Question of the Week: What improvements would you like to see on WikiTree in 2024?

Question

What improvements would you like to see on WikiTree in 2024? Is there anything you'd love to see in the WikiTree Browser Extension or Tree Apps? Tell us your wishlist!

Please tell us with an answer below. You could also answer on Facebook.

You might also be interested in this post about what the team is working on: "What is ahead for WikiTree in 2024?"

Comments

A feature where  Profile Managers can keep a living person's actual full name hidden, so that when a person profiled in WT dies, it would be easier to change from "Anonymous" to the actual name.

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I've certainly wished for this many times!

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My understanding is that the profile manager, in specifying that the person is still living, causes the full name of the profile person to be hidden from all except the profile manager and perhaps, the trusted list for the profile.

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Allowing the Trusted List to view the full name of a living person does not render that profile to be anonymous. So some profile managers opt to only use "Anonymous" or "Living" as the name in living profiles.

 Futhermore, all biography text scattered around various profiles that currently use names like "Anonymous Smith" does not change to the full proper name when a person is finally marked as Deceased. In short, WT needs a better way for managers to deal with the inevitable deaths of their living profiles.

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The descendants of my parents, from the profile of my father's father, before I logged in to Wikitree within this web browser on this computer (I have been working within Wikitree, on another computer before this session), are shown thus:

"

1. [private great-granddaughter (unknown - unknown)]
2. [private great-grandson (unknown - unknown)]

1. [private great-great-granddaughter (2020s - unknown)]

1. [private great-grandson (unknown - unknown)] m. [private spouse]

1. [private great-granddaughter (unknown - unknown)]
2. [private great-grandson (unknown - unknown)]

1. [private great-grandson (1990s - unknown)]
2. [private great-grandson (1990s - unknown)]

1. [private great-granddaughter (unknown - unknown)]
2. [private great-grandson (unknown - unknown)]

1. [private grandson (1940s - unknown)] m. [private spouse]
2. Phil Busby  (1940s - 2010s) m. [private spouse]
3. [private grandson (1950s - unknown)] m. [private spouse]
4. [private granddaughter (1950s - unknown)] m. [private spouse]
5. [private grandson (1950s - unknown)] m. [private spouse]
6. Bret Busby  (1950s - unknown) m. [private spouse]
7. [private grandson (1960s - unknown)] m. [private spouse]

"

After logging in to Wikitree, the details od each of the living people, in addition to me (I am mostly living), are displayed. But, the details, other that what is displayed above, are not displayed, until I, as the profile manager for each, am logged in.

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The formatting did not quite work, in my last previous post above - the great-grandchildren are not shown as being the children of their parents. But, my generation of my family, are those consecutively numbered 1-7, and, the displayed names, show the point that I was making.

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If you want to see what I saw (with the correct formatting), before I logged in on that computer, right click on my name above; open the link in a new browser tab or browser window, click on the Ancestors button, click on my father's name, or, his father's name, to open the profile, then, in his profile, click on the Descendants button, and, view my generation of my family. The only name in my siblings, that should be displayed, is my second-eldest brother, who died ten years ago.

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I would really like to see the Correct Nomenclature for the Colonies on the continent of Australia before 1901 when the Commonwealth of Australia came into being. At present the auto fill for Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia,  Queensland etc, is totally incorrect, because it does not align with the historical, political and geo-political facts around the evolution of Australia as a nation.

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Alison, the Australia Project allows for various forms of location statements in our Guidelines for such.  Even if you disagree with them, those are what we, as a group, have agreed are acceptable.
As for the list in the location dropdown, those come from FamilySearch.

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The drop down location list is from Family Search, and trying to get them to change anything takes an immense amount of time.

There is no requirement or recommendation to use the drop down list. As Melanie says the Australia Project has information about locations.

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Bret and David; as the profile manager you can see information that others can't.

If you look at the right hand end of the line with person's name where it says public view, click on public view, that is what anyone who is not on the trusted list sees for living people.

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M Ross - I do not know why you have addressed your comment to me - you seem to be telling me what I have already said.

What I had said, effectively, is what was requested " Dec 27, 2023 by David Chawes" is superfluous, because of what already exists, and I gave details and examples, to show that.

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Could someone who can, please,separate the sub-thread about the location names, from the thread about displayed names of living people, into which thread, the sub-thread was incorrectly inserted?

I have received notification of the response by M Ross, to the sub-thread, and, whilst I have participated in the thread, into which, the sub-thread was incorrectly inserted, I have not participated in the sub-thread, prior to, and other than, this request to have the sub-thread removed from the thread, to which thread, the sub-thread is unrelated and irrelevant.

Answer 1

An "early baptism" option for the birth date field.

Now a birth date can be set as:
about/uncertain | exact/certain | before this date | after this date
It would be very useful to have one extra option: "early baptism", meaning that the given date is the date of a child baptism shortly after the birth.

