Did you see your Connection Count (CC7) in the newsletter? [closed]

Question

Hi WikiTreers,

In today's email newsletter we're including something new: your connection count at seven degrees ("CC7" for short, if members like that).

For those who are unfamiliar with our use of "degrees": We say that your nuclear relatives (parents, siblings, spouses, and children) are one degree from you. Your grandparents, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, in-laws, and grandchildren are two degrees from you, i.e. they are connected to you through two relationship steps. For example, from you to your parent is the first degree, and then from your parent to your grandparent is the second degree. 

See My Connections for your relatives at each degree. That tool will only show up to 1,000 connections. My Connections is about who you're connected to, whereas the new count is a quick reference for how many people you're connected to, or to put it another way, how tightly you're intertwined in our global family tree.

The connection number we usually think about is the big one: the number of people on our tree who are all connected to each other. As of today, it's 26,243,796. This number is the same for all of us who are part of the 26 million. Your CC7 is unique to you.

In our discussion last month we settled on seven degrees for this because at this distance your personal contributions make a big difference to the count. Anyone can increase their CC7 at almost any time, no matter the size of their close family or how well their ancestry is developed. Yet seven degrees isn't so far from you that your contributions could get lost in the contributions of other members and it would be hard to have an impact. A high CC7 number will mean that you or someone close to you has done a lot of work.

For now, your CC7 will only appear in your weekly email newsletter, but we expect to add it to member account profiles — at the top alongside contribution counts, badges, and thank-yous — and in other places. And we hope to be able to highlight the inverse relationship between an increasing CC7 and decreasing connection distances to our weekly Featured Connections.

The idea behind all of this, of course, is to encourage everyone to increase their connections. It might be the basis for new community collaborations and friendly competitions. We all benefit, personally and as a community sharing one tree, by increasing connections.

What are your thoughts, suggestions or questions?

Please post an answer instead of a comment. Comments at the top will be hidden after they are read once. Thanks!

Chris and the WikiTree Team

Answer 1

Apparently mine is 959. I've no idea wther that is high, low or typical, so it would be interesting to see it given on other profiles.

Comments

Some rough numbers from our analysis last month:

• 21 members have more than 10,000 connected profiles within seven degrees.
• 438 have 5,000+
• 5,780 have 2,000+
• 21,000 have 1,000+
• 118,000 have 100+

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A good reference profile is HM Queen Elizabeth II we have been monitoring in the 100 Circles project for a little more than one year now. Granted, HM is not a WikiTree member, but her close circles, representing the "extended" royal family, are certainly among the best known, explored, and therefore well represented in WikiTree.

As of today, Her Majesty's CC7 is 8285. I just checked the figures of one year ago (June 20, 2021) : 7544. Seems that sets a reasonable upper limit for everyone's ambitions.

Mine as of today is 2183, sort of average ...

Note that older profiles have higher CC7, because 7 circles span over 2 centuries in the past and in the future. Our other reference profile Mary Stuart has a CC7 over 26,000. Not to mention our champion Samuel Lothrop with a CC7 at over 230k, and counting. But only our descendants in the late 23th century will be able to check if any of currently living people can challenge such values ...

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Interesting stats. I wonder how much of an impact wealth can have on theoretical CC7 max numbers independent from there being more records. There is a link between income and infant mortality. More surviving children means more in-laws and more descendants.

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Paula, I've been musing a while ago along such lines in this page in French sorry, I could deliver an English version, but the point I make is as following :

My paternal line around 1850 gathers only obscure and mostly poor farmers, in the heart of Britanny. I was surprised to find among their ancestors around 1700s (I could find out about all of them, thanks to well maintained local parishes records) an over-representation of notable and more wealthy families, including small local aristocracy. And indeed, those had large families and were more able to ensure their descendancy.

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The family and ancestors I know of were mostly farmers, and they had tons of kids, and were definitely not wealthy. It's still shocking to see a 7-year old child listed as "farm worker" on a Census. But sometimes, I would absolutely trade in order to have siblings, aunts and uncles.

