Hi everyone!
It's time to get to know another one of our wonderful WikiTreers. This week's member is Bartley McRorie.
Bartley became a Wiki Genealogist in May 2019. He is active in our US Black Heritage project and coordinates the Maupin Name Study.
When and how did you get interested in genealogy?
My mother and her brother both were very interested in tracking down their ancestors, partly because their grandfather had never talked about his family. When he finally did share a few tidbits, there were just enough clues for them to figure out his ancestry. I was always interested, but it was "their thing." After Mom died, I picked up her paperwork, started in, and got hooked. Retirement now allows the time that genealogy demands!
What are some of your interests outside of genealogy?
I love to fish, and Alaska, where I live, provides some of the best! And I enjoy cooking (my fish).
How long have you been on WikiTree?
I stumbled across WikiTree while researching family in 2019, and quickly realized that this was where I wanted to keep the treasures I was finding. The free aspect was appealing, but the focus on a single tree, with sources, arrived at by collaboration were really the main reasons I chose to concentrate my work here. And I felt that my work done here would survive me and be available for my descendants to access, and hopefully build on!
What is your genealogical research focus?
I think the number of open tabs on my computer tells you I have no focus! My aim at first, like everybody, was to figure out my direct ancestors. But I've grown to recognize that we really need all of the siblings at every generation to really understand a family. So, not just deep, but wide!
But, I'm now all over the place! Here are some of my various activities: I'm a descendant of two Maupin 3g grandfathers, and Mom had a Maupin book that was a great (but not perfect) resource. So, I started the Maupin Project, or One Name Study. Now every time someone adds a Maupin spouse to WikiTree, I feel a duty to find and add their Maupin parents! I noticed a lot of Maupin cousin marriages, and decided to start a page just to track it. It now has 40 couples including two sets of "double cousins" and is still growing! I love that WikiTree has the flexibility to do whimsical things like that! I've inherited an antique photo album that belonged to my 3g grandmother, Rhoda (Holt) Maupin, which dates back to the 19th century, and I've created a space page that will preserve it forever, and provide links to profiles of the people pictured, when known. Having that connection to her through her photo album probably makes her my favorite ancestor. But in reality, my real favorite is whoever I am researching currently!
My wife is Black, and while working on her genealogy, which is challenging, I started to see the importance of adding as many Black Americans as possible to the WikiTree database. So it was a no-brainer to join the U.S. Black Heritage project and participate in the U.S.B.H. Connecting Challenge! Many of the Maupins were slave owners, and the U.S.B.H. Project has given me the tools to properly document and connect the enslaved to slave owners, with the goal of helping people find their ancestors! So those two projects tie together in that way.
My father is a 1952 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, and we attended his 70th class reunion this year! So another side project is to add members of the USNA Class of '52 to WikiTree. They are an impressive group!
(interview continues in comments)