The rationale is that that is the information given in records for a big part of Europe for a long time, for many people for whom the actual date of birth will never ever be known. Currently people handle this differently. Say a record says someone was baptised June 3 1640.

• Some will put that date in the birth date field, even though that isn't correct.
• Some will click "before this date" which is technically correct (except that it is possible the child was baptised the same day as born), but misleading.
• Some will click "about/uncertain" which is technically correct, but even more misleading.
• Some will enter just the year 1640 and give the details just in the bio so that it will be written as "1640" and not "abt 1640".

With this simple extra option there would be a way to state what the facts actually are in a way that can be shown in nice ways that agrees with genealogy literature and that can be handled in gedcom exports and imports (at least when it uses the CHR field).

When you know both the birth date and the baptism date of course the field should be used for birth as usual (and if you want to record the date of baptism you can do that in the biography). A late baptism should never be in this field.

Anything in Wikitree that looks like "here is incomplete info that should be extended" is ugly, because there really is nothing to add in the cases I'm talking about. Having to store something as about/uncertain when we have an exact date is unfortunate; storing as "before this date" is impractical and too imprecise.

A similar thing would be useful for death/burial dates. Often we have old church records about burials but will never know when someone actually died.

Comments

I would like for there to be separate fields for baptism/christening and burial so that when the actual birth or death date is known, both can be shown. Neither of the two fields would be required nor would they need the modifier radio buttons because you would only complete the fields when you have the evidence.

Answer 2

That notification of a merge request go on the later, duplicate profile, NOT (as it currently does) on the target profile.

This way, the creator of the duplicate is notified of the merge (and by extension, informed that they've created a duplicate).

Comments

You've got me worried, Jillaine. I knew that the comment only goes on one profile, but don't both profile managers (if they exist) get an email?

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If the merge comment only goes on one profile, how would the profile manager of the other profile be notified?

Answer 3

I would like an option to not display the "How to" suggestions on the right side of the edit screen. The "How to" suggestions make it difficult to display the edit widow and a window with source info to the right.

Answer 4

With the upcoming changes announced (all of them excellent!), my wish list is short: On a profile page, I'd love to see Father/Mother of and Brother/Sister of displayed list style, instead of paragraph style. To save screen space, maybe they could display side by side, 2 columns.

Thank you, and keep up the great work. Cheering you on!

Comments

Hi Becky. In the meantime the WikiTree Browser Extension can do something along those lines:

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:WikiTree_Browser_Extension#Change_Family_Lists

Answer 5

Can it be made possible to merge family trees?

If there are disputed or different details, then both sets could be added, and those details altered later.

Also to easily view and get information from other sites and embed it in the tree.

I am a (free) member of a few sites and wiki tree is the least self explanatory site, so anything that can be done to make the main part of it easy without having to download additional extensions etc - which I don't understand

Thanks

Comments

Do you mean merge loads of duplicate profiles in one go?

WikiTree is very different from other websites as such that we only allow 1 profile per person, and there is no such thing a tree, just connected profiles.

Answer 6

I would love to see an overhaul of the process to add sources. I saw a comment about unsourced profiles and I am one of the guilty. Many on my profile are unsourced because the process confounds me, not because I don't have them.

I'm thankful that the process of uploading a gedcom and attaching profiles will be addressed. Like many, I have over 4500 so it will be a relief not to have to start from ground zero if time gets away from me.

A huge THANKS to the teams that make WikiTree such a good thing. Your time and efforts are greatly appreciated!

Answer 7

I would be delighted if the sticker encyclopedia could be sorted, for example - The counties of England are muddled alphabetically  and so too the states of the United States of America are also muddled up.

Answer 8

I would like to see easier integration with "Find A Grave".  I'm frequently going to the Find A Grave website to look for confirmation on burial details, as well as pictures of headstones.  I then have to download the headstones, and upload them to WikiTree.  It would be great if there were a feature that would allow me to automatically transfer details, such as which cemetery, a link to 'find a grave', etc, along with headstone pictures, directly to WikiTree.

Comments

Sorry Lee but there is a problem with part of this idea. Reposting an image from Find a Grave onto another website requires express permission from the person who created the image, as they retain the copyright. So it would not be possible to automate image transfer. See the section "Respect for Intellectual Property" at

https://www.ancestry.com/c/legal/community-rules

For the textual details you can use the View Source Citation feature available on each Find a Grave memorial.

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I use Sourcer extension for this purpose, it can generate a narrative and/or source citation with a link, also does the same for Billiongraves.