My grandfather was one of ten children, they worked as coal miners. His Dad cooked in restaurants, provided for 14 people when he had three grown sons in the home. That baffles me, the questions we'll never know. I can't imagine being the sole provider for 14 people in the 1920s and '30s. So no wealth there, but again, lots of kids.

 I have read that wealthy women for a long time were more likely to die in childbirth because doctors weren't careful about hand washing, and midwives (sp?) were. But it would depend on what century, I guess.

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I am 23 degrees from her , no real wealth here though! LOL! Interesting history though that we are connected thru my mother who advised us long ago “you never know who you have in your family”.

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So that makes my number of 3900 fairly reasonable? Guess I'll have to work harder on closer connections to get over the 5000!

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Who are the 21? (10k+ is truly remarkable.)

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Contrary to the French national narrative, medieval and early modern Brittany was a wealthy country where the common people typically held more land and were more engaged in mercantile endeavours than most Europeans and Americans today.

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I had kind of the same question.  I have found on Wikitree many ancestors that are Kings and princes from around Europe.  Dukes and Duchess, high profile society.  It all seems a bit much if I might say so.

I seem to have lineage coming from Charlemagne, Kings of Scotland, Queen Victoria and the rest of her family, les Capétiens, Spanish, Danish and Russian royalty.

Yet from the 1700's, most of my French ancestors were farmers who left their land to have a new life in Acadia and New France.

It's quite puzzling.

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It is still interesting to see the connections though!

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Suppose you are a king. On average, one of your children will inherit the crown; the others will be of lower rank, for example as dukes.

Suppose you are a duke.

Repeat the argument down 10 or 20 generations.

Now most of the king’s descendants are commoners.

Depositions also occur.

For example, over 60% of modern O’Driscolls are male-line descendants of several thousand years of High Kings of Ireland and later Kings of Munster.

No O’Driscoll is a king today, and precious few, if any, are recognised as nobles of even a minor rank.

Answer 2

Mine is 1463, no idea if thats high or low either.

Answer 3

1416.  I guess, as more people answer, we'll get a better feel for where we stand.

Answer 4

My CC7 # is currently 2337. This makes sense since I've recently focused on an unsourced document "Descendants of Rev. James McNally" (my ggg gf), adding sources and using DNA to prove it. This work has added a lot of my cousins to the tree.

For me, it would be interesting to see a chart showing the distribution of members' CC7 numbers. A bar chart would be ideal and should show a bell curve around the average CC7 #. I suspect many members would be interested in this analysis.

Comments

I believe that the curve is rather skewed, with a very long tail of small CC7 numbers. The majority of the 916,000+ members probably have a CC7 of 0.

I'd like to know how many have a CC7 of at least 1, and then maybe of 10 or more.

The mode or peak value would be more interesting than average or median in this context, I think.

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Leif, CC7 is the cumulated number for circles up to 7, including yourself in C0 (I suppose), so the minimal value is 1 for unlinked profiles.

If your profile is connected to the Single Tree (85% of profiles), it means your circles up to 7 are all non-empty, so the minimal value of CC7 is 8 (or 7 if you don't count C0). But it's very unlikely to have a profile connected by a line with one single profile at each degree. Even if such bottlenecks of circles with a single profile do exist.

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Bernard, yes, of course. Don't know what I was thinking

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But I still think that the average CC7 for all the 916,000+ members must be very low, The average number of profiles per member is about 33, and seems to be remarkably constant. So, the average CC7 number can't be higher than that, and probably a bit lower.

On second thought, most members are connected to the Big Tree, and must share at least some profiles. It makes the question about "average" even more interesting.

And, if 118,000 members have more than 100, as Chris W. writes above, by implication almost 800,000 have below 100.

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Ha ha, Gary mine is 2336, only one to catch up to you on the 22nd and you've had a week. Hopefully you didn't get in gear.... cause most all my focus right now is on a big building project I designed, LoL!

Answer 5

Mine shows at 3762.

