Introduction

Question

Hello everyone!

I am new to doing genealogy, even though I've been around it quite a bit (my wife has done it for more than 15 years and does genetic genealogy investigatory projects professionally).

I started putting together a tree with her help a few weeks ago, and found wikitree. It's something I've always thought there should be, and apparently there is!  

I've been playing with the fan chart which helps keep me organized as I'm usually on my laptop and it seems a couple monitors would be excellent for this type of work. My current goal is to complete my tree as best I can and to learn to add and cite each of them properly before moving on to help with the greater tree projects. The Dutch Roots is one project I have my eye on, but I'm willing to work all over the place to help create more and more connections and accurateness throughout the tree.

I have a busy life, so this is more back-burner hobby for me, but I do enjoy it when I can do it. I do a little on my lunch breaks at work, or in the evenings when the kids are winding down for bed.

Something cool: while I can't verify the authenticity of this, my wife tells me that our kids have the most direct ancestors with DNA tests on record. My kids are all tested, my wife and I, and 3/4 of our parents, and 4/8 of our grandparents.

Answer 1

Welcome aboard. I have personally found Wikitree to be very rewarding. You seem to have gotten a great start on here, getting a good deal of your family in.

Keep on exploring Wikitree, and becoming familiar with it. You'll learn more bit by bit. When you ask questions on G2G, under the full question box, you have a space to link a profile to the question. On this question, you could put Van Vleet-125 in the space provided. In the space below that, feel free to put in Tags. The Tags direct the questions to those who are working in that area. You have Tagged this question with Van-Vliet, but you could also Tag it with a location, if you are trying to get help from a particular country or state.

When you have become a little more familiar, look up the Profile Improvement Project, and look at going on The Voyage. On The Voyage, they allocate someone to help you learn how to do things to make your profiles look even better. A part of what they cover, will be to show you how to present sources. We have plenty of flexibility, but it is good to present sources in a way, that other people can then use the sources to help them with their own research. The profile that I worked on, was my ggg grandmother at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Rutledge-1842  I've probably put too many pictures in the profile, but it has helped me to learn how to add them.

If you need any help along the way. Feel free to ask more questions, or contact your greeter, or contact other people that you see are active on here. There are many people ready to help. There are also weekly YouTube updates, that anyone is welcome to come and watch. And regular challenges that anyone can participate in.

Enjoy your time.

Comments

That is a great profile! I think the pictures really add a lot to the story. The story gave a great timeline of her life, I hope to be able to do that to every member of my tree haha! I am just working in baby steps trying to get them on the tree. I haven’t finished adding my grandfathers line yet :/

My wife’s grandmother is a Rutledge (still alive) in the US and I’m their line came from Ireland in between 1739-1760s sometime.

Thanks for the response and the great example of a profile!

Edit: I’ve seen other people mention the tags on these posts too. It wouldn’t let me create new tags because I had less than 100 points, I tried to add several others but it told me no:/

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Good to know about the Tags. Thank you. Feel free to look around at other profiles. Press the edit button to see how people have done things. When you are editting one of your profiles, have a look at the row of boxes above your editting area. They are short-cuts, design to help make things easier.

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Nice work on those images, Ben.  All that's missing is the alt text for screen readers.  

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I have headings under the pictures. You might have to explain to me how 'Alt Text' for 'Screen Readers' works. I have no idea. I understand that screen readers is for those with poor or no eye sight.

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Alt text is added by way of the label parameter.  Best way to explain it is to show examples of where I have used it, such as Fanny Fern's profile, or Dorothy Wall's.  I have it also on the associated space pages.

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I see. Thank you. |label=description of picture

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It only just occurred to me Melanie. I can put photos of newspaper articles up, and then add a transcription in the label. Not only can the article then be read, but hopefully names should be searchable from Google etc.