Help:WikiTree Challenge

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Our current challenge is for Randy Seaver, May 2-9.
Follow WikiTree_Challenge for challenge news.

The WikiTree Challenge is our biggest ongoing community event. Every other week, volunteers collaborate to grow seven degrees of connections for a special genealogy guest star.

Guest Stars

Every other week, a team of WikiTree volunteers focuses on the tree of a special guest star. Our guests have been some of the world's leading genealogists and others who have made outstanding contributions in the field of genealogy, including bestselling author AJ Jacobs, genetic genealogist CeCe Moore, and host of PBS TV's "Finding Your Roots," Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

By working together in just one week, can our amateur genealogists make new discoveries for genealogy professionals? The answer: Yes! In our first year, we broke over 800 brick walls for our guests! This is a truly incredible accomplishment.

If you have been invited to be a guest, please see Help:WikiTree Challenge Guests.

Calendar

Week

Guest Star

Reveal

4-11 Apr

Meli Alexander, The DNA Chef

Week 3

18 Apr at 8 pm (EDT)

18-25 Apr

Lianne Kruger

Week 4

25 Apr at Noon (EDT)

2-9 May

Randy Seaver

Week 5

16 May at 8 pm (EDT)

16-23 May

29 May at Noon (EDT)

30 May-6 Jun

13-20 Jun

27 Jun at 8 pm (EDT)

27 Jun-4 Jul

11 Jul at 8 pm (EDT)

11-18 Jul

25 Jul at 8 pm (EDT)

25 Jul-1 Aug

How to Participate

Join us! Anyone can participate. If you are not already a WikiTree member, register now.

Challenges run every other week. A challenge week is Thursday to Thursday. Each challenge has a G2G discussion forum thread for registration, announcements and discussions.

Advance registration

Although registration is not required — everyone is invited to participate — only those who register will have their points counted. Registration also helps the challenge coordinator organize the event.

Registration is by week. It opens in G2G a few weeks before the start of the challenge. It is "pinned" to the top of the G2G question list.

Awards and badges

This is a collaborative and competitive challenge. The participants in each challenge week form a team. Awards go to the top-scoring individuals in each challenge week.

Everyone who participates gets a 2024 WikiTree Challenge participation badge.
Anyone who collects a point bounty gets a "Bounty Hunter" badge.
Each challenge week, participants vote to choose their MVP. (The team captain cannot be MVP.)

Objective: CC7 connections

During the week we race to grow seven degrees of connections for our special guest star and see how much we can increase their CC7 score.

Connections can go up, down, and out in every direction, and include relationships through marriage. Nuclear relatives (parents, siblings, spouses, and children) are one degree from the starting person. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, in-laws, and grandchildren are two degrees, etc.

The challenge coordinator or guest star will be sure that there are connected Open profiles prior to the start of the week, preferably including all great-grandparents of the guest star.

Privacy

Privacy is very important on WikiTree. This challenge is no exception.

Do not add any information about living people.
Don't hesitate to add family relationships and basic birth, death, and marriage data obtained from public sources for any non-living people.
Biographical information on people who lived within the past 100 years should only be added with strict adherence to WikiTree's policy on Help:Recently Deceased Strangers.

Lists vs Tables

When it comes to censuses, some members prefer to list the information in the biography section of a profile, while other members prefer to use a table. Either one is acceptable, but for the WikiTree Challenge we want to make it easy for anyone to participate, so lists are preferable.

Team communication

Participants can choose to work independently, but frequent communication can make things more fun and collaborative.

The G2G post for the week will have the featured genealogist with answers for several starting lines. You can comment under the line you are working on and let others know what you are working on, or ask questions. You can also post a new answer if you are starting on a line that isn't already listed.

There is a "Discord" live chat channel. Many of us use this. It's active almost 24 hours a day during the challenge.

There are four live Zoom video chats. You are invited to be in the room or just watch with your camera off.

Eowyn or Azure host a kick-off chat at the start of the week. The kick-off is at noon EDT (4pm UTC). There may be announcements about interesting leads to pursue.
Eowyn or Azure hosts the weekend check-in. You can chat about how the research is going, or ask questions, here. This will always be at noon EDT (4pm UTC)
Eowyn or Azure hosts two wrap-up chats at the end of the week. These are at noon EST (4pm UTC) and 8pm EST (12am UTC). We share our discoveries with each other and bounty points are awarded or announced for the most interesting ones.

Scoring

Points for new profiles

One point is awarded for each sourced profile created within seven degrees of the starting person.

Scoring is automatic. You do not need to track the profiles you create.

Fine print:

Scores are recalculated every hour.
Points will be removed if they were awarded for a profile that is later disconnected. That is, if points were awarded for adding profiles who are later shown to be unrelated, those points will not be counted when scores are recalculated. This could result in dramatic changes to scores. Similarly, points will be removed if they were awarded for a profile that is later merged into a profile that existed previously.

Bounty points

In addition to the points for creating profiles, participants can claim special point bounties in the following three categories.

General notes:

Decisions about whether to award points are made by the team captain. They can be appealed to the challenge coordinator if there is any controversy.
Bounty points may be split if members worked together.
Bounty points may not immediately appear on the scoresheet since they are added manually.

Bounties for connections

15-point bounties can be claimed for unique connections to the global family tree made during the challenge. The challenge coordinator will speicify which connections will count at the beginning of each challenge.

If the connection path has a very weak link, e.g. an unsourced relationship, it may be disqualified.

Bounties for brick walls broken

About halfway through the challenge, the challenge coordinator or team captain will announce several "brick walls" — a stubborn research problem — for the starting person. The brick walls will be posted on the G2G thread and free-space page.

The first participant to find a relative beyond each brick wall will get a 25-point bounty.

Only one 25-point bounty can be awarded for each brick wall. This is in addition to the automatic points for adding relatives.

Bounties for interesting discoveries

Participants who hunt for interesting stories can earn bounty points too.

Twenty-four hours before the end of the challenge, the team captain will compile a list of up to 21 interesting discoveries made by participants. To make sure your discovery is considered, report it on the G2G thread for the starting person, or on the Space page for the week.

This list will then be sent to all participants. Each participant can vote for up to seven favorites. The top seven vote-getters will earn 10-point bounties.

Unscored statistics

The true value of genealogy contributions is impossible to measure. Scores are for fun. They are not meant to be comprehensive summaries of participants' contributions.

In order to show a wider range of contributions, everyone who has edited a profile within seven degrees of a starting person during the challenge is listed on the table. These are the columns for "Profiles Edited" and "Total Edits." The former shows the number of unique profiles that were edited by the participant while the latter shows the total number of edits.

Challenge Leadership

Team captains

Each week's team is led by a team captain or co-captains.

The team captain role is very important in this challenge. Captains:

Work with Eowyn, before the challenge to prepare the starting profiles.
Participate in the kick-off event to introduce participants to what is already known about the starting people.
Lead the collaboration during the week so that researchers are coordinating their work.
Monitor progress and provide gentle guidance if they notice participants getting off track, e.g. creating profiles without sources.
Work with Eowyn to verify bounty point awards.
Participate in the check-ins and wrap-up event at the end of the week.

Like all genealogists on WikiTree, team captains are volunteers. Although they are not compensated, we can offer:

The sincere appreciation of our community.
A "Team Captain" badge.
A "WikiTree Challenge Team Captain" t-shirt or item of their choice.

Challenge coordinator

The challenge is administered by Eowyn Walker. Eowyn coordinates with team captains, helps with registration, and represents the WikiTree Team. If you have any questions or problems regarding the challenge, contact Eowyn.