WikiTree

Last updated

WikiTree
Wikitree-30px.png
Type of business Privately-held company
Founded2008
Headquarters New York, New York, U.S.
Founder(s) Chris Whitten
PresidentChris Whitten
IndustryGenealogy, social media
URL wikitree.com

WikiTree is a genealogy website that allows users to research and to contribute to their own family trees while building and collaborating on a singular worldwide family tree within the same system. [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] WikiTree is free for the user and financed via advertisements displayed to unregistered users. [8] [9] [10] WikiTree is owned and hosted by founder's company Interesting.com, Inc. [11]

Contents

As of October 2023, the WikiTree website claimed that the site had more than 1 million registered members and contained more than 36 million profiles of people, with over 12 million profiles of people who should share a detectable amount of DNA with tested site members, their deceased relatives, or those whose remains have been tested posthumously. [12] [13] As of July 2023, SimilarWeb ranked WikiTree as eighth in total worldwide web traffic among "Ancestry and Genealogy" websites. [14]

History

Chris Whitten, the founder of WikiAnswers (originally FAQFarm), developed WikiTree in 2005, [15] [8] inviting users personally to the site, starting in early 2008. [8] WikiTree.com officially opened to the public in November 2008. [2]

An "honor code" for members was introduced in 2011. [16] The nine points of the honor code cover: collaboration, accuracy, privacy, copyrights, credit, citing sources, shared mission of "keep information as free and open as possible", "assume that mistakes are unintentional", and "being courteous to everyone". [17] [18]

In 2015, the since-defunct Global Family Reunion Project was established, a tie-in to a worldwide family genealogy event hosted by author A.J. Jacobs, at which WikiTree "relationship finder" tools were available to calculate genealogical connections. [19]

Features

The site uses a wiki markup language (powered by a fork of the MediaWiki software) that enable users to create and edit personal profiles, categories and "free space" pages to document family history. The user interface is only available in English, while most of the help pages have been translated to Dutch, French and German.

The site's goal is to have one profile for every person, whether living or dead. Duplicate profiles are supposed to be merged and the information is consolidated, connecting different family branches in the process. [20] These policies support the concept of a shared family tree, which can also be found at My Heritage's geni.com, FamilySearch's FamilyTree, and WeRelate.

Creation of profiles based on data of uploaded GEDCOM files is one of the optional methods for contributing content, and since 2013 the site has allowed members to export site content by downloading GEDCOM files. [21]

WikiTree's privacy controls allow users to protect their personal information, and that of their more recent ancestors and descendants, while providing the ability to publicly share and collaborate on historical data related to their more distant forebears. [1] [22] [23] Since April 2017, all profiles of people who were born more than 150 years ago or died more than 100 years ago are publicly visible. [24] [25]

DNA testing and confirmation

Registered users can provide information about their autosomal DNA tests and to link their WikiTree profile pages to autosomal DNA data packages they have uploaded at the GEDmatch website. GEDmatch publishes links to the WikiTree family trees of individuals who use this feature. [26] Tools on the WikiTree website automatically display persons who took autosomal DNA tests and are within 3rd cousins of each other, allowing the display of several generations of ancestors and descendants who could have contributed to or inherited portions of a person's X chromosome(s), and allow Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA test results to be associated with the position of each father and mother in a person's family tree. [27]

Reception

Researchers in the fields of social and genealogical sciences have made use of WikiTree's data repository. Dr. Michael Fire, Faculty of the Department of Software and Information Systems Engineering at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, utilized the genealogical data available on WikiTree to analyze historical lifespan patterns. Among other results, it was discovered that the average lifespan of females born in the United States and living beyond the age of ten increased significantly from 62.66 years in 1850 to 72.5 years in 1900. [28]

Further research by Dr. Fire, in a joint project with Thomas Chesney, the Nottingham University Business School, and Yuval Elovici ventured into the realm of computational genealogy. Capitalizing on WikiTree's family tree data for quantitative analysis, this study aimed to develop and scrutinize hypotheses related to various aspects of human ancestry. The research delved into a wide range of quantitative analyses, encompassing population sex ratios, marriage trends, fertility rates, lifespan patterns, the occurrence of twins and triplets, migration trends, demographic changes over time, and the intricate connections between historical events and familial relationships. [3]

