Do You Wiki?
By Carolyn L. Barkley
Drew Smith’s Social Networking for Genealogists (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2009) defines a wiki as “a website that provides an easy way for multiple individuals to create and edit the pages of the site without having to know any specialized formatting language.” We all may have consulted an entry in Wikipedia, the “free encyclopedia that anyone can edit,” but we may not have thought about how wikis might impact our genealogical research.
Wikis have different formats. The Encyclopedia of Genealogy, a wiki founded by Dick Eastman, provides “a free-content encyclopedia created by its readers, people like you.” As such it is similar to Wikipedia. Need to define “Bright’s disease,” or understand what “chancery” means? Consult eogen.com. If you need a quick definition of a word or phrase and do not have a genealogical or other type of dictionary at hand, this site will be helpful.
I was, however, more excited by the type of wiki found in sites such as WeRelate.org. If there is one genealogical wiki to explore, WeRelate is it. Proclaiming itself to be the world’s largest genealogy wiki, it is sponsored free of charge by the Foundation for On-Line Genealogy in partnership with the Allen County Public Library and sustained by tax-deductible donations. It provides access to over 2,000,000 person and family pages, and in 2008 Family Tree Magazine included it in its list of 101 best web sites. Be sure to view the “helicopter tour” to gain an overview of the site’s possibilities; additional tutorials cover specific processes used to create and edit wiki content. Registration is free and uncomplicated and is necessary to add or edit content. The strength of this site is the ability to provide the exact same information to any individual interested in a specific person or family. Everyone is, literally, “on the same page.” I found a page for a person in a collateral family in my husband’s Barkley line, and as I have documented information not currently included on the page, I can now add my information. By choosing to become a “watcher” of this page, I will be notified when information is added or edited. Notification is provided within the site so that personal email addresses do not have to be provided or kept up-to-date. This automatic notification eliminates the need for photocopies, mailings, and problems with expired email addresses. Best of all, I don’t need to know any HTML coding. Pages can include photographs; scanned documents; birth, marriage and death information; and stories about individuals, with the opportunity to provide source citations for each. An individual can upload photographs with annotations for known individuals. “Watchers” may be able to provide information on those individuals previously unknown by the individual posting the image. Documents can be annotated to highlight important information. GEDCOM files can be uploaded and a person page automatically formatted within about an hour, or you can complete a blank form individual by individual. Data may be viewed on six-generation pedigree charts, a map of life events, or a timeline. Research guides are available including articles, maps, place pages, an alternate name index, a source index, and a place index to 430,000 inhabited places worldwide. In addition 1.2 million sources may be searched including the Family History Library collection. I did a quick search on Barclays and Barkleys and found several names of interest that I will pursue after I review additional tutorials.
One of the newest wikis is the FamilySearch wiki, a “free online encyclopedia of genealogy information.” As with other wikis, content can be added and edited by registered users. Other content includes “how-to guides, expert tips, archive information, church information, maps, gazetteers, news and events,” as well as “links to helpful databases and websites, and discussion forums.” A summer roll-out of 15,000 pages is planned. In addition, if you have genealogical information for North Carolina, you can participate in a “North Carolina Barn Raising” through the end of June. More information about volunteering for specific projects is available at the Community Portal at wiki.familysearch.org. Be sure to view the video tutorials and demos. Still other wikis have been created by individuals who share information about their specific family or research. Additional wikis may be located through Cyndi’s List.
As I read more about wikis, I see how I might apply this concept to my work as genealogist for Clan Barclay International. The Clan Barclay Genealogical Database is an outgrowth of the Clan Barclay One-Name Study which I began in the mid-1980s. All of the data collected for over 200 Barclay (and variant spellings) families currently resides on my aging laptop in a single Master Genealogist file, coded for specific family lines (and yes, it is backed up!). Anyone wishing to access the information must contact me via email or letter and wait patiently (and sometimes wait and wait and wait) for me to consult the database and reply. If no information is available, a series of emails then ensue in which I urge the individual to send me his or her family information to be entered into the database as a new family line. When matches occur, I contact all interested “correspondents” to the database. The work is time consuming (I won’t mention how far behind I am in answering queries and entering data). I will definitely be spending part of my summer looking at how a wiki such as WeRelate might allow me to provide access to the database more effectively.
Wikis offer a significant opportunity to share our genealogical information with others, while gaining from their knowledge. I recommend beginning with a review of the wiki chapter in Drew Smith’s Social Networking for Genealogists. In addition, you will want to decide if a personal wiki meets your needs, or if participation in a large project such as WeRelate will be more useful. Either way, wikis will play a significant role in our genealogical research.
Hi Carolyn. I’ve been working on a new family history wiki for the past two years at WikiTree.com. (Before this I developed a site called WikiAnswers.) Although WikiTree is still being improved upon, it has one key benefit that the others don’t: privacy. WikiTree has a unique public/private balance that allows collaboration but protects personal information. Every person profile has its own Trusted List (who are also watchers, like on WeRelate). If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions I’d love to hear them.
↓ Quote | Posted June 15, 2009, 8:09 am