I'm curious to see how this 'inverse relationship' progresses over time.....

Answer 6

Currently it's 2150. I'll definitely try to expand it in the coming weeks.

Answer 7

Mine is 1008.

Comments

So my cc7 is 447 I think it said. Is that bc I haven't taken a dna test? Does that greatly affect the outcome,or is it bc I haven't finished research on a branch if my tree? Still on the fence about that. When you hear about other countries buying up dna results... I hesitate.

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It isn't about DNA. It is in relation to how many connections you have built within 7 steps of yourself.

If you can take as many of your own ancestors back as far as you can, or to 7 generations. Then with those ancestors, fill in as many descendants as you can for all of them. Then work on the marriages of all those descendants, and extend their families as far as you can. In short, it is only about working on all your connections. By the way, do this for all of your spouses connections too, and it potentially doubles your number.

If you look at the drop down menu, under your LNAB-ID is an option Connections. Use this to look at your current connections, and add any unconnected family you can find for those in the list.

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Thank you so much! Great explanation!

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Thanks fir the explanation. How to find number if you have cc7

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It was listed in the details in your weekly Wikitree Family News Updates email. By the sounds of it, they will give it a location on your profile in the near future.

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Hi Trina Gragg Fincher  Gragg-892

To make WikiTree work the dates need to be right on your tree.
The dates for Gensbechler-2 are wrong see grave stone at this source below.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/103803384/george-gensbechler

His father plus 3 sisters and 2 brothers are also listed here. Follow all the lines as far as listed.
This should bring your numbers up.

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Ok great! Thank You so much. I'll look at it this weekend. Appreciate your thoughtful comment. Cheers!

Answer 8

Mine is 4065. It's something I focus on now that I have reached the end of my lines until new sources are available (if they exist). I am delighted to learn that the "Find Missing Links" page exists. I had just been thinking that something like that would be useful.

Comments

Focus is always good, here it really makes a difference :)

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Paula, that's a fairly good score. You just have to double that figure to challenge HM Queen Elisabeth II . (see above comment on first answer).

Answer 9

My cc7 is 2562. Not sure where this falls statistically.

Comments

It would be interesting to know the average CC7 and other general statistics. My CC7, as of today, is 2600.

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Kay and Nelda, you are sort of average for active WikiTreers. With room for growth.

Answer 10

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Connection Count at 7 Degrees

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Total (CC7)
4	15	38	69	86	146	266	624

Comments

How do you generate this, please?

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Connection Count at 7 Degrees

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	Total ( My Connections )
9.	16	43	102	225	336	270	1001

  - thanks for the chart idea - Tommy

 - but , for me = New! Your "CC7" (?) Connection Count: 1441. - via N/letter - - ? why the difference

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@Chris, if your CC7 is under 1,000, you have the details using the My Connections application.

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The "My Connectins" app just got better with the WikiTree BEE extension. Releasing soon:  profiles are flagged at each degree with missing parent(s) and spouse.

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John, thanks for sharing your stats. I see you maxed out at degree 7.

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- tks for max out -

visit the
WikiTree BEE

 

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@Tommy sorry to insist but I still don't have a clear answer to the questions I also put in a comment on the CC7 FSP :

#1 : How do people get the details of their C6-C7 when their CC7 is over 1000 and the My Connections app maxes out?

#2 : Does WikiTree BEE provide those figures?

Thx!

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Bernard,

Answer #1:

If your CC7 is over 1000 and you max out at C7 using the "My Connections" app, then your C7 number will be CC7 - (C1 + C2 + C3 + C4 + C5 + C6).

If your CC7 is over 1000 and you max out at C6, then your C6 number will be incomplete and there is no accurate way to determine your C6 & C7 number.

If your CC7 is over 1000 and you max out at C5, then your C5 number will be incomplete and there is no accurate way to determine your C5, C6 & C7 number.
 
If your CC7 is over 1000 and you max out at C4, then your C4 number will be incomplete and there is no accurate way to determine your C4, C5, C6 & C7 number.

