Why WikiTree?

You may have gathered from my previous post that I have recently immersed myself in WikiiTree. You may, or may not, care why, but I’m going to tell you ayways.

I have been working on my family tree for more than 30 years (yes that goes back to before I got my Tandy TSR-80 computer.)

Yup, me, my mom, and my grandma would spend hours at the library and writing letters to relatives we barely knew. We kept everything on notebook paper and all the info we got was pretty much about direct relatives.

Fast forward to now and I sit here on my trusty laptop after hours of tryng to find relationships, connections, and other information on me and my relatives. WikiTree has a huge directory of profiles and family trees that are added and maintained by volunters who take genealogy very seriously. One of the things I like best about WikiTree is that is offers countless opportunities to work with other people. There are special projects for different locations, ethnicities, and surnames. They have a wonderful collection of famous and notable peope, and they make it easy to find your personal (or in many cases, lack of) relationship or connection.

Finding those famous connections gives you research points that can possibly lead to filling in blanks in your tree. This has been the case for me many times. And it’s not just about famous people. Today I was able to make a clarification on my personal tree regarding my 9th great grandfather, Anthony Colby (1605-1660), who happened to be one of the original settlers of Amesbury, Massachussetts. He came over from England in 1630 as one of the first immigrants beginning the Great Puritan Migration.

Are you working on your families history? It’s really quite fun, and more than a little interesting. But beware, it can also be incredibly addictive. If you are a genealogist. I’d love to know what you are currently working on.