What is your toughest brick wall currently?
There’s quite a few, but one that I worked on recently springs to mind: my fifth-great-grandfather, John Dyer, was probably born out of wedlock. I haven’t been able to identify his father. But, it’s not likely I’ll ever know. The brick wall lies in the identity of his mother’s first husband, Henry Dyer. I just have not been able to parse it. I’ve got a free-space page set up for this particular brick wall.
How long have you been on WikiTree?
I joined in late 2020, but didn’t get super involved until early 2021, when I signed up for the England Project’s Orphan Trail. I was initially made aware of WikiTree when I did some Google searching on some ancestors of mine and came across their WT profiles. I was intrigued by the idea of a shared, collaborative tree, which is what eventually motivated me to join up. I look back on those early months and cringe now – I didn’t know how to cite my sources! But we’re all new at some point, and the community was more than happy to help me. I’ve definitely come a long way since then!
What do you spend the most time doing here?
I spend most of my time working on my own tree. I split my time between transferring information to WT from my tree on FindMyPast, and working on more distant relatives (especially if my direct ancestors start to get frustrating to work with). I’m a bit busy with life stuff at the moment (ugh, the bane of existence for genealogists everywhere), but in the future I hope to do more work on my OPS, and I would like to do part 3 of the Orphan Trail/pre-1500s prep.
Which project are you most involved in?
I am most involved in the England Project. I’m currently head of the Devon County Team and a Trailblazer in the Orphan Trail Team. Trailblazing is extremely rewarding. Being able to guide others through English records and the process of making top-notch English profiles gives me joy, especially as I remember how hopelessly lost I felt when I was first learning. Of course, it’s also satisfying to see our Trailers use their new-found skills on English profiles, as this contributes to the Project’s goal of making ‘every English profile the very best it can be’.
How can others help the England Project?
If you’ve got English ancestors or you’re just interested in contributing English profiles on WT, sign up to the Orphan Trail! It’s a fantastic opportunity to learn about creating and researching English profiles. I learnt about all sorts of new and wonderful sources of information during my journey on the Trail. You also get guided through English Profile Standards and tricky WikiTree stuff like repeating an inline citation. I highly recommend doing it for your own personal development and for the development of the England Project and English profiles in general.
What inspires you to contribute so much of yourself to WikiTree's mission?
Oh, this is a hard one! I suppose I’m inspired by my desire to keep my ancestors’ memory alive. They were regular everyday folks like you and I, they could never have imagined someone researching and writing about them years, decades, even centuries later. And yes, I suppose my work here is part of my legacy. It’s going to be looked back on for many years to come by future generations wanting to know about their family’s past. Thinking about it like that pushes you to do your very best work; the work we do now isn’t just for us, so we better take pride in it and do it well!
What is your favourite feature or function on WikiTree?
I love the facilitation of communication and collaboration between members. I’ve made contact with a number of distant cousins through WikiTree. I’ve also learnt a lot by talking with other members, both via WikiTree’s direct messages, G2G, and mailing lists and Discord servers set up by WT members. The community is so kind, welcoming, and willing to lend a helping hand.
What feature or function would you most like to see added or improved?
I’d like to see more features related to analytics and statistics. I would like to be able to see at a glance the average life-span of my ancestors, the average age at which they married, how many children they had etc. Also, as someone conducting a One Place Study, it’d be great to be able to look at such statistics for people in my Place. I know such features do exist, but it’d be great to see them made more accessible, easier to use, and better integrated with WikiTree’s other features.