Answer #2: (revised 6 July 2022)

The WikiTree BEE extension has been coded to calculate your score out to CC7 and beyond. However, once the connections exceed 1000, the private connections are not made known to the extension and are not counted in the individual degree score and the final CC7 score.

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Here are the Links to the 

• G2G Discussion
• CC7 Free Space Page

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Thx Tommy, that's pretty clear.

The "100 Circlers" are left with the "magic query" giving the numbers for all circles, an overkill tool for the task at hand (and costly on the server). Hope Ales will pop up with a lightweight version limited to 7 circles.

Answer 11

My CC7 is 94. I guess I have a lot more to do!

Comments

Probably means you have a lot of connections that are going to be easy to add! :-)

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Thanks for the encouragement!

Answer 12

I have 1133 it says.

Answer 13

For me it's 2367 (today).

Answer 14

932 - I have extended most lines out to seven gen. But I think I have not worked much on descendants.

What is the max possible score?

Comments

Jonathan, I see you were born in the 1960s, and your son in the 1990s. With a mean generation length of 30 years, people counting in your CC7 are likely to be born any time from 1700 to ... 2200. So only your descendants of the 23th century will be able to answer such a question.

Meanwhile, a four-digit CC7 is a reasonable target (you're almost here), passing 10k a very ambitious one. See my above comments.

Answer 15

An interesting related statistic, which shouldn't be too hard to calculate as part of the process, is how many of your CC7 count have someone else as the Profile Manager?  It would be a measure of the extent to which your own contributions are isolated from (or integrated into) the overall tree.

Answer 16

It includes step-relatives, so it is not meaningful.

Comments

WikiTree has always differentiated between its relationship finder and connections.  Relationships show how you share an ancestor(s) with someone - and lists the intermediate people.  Connections, on the other hand, can include things like the mother of the wife of your uncle - and so on.  There's often not a known common ancestor in the connection.

Example 1: I have no common ancestor with Donald J Trump - but we're 21 degrees apart through the mother of his wife, Marla Maples.

Example 2: I have 182 common ancestors with Barack Obama (all on his mother's side); the closest relationship is tenth cousin.  Most of those 182 ancestors are far past tenth cousins, so I consider them highly speculative.  We happen to be considered 20 degrees apart in the connection finder, but that isn't via an ancestral path.

The connection finder is a measure of the extent and breadth of the tree, not a measure of shared ancestors.

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Any figure is meaningful, providing you take it for what it actually represents, and not something else.

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Absolutely right about the connection finder, which I always find meaningless.  Glad you pointed this out. My expectations are now appropriately adjusted.

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J.Crook, I think you missed completely my point. The Connection Finder and the applications built on top of it are in my opinion the most interesting feature of WikiTree. It's just that you are not interested on what it provides. So be it, you can ignore it. 

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I completely understood your point and appreciate your response.  This is something based on a feature of Wikitree which is fun for some and a meaningless toy for others.  And so, as you say, I will ignore it.   When I first looked at this morning I wasn't feeling well and was a bit sleep deprived, so again, I thank you for your explanation and clarification.

Answer 17

I'm at 994.

Answer 18

2713 for me.

Answer 19

My connection count is 3156. If I look at the number who are 1 degree from me, it is small (7). The count at 7 degrees seems astounding, but I have been seeking out my family within 3 degrees of my direct line for quite a while. That could be part of the explanation.

Comments

Indeed, way to go, Judith! Reaching several thousands is what you get by extending in all directions.

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I must thank my researching cousins. I could not have done that alone, but WikiTree pulled us together.

Answer 20

Wow, okay! Kinda wild that after eight years and 27,000 contributions I only have 585 connections. Probably because I usually work on early colonial people?

So to build the number, I would go back to my 5th great grandparents and create/connect all their children and children's children? Not a bad thing...

It'd be cute if there was a "raise your count" link somehow.

Comments

Don't forget to explore sideways through in-laws, collaterals, multiple marriages. This is the most efficient way to increase connections.