTree has grown steadily but carefully, with a strong emphasis on quality over quantity. Although its mission is to connect the entire human family on one tree, WikiTree prioritizes careful sourcing and accuracy. As a result, it has fewer duplicates and mythological lines than some websites.

WikiTree’s strongest asset is its community. Over 130,000 genealogists have signed the Wiki Genealogy Honor Code, a simple nine-point pledge that members make to each other. Signers agree to collaborate with courtesy, respect privacy and copyrights, strive for accuracy, and cite sources.

"Some genealogy websites ask for money. All WikiTree asks is to learn how to use the system, to be a 'good neighbor' in the community, and to provide sources for facts."
— April Dauenhauer, member since 2013

The Honor Code is a foundation on which dedicated volunteers have grown a healthy community culture and a carefully-evolved set of policies and procedures. These include systems for mentoring, mediation, and other conflict resolution so that genealogists can collaborate productively and enjoyably. As a result, the WikiTree community is proud to announce its 20,000,000 milestone.

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I have added thousands of profiles to WikiTree over the past 10 years (it says I've made 6,656 "contributions" which probably includes edits and merge approvals).  

My opinion is that it is the most accurate of the collaborative family trees in the genea-sphere (FamilySearch Family Tree, Geni.com, OneGreatFamily.com, WeRelate, etc.).  However, it is the second smallest of the collaborative trees..  I like the ability to add a GEDCOM file (which requires comparing GEDCOM profiles to existing WikiTree profiles), the merge features, the editing features, the relationship finder, the emphasis on sources (but adding them is still difficult for me), and more.  

The home page for WikiTree today says:

"Our tree includes 20,000,711 profiles (5,220,156 with DNA test connections) edited by 607,907 genealogists from around the world."  

The average number of profiles entered per person is about 33!  That's interesting!  Why is it so low?  I think it's because many contributors have entered only their immediate families (theirs, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, grandchildren).  

Copyright (c) 2019, Randall J. Seaver

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