GenealogyInTime Magazine listed WikiTree as the 15th most popular genealogy site (out of 100) in January 2016 (the most recent time the magazine produced such a list). [29] As of July 2023, SimilarWeb ranked WikiTree as eighth in total worldwide web traffic among "Ancestry and Genealogy" websites, with visitor statistics including an average visit duration of more than 10 minutes and an average of 10.5 page views per visit. [14]

Related Research Articles

GEDCOM, complete name FamilySearch GEDCOM, is a de facto open file format specification to store genealogical data, and import or export it between compatible genealogy software. GEDCOM is an acronym standing for Genealogical Data Communication. GEDCOM was developed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an aid to genealogical research. Most genealogy software supports importing from and exporting to GEDCOM format.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PhpGedView</span>

PhpGedView is a free PHP-based web application for working with genealogy data on the Internet. The project was founded and is headed by John Finlay. It is licensed under the GPL-2.0-or-later license.

Genetic genealogy is the use of genealogical DNA tests, i.e., DNA profiling and DNA testing, in combination with traditional genealogical methods, to infer genetic relationships between individuals. This application of genetics came to be used by family historians in the 21st century, as DNA tests became affordable. The tests have been promoted by amateur groups, such as surname study groups or regional genealogical groups, as well as research projects such as the Genographic Project.

FamilySearch is a nonprofit organization and website offering genealogical records, education, and software. It is operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and is closely connected with the church's Family History Department. The Family History Department was originally established in 1894, as the Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU); it is the largest genealogy organization in the world.

A genealogical DNA test is a DNA-based genetic test used in genetic genealogy that looks at specific locations of a person's genome in order to find or verify ancestral genealogical relationships, or to estimate the ethnic mixture of an individual. Since different testing companies use different ethnic reference groups and different matching algorithms, ethnicity estimates for an individual vary between tests, sometimes dramatically.

Ancestry.com LLC is an American genealogy company based in Lehi, Utah. The largest for-profit genealogy company in the world, it operates a network of genealogical, historical records, and related genetic genealogy websites.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Family Tree Maker</span> Genealogy software

Family Tree Maker is genealogy software for Windows and Mac that allows the researcher to keep track of information collected during research and to create reports, charts, and books containing that information. The software was originally developed by Kenneth Hess of Banner Blue Software, which was purchased by Broderbund in 1995. It passed through the hands of The Learning Company, SoftKey, Mattel, and others before coming under its current ownership. A redesigned Family Tree Maker 2008 was released on August 14, 2007. The 2009 version of the program corrected some of the errors and omissions of its predecessor, and introduced a few new features. Family Tree Maker 2010 claimed to further enhance the radical redesign and be more powerful and feature-packed with faster navigation and quicker load times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gramps (software)</span> Genealogy software

Gramps is a free and open source genealogy software. Gramps is programmed in Python using PyGObject. It uses Graphviz to create relationship graphs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Legacy Family Tree</span>

Legacy Family Tree is genealogy software for Windows that assists family historians in tracking, organizing, printing, and sharing family history. The standard edition is distributed as freeware, with no restrictions, only requiring registration on the company's web site to download the software. Users may pay a fee in order to conduct Product activation to "unlock" the additional features in the deluxe edition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geni.com</span> Genealogy and social networking website owned by MyHeritage

Geni is an American commercial genealogy and social networking website, founded in 2006, and owned by MyHeritage, an Israeli private company, since November 2012. As of 2021, MyHeritage has kept its genealogical website separate from Geni's website, though you can still match Geni profiles to trees on MyHeritage and to other family tree sites and digitized records.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Family Tree DNA</span> Commercial genetic testing company

FamilyTreeDNA is a division of Gene by Gene, a commercial genetic testing company based in Houston, Texas. FamilyTreeDNA offers analysis of autosomal DNA, Y-DNA, and mitochondrial DNA to individuals for genealogical purpose. With a database of more than two million records, it is the most popular company worldwide for Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, and the fourth most popular for autosomal DNA. In Europe, it is the most common also for autosomal DNA. FamilyTreeDNA as a division of Gene by Gene were acquired by MYDNA, Inc., an Australian company, in January 2021.

The Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation (SMGF) was an independent DNA and genealogical research institution with the goal of demonstrating how the peoples of the world are related. SMGF collected DNA samples and genealogical information from individuals across the globe to establish these connections.

MyHeritage is an online genealogy platform with web, mobile, and software products and services, introduced by the Israeli company MyHeritage in 2003. Users of the platform can obtain their family trees, upload and browse through photos, and search through over 19.4 billion historical records, among other features.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Genbox Family History</span>

Genbox Family History is genealogy software for Microsoft Windows, developed by Thoughtful Creations. It functions as a database, a research planner and task organizer, a data analyzer, a chart producer, and a report writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rodovid</span> Genealogy website

Rodovid is a free online collaborative family tree portal. Originally a Ukrainian project, as of 2023 it had active communities in 25 languages. It provides a web service built using MediaWiki and its own Rodovid Engine software to help store and visualize family relationships.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WeRelate</span>

WeRelate.org is an American wiki genealogy website that provides genealogy tools and data. WeRelate is a non-profit and is funded by tax-deductible donations and is managed by unpaid volunteers. WeRelate had over 2 million person pages by March 2011 and claimed to be the "world's largest genealogy wiki".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Investigative genetic genealogy</span> Application of genealogy in a legal setting

Investigative genetic genealogy, also known as forensic genetic genealogy, is the emerging practice of utilizing genetic information from direct-to-consumer companies for identifying suspects or victims in criminal cases. As of December 2023, the use of this technology has solved a total of 651 criminal cases, including 318 individual perpetrators who were brought to light. There have also been 464 decedents identified, as well as 4 living does. The investigative power of genetic genealogy revolves around the use of publicly accessible genealogy databases such as GEDMatch and FamilyTreeDNA. On GEDMatch, users are able to upload their genetic data from any direct-to-consumer company in an effort to identify relatives that have tested at companies other than their own.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yuval Elovici</span>

Yuval Elovici is a computer scientist. He is a professor in the Department of Software and Information Systems Engineering at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), where he is the incumbent of the Davide and Irene Sala Chair in Homeland Security Research. He is the director of the Cyber Security Research Center at BGU and the founder and director of the Telekom Innovation Laboratories at Ben-Gurion University. In addition to his roles at BGU, he also serves as the lab director of Singapore University of Technology and Design’s (SUTD) ST Electronics-SUTD Cyber Security Laboratory, as well as the research director of iTrust. In 2014 he co-founded Morphisec, a start-up company, that develops cyber security mechanisms related to moving target defense.

Yaniv Erlich is an Israeli-American scientist. He formerly served as an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University and was the Chief Science Officer of MyHeritage. Erlich's work combines computer science and genomics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GEDmatch</span> Genetic genealogy website

GEDmatch is an online service to compare autosomal DNA data files from different testing companies. The website gained significant media coverage in April 2018 after it was used by law enforcement to identify a suspect in the Golden State Killer case in California. Other law-enforcement agencies started using GEDmatch for violent crimes, making it "the de facto DNA and genealogy database for all of law enforcement", according to The Atlantic's Sarah Zhang.

