I randomly came across yet another free genealogy website that I think most genealogists would find interesting. It is called WikiTree, and, as the name implies, it is an online resource where you can grow your family tree, without having to pay any money for a membership or subscription to a service.
One of these days, I am hoping to find the time to actually get some serious work done on a genealogy project that I have half-heartedly started a few times now. I think it would be very cool to have a completed version of my family tree.
Now, I understand that technically, one can never really be “done” with something like a family tree, because there will always be more ancestors to do research on. I guess what I really mean is that I would like to have a family tree that connects all my living relatives, and the deceased relatives that I have personally met. If I can get that far, I will consider the project to have been a great success.
The first time I tried to create a family tree, it was scratched out on sheets of notebook paper, from information given by a few of my relatives, from their memories. I’m certain there must be things that are incorrect, for me to sort out, but I haven’t had time to do the research yet.
I’ve tried several different types of online resources that provide a place to build a family tree online, without much success. I’ve tried MyHeritage, but I cannot seem to find very much about my relatives when I use their search engine.
I tried the FamilyTree app thing on Facebook, but have found problems there, as well. As far as I can tell, the fatal flaw with this system is that you can only add family members who are on Facebook. I’m fairly certain that when you tell the FamilyTree on Facebook who your relatives are, it pretty much requires those people to use the app as well. If they choose not to, it seems to limit what you can do with this app. I’ve also tried the Family Village game on Facebook. It’s fun to play with. So far, though, I am unable to add any ancestors or relatives to the family tree in the game unless I already know of their existence.
WikiTree is 100% free for everyone to use. People who have already created their family tree through their own research, or through another genealogy website (like Ancestry.com), are able to use WikiTree. It’s also useable for “complete newbies”, and for family members of someone who is using WikiTree. If you have already created your family tree through GEDCOM, you can upload it to WikiTree. Or, you can start from scratch and create a brand new family tree.
There are a lot of options for privacy with WikiTree. You don’t have to use your real name to register with WikiTree. You can tell it to hide information about all of your living relatives if you want to. You can keep your entire family tree completely private, or choose to invite other members of your family to view it.
Image by Takato Marui on Flickr