How long have you been on WikiTree?
Only since September 2022. I found it by happy accident when googling one of my ancestors. At first, I thought WT was like Family Search or similar, but then I discovered G2G with its helpful users, and the challenges, and the thons. There is so much to do!
Which projects are you most involved in?
I like to be involved with many projects. It suits my ADD. I enjoy the US Civil War project the most.
I color outside the lines, creating some of my own projects. Recently I’ve started taking photographs of military veteran gravestone markers at my local cemeteries so I can build profiles on WT for these veterans. This could fit into the Cemeterist Project (I’m a member) or Military and War (also a member) but it has been fun and it’s an aspect of genealogy that gets me away from my laptop and outside.
Some of my other work:
I’ve been drawing small images and added over 100 occupation stickers. I’ve been creating Civil War regimental flags in Adobe Illustrator and finally, I have been creating realistic soldier illustrations that can be used by anyone on stickers or profiles without copyright concerns. I have created illustrations of 32 regimental Civil War flags for Alabama, have started working on South Carolina, and have ten of these completed. If I live long enough, I'll draw every known Civil War flag. Images and illustrations provide visual interest to an otherwise text profile. I’d like to share links to share these.
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Civil_War_Flags
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Civil_War_Soldier_Illustrations
https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Occupation_Image_Capture (Occupation Stickers)
If anyone would like to help with the flags project, finding public domain or “usable with attribution” images for the Civil War unit flags would be appreciated. If someone is uncertain how to edit the Flags page, let me know and I will help.
Do you consider your work here to be part of your legacy?
Absolutely. Beyond legacy, all of our work here is helping others and future generations learn more about their ancestors.
What could we do to inspire more people to participate in our mission?
We have a terrific mission, with the best-sourced profiles in the world. If we aren’t there yet, one day we will be the largest world tree. The community is my favorite part of WikiTree, however.
That’s what we need to use to inspire others. Working alone on Family Search or Ancestry cannot compete with our collaborative platform.
Chris Whitten’s mission to keep WT free forever is laudable.
If there is one thing I would change to inspire more use, it would be to keep searching out other technology options for the future, something besides the wiki. Perhaps some new technology that makes the wiki interface more graphic and user-friendly. We lose so many users who sign up and get stuck trying to learn the wiki. I recently posted in G2G that I worked on a wiki at my last job. It was an internal wiki we called “Powerpedia” at the US Department of Energy. Honestly, 12 years hasn’t changed wikis much! We had the same problems then. Most of our employees wouldn’t touch editing, but we wanted them all to contribute.
The apps that our volunteers have created are beyond wonderful. But if we could somehow make editing more user-friendly for the average person, I am certain we would keep a lot more contributing members. Just a thought for the future as technology changes.