References

  1. 1 2 Jacobs, A. J. (2017). It's all relative : adventures up and down the world's family tree. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 6, 132, 157. ISBN   978-1-4767-3449-1 . Retrieved August 11, 2023.
  2. 1 2 Paton, Chris (2021). Sharing Your Family History Online: A Guide for Family Historians. Pen and Sword Family History. ISBN   9781526780300.
  3. 1 2 Fire, Michael; Chesney, Thomas; Elovici, Yuval; et al. (September 2, 2014). "Quantitative Analysis of Genealogy Using Digitised Family Trees". arXiv: 1408.5571 [cs.SI].
  4. ↑ Rifkin, Jesse (June 7, 2015). "Massive Genealogy Project Shows We Are Family—Literally". The Daily Beast .
  5. ↑ Woods, Dan; Thoeny, Peter (2007). Wikis For Dummies. John Wiley & Sons. p. 300. ISBN   978-1118050668 . Retrieved August 4, 2023.
  6. ↑ Engler, Sarah (September 10, 2013). "Finding your roots". Real Simple. CNN. Retrieved August 4, 2023.
  7. ↑ "OKC-area events, news: Christmas in the Park; Broadway comes to OKC and more". Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The Oklahoman. August 4, 2022. Retrieved August 4, 2023.
  8. 1 2 3 Cooke, Lisa (January 2013). "101 Best Websites: WikiTree.com" (Podcast). FamilyTree Magazine. Retrieved August 4, 2023.
  9. ↑ Cooke, Lisa (March 22, 2023). "What is WikiTree with Founder Chris Whitten" (Blog). Genealogy Gems. Retrieved August 4, 2023.
  10. ↑ Kennett, Debbie; Pomery, Chris (2011). "DNA and Social Networking: A Guide to Genealogy in the Twenty-First Century". Cheltenham, United Kingdom: The History Press. p. 175-176. ISBN   9780752472706.
  11. ↑ Valenzuela, Robyn (July 12, 2012). "WikiTree App Review". AppAppeal. Archived from the original on September 23, 2014. Retrieved August 15, 2014.
  12. ↑ Buch, Tommy (July 15, 2023). "WikiTree surpasses 35 million profiles!". WikiTree. Retrieved August 4, 2023.
  13. ↑ Sheppard, Pip (May 5, 2023). "1,000,000 members passed at 8:57 a.m. Eastern US!". WikiTree. Retrieved August 4, 2023.
  14. 1 2 "Top Websites Ranking - Most Visited Ancestry and Genealogy Websites". Similarweb.com. Retrieved August 4, 2023.
  15. ↑ Finkelstein, Seth (February 11, 2009). "What's in a name? Everything, when you're talking wiki value". Kings Place, London. The Guardian.
  16. ↑ Whitten, Chris. "Have you signed the Honor Code?", database (https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/  : accessed 4 Aug 2023) Posted Wednesday, May 2, 2012
  17. ↑ WikiTree Contributors. "Wiki Genealogist Honor Code", database (https://www.wikitree.com/  : accessed 4 Aug 2023)
  18. ↑ Meece, Mickey (May 18, 2011). "Finding Family History Online". New York Times . Retrieved July 24, 2015.
  19. ↑ Lambert, David Allen (June 5, 2015). "Twenty-four degrees of separation". Vita Brevis (blog). New England Historic Genealogical Society . Retrieved August 4, 2023.
  20. ↑ "Duplicates". WikiTree. Retrieved March 31, 2015.
  21. ↑ Whitten, Chris. "Did you see that you can now export a GEDCOM for an individual tree?", database (https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/  : accessed 4 Aug 2023) Posted Friday, June 7, 2013
  22. ↑ Komando, Kim (June 3, 2011). "New Ways to Complete Your Family Tree". USA Today . Retrieved July 24, 2015.
  23. ↑ Beidler, James M. (June 24, 2012). "Roots and Branches: New genealogical mantra - 'Collaboration'". Lebanon Daily News . Lebanon, Pennsylvania.
  24. ↑ Whitten, Chris. "Should all profiles of people born 150+ or died 100+ years ago be Open?", database (https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/  : accessed 4 Aug 2023) Posted Tuesday, March 21, 2017
  25. ↑ Whitten, Chris. "Did you see that all profiles of people who were born 150 years ago or who died 100 years ago must now be Open?", database (https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/  : accessed 4 Aug 2023) Posted Friday, April 14, 2017
  26. ↑ "Help:GEDMatch". WikiTree. Retrieved August 17, 2019.
  27. ↑ "WikiTree". International Society of Genetic Genealogy Wiki. International Society of Genetic Genealogy. September 5, 2019. Retrieved August 4, 2023.
  28. ↑ Fire, Michael; Elovici, Yuval (March 2015). "Data Mining of Online Genealogy Datasets for Revealing Lifespan Patterns in Human Population". ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology. Association for Computing Machinery. 6 (2): 1–22. arXiv: 1311.4276 . doi:10.1145/2700464. S2CID   2742636 . Retrieved August 4, 2023.
  29. ↑ "Top 100 Genealogy Websites for 2016". GenealogyInTime.com. Retrieved February 1, 2017.
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