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Jim is correct. But I am not a legal expert. See the Terms and Conditions for FindAGrave (which is Ancestry) where they talk about Ancestry Content and Your Content. In this case, Your Content is something that you upload. It then says that other users may access Your Content. Then it says "You will use other Users’ content only within Ancestry Services"... So if someone posts a picture to FindAGrave (their Content), you can use that only within other Ancestry Services. WikiTree is not an Ancestry Service. Then see WikiTree Terms of Service discussion of Posting and Modifying Website Content.

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Copying the image almost certainly does require permission from the image owner, putting a link on Wikitree to the image on Findagrave (or Billliongraves) is the work around as copyright is not violated.

 The drawback is that the image might be deleted or the link may change.

Answer 9

I would like to have a way to enter immigration data: origin and arrival locations, arrival date, and a note field.  Since this could happen more than once per profile, it would look like, say, a marriage data entry interface,and would live in the profile heading area.  As of now immigration can be inferred from stickers and birth and death locations, but these are data dependent.  Chase's excellent Ancestor Explorer app can show me PGM and other stickered profiles, but would not show, say, a non-stickered immigrant who died on a trip to another country, or the immigration date.  A note field would allow the ship's name and/or other immigration details to be entered and reported, and immigration reporting would be independent of birth and death locations.

Answer 10

I would love a faster way to add citation and other source documentation. I can click “copy citation” on other apps but I can’t just click in WikiTree and paste. I have so much source documentation for everyone on my Ancestry tree but it’s so tedious to add here.

Comments

The WikiTree Sourcer browser extension allows you to easily copy citations for your Ancestry sources with one click and paste them into WikiTree.

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Thank you!  I'd forgotten about that!  I actually tried it several months ago but couldn't figure it out even with the help features on WikiTree.  I'll give it another go.

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Post on G2G if you have more problems or on Sourcer's freespace page, on G2G there are some experienced users who will provide help, also Rob who developed Sourcer is very hepfull.

Answer 11

I think it is more important which profile has been modified or added to than who did it. In the Wikitree Genealogy Feed every day, I would like to see profile name first, then who did it.

Answer 12

Add a way to print an RANGE of profiles, for a family, or list of different people, instead of one at a time.  This is especially valuable if you are trying to print a family tree book, which includes all the descendants of one person.

Also, outputting to an editable file type instead of PDF would be useful for publishing.  e.g. MS word.

Answer 13

I hope the Wiki team looks closely at the major complaints and develops a plan to resolve these.

One that comes to mind is the failure of the search function. Especially pertaining to the matching by location. This leads to the add hock entry of Place names. Many without a country. Maybe a county field should be created and it becomes mandatory if a date is entered in the Birth or Death dates. It would be ugly but it would help with searches since little is mandatory in WT and the policy of "enter the place as it was at the time".

I also think it is a mistake to not move toward a more GEDCOM standard by including more fielded data. If major changes are contemplated, now is the time to do this. Two come to mind, "religious event" (eg Baptism) and Burial date and place. In effect this would remove the need for many categories. Just my two cents.

Answer 14

Cleanup of profiles should have some automation.

When I review the Suggestions list, there are multiple suggestion categories that are formatting related that a utility should correct instead of a human.

Overall, there should be an easier way to address data integrity.

Answer 15

There needs to be efforts to make Connections more accurate. Most of the time, when I follow a connection, I will run into inaccurate or false information, which causes me to doubt the connection.

Answer 16

I would like the topola viewer to be accesable from the Tree apps menue. It is super usefull, and ever since it was removed from the Tree Apps menue, I have to open up the app manualy and type in the profile name wich slows down my work flow.

https://apps.wikitree.com/apps/wiech13/topola-viewer/#/view?gen=-1&indi=Nilsson-11069&source=wikitree&standalone=false

Answer 17

I would like to have an option to switch back to the old way of adding a new profile. Before, all data fields including the sources section was on one page. Now its on several pages where I need to click through. Yes, I can do that, but when adding many profiles (manually or with a gedcom), I usually copy informations such as the correct locations, stickers or sources from other relatives (eg. the marriage source from the spouse, birth location and source of a family book from a sibling). Copying to different single pages with data fields needs more effort.

Answer 18

A publicly viewable and accessible dynamic tree, viewable without a login.  This was my favorite feature of the site in the past, but seems to have been blocked now.  Family members greatly appreciated it.  And if they wanted profile information, they would need to log in.

Answer 19

Hej och God Fortsättning på Helgen!

Jag skulle vilja få mina sidor presenterade på svenska,

eller finns det någon inställning jag missat!?

Bertil

Answer 20

A suggestion about sourcing: I do think it's necessary that new members have an easy or "low level" way of adding profiles with imperfect sources, so I think to offer something such as "I will add sources later" is a good way.
But I would suggest to 1. make that sentence clearer that the source will be added later (which was the standard sentence a few years ago) and 2. add the unsourced tag automatically, so the profiles can be found by other members. I hope, that little bit of pressure would be okay for new members?