Means of communication in the Germany Project

Profile managers: Florian Straub [send private message] and Germany Project WikiTree [send private message]

The Germany Project uses various means of communication, which may be a bit overwhelming for beginners. This page explains what they are, where to find them and how they are used. Feel free to edit this page and to ask questions in the comments section. You can use any or all of them to ask for help with WikiTree or your research, to brag about your achievements etc.

Feel free to request Trusted List access to this page, in order to see updates to it in your personalized weekly newsletter.

G2G

G2G ("Genealogist to genealogist") is the "forum" of WikiTree. Tags are used to categorize/label the questions. Frequently used tags for topics related to Germany are GERMANY, GERMAN_ROOTS and HOLY_ROMAN_EMPIRE.

You can follow tags and will receive a daily email update of G2G posts where the followed tag was added, commented on or replied to. This daily email is not to be confused with the personalized weekly newsletter, sent on Wednesdays, which contains changes to profiles on your watch list.

The Germany Project user account also follows some tags. That one's daily email update is mirrored to the #Google Group. The same goes for the #germany-g2g channel on #Discord.

When posting at G2G you theoretically reach everyone on WikiTree who generally looks at G2G or watches a tag you used in your post.

Google Group

The Google Group is a traditional electronic mailing list, where one sends a message and all subscribers receive it. You can also read it on the Google website.

The Google Group is the email address for the "artificial" Germany Project user account, which means the Google Group will receive the daily #G2G updates to the tags followed by this particular account, as well as the personalized weekly newsletter for it, comments on project managed profiles and private messages sent to this account (unfortunately including the email address of the sending account).

Access to the group is limited to project members. Please state your WikiTree ID when joining.

If your posts don't go through, it might be related to your email provider. Google Groups is known to have problems with emails sent from GMX. In this case you might want to try subscribing with a different mail address. In case that's not the one you want to receive mails with, feel free to put that one's subscription to "web only".

In the last years activity in the Google Group declined pretty much in favor of G2G and Discord.

Discord

Discord is a messenger/chat tool that also allows audio and video communication. There are channels for different topics, projects and challenges as well as a general chat channel. It can also be used for 1:1 chat with a person or a small group. Apart from the browser version, there are also apps for Android and Apple phones, which generates a user experience similar to Whatsapp, Threema, Signal and other messenger apps. You can also customize notifications for each channel individually.

For details on how to access WikiTree's Discord server and some of the restricted channels, please refer to Help:Discord. Since Discord is sometimes criticized for their handling of privacy etc., you might not want to share very personal stuff there.

In Discord there is a channel #germany for project members. You can also notify all Germany project members on Discord from any other channel by using @germany.

For Germany Genies, our team at challenges like the Connect-a-Thon, there is also #germany-genies. If you were ever a member of the team, your access there will remain, so you can cheer others along, even if you are not participating.

The channel #germany-g2g will receive new #G2G posts, if they contain the tags Germany, German_Roots, German, Holy_Roman_Empire, Deutschland or Prussia. This is faster than the daily email update on those tags, but a new post is only created, when a new question is posted. As opposed to the daily email update, you won't recognize, when somebody reacts with a comment or an answer to a G2G post.

If you're looking for profiles that need help, you might want to check out #germany-category-feeds. There every few days profiles are automatically posted, that were added to or removed from certain categories. Most of those categories often receive profiles that do not belong there (e.g. "Category:Germany, Immigrants" and "Category:Germany, Emigrants" for people who clearly migrated before 1945, see Space:Germany_Project_Category_Guidelines#Maintenance_Categories). Additionally some "needs work" categories are monitored there, like Category:Germany, Needs Birth Record. Feel free to help out there and post, when you're done. If you've reviewed an automated post there and consider it done, please react to it, with the checked emoji (✓), so other's don't need to check them as well. There are also some false positives posted. If you're unsure, why a category is monitored at all there, please refer to the pinned post in the channel or just ask.

Additional offers in German language

In order to support Germany Project users who are not comfortable communicating in English, there are additional offers in German language:

• The Discord server Ahnenforschung contains a channel #wikitree. It also offers support in deciphering documents (#lesehilfe).

• Compgen's Discourse category WikiTree is a mixture of forum and mailing list, like the #Google Group, but doesn't receive the messages for the "artificial" Germany Project user account. You might want to check out the FAQs about Compgen's Discourse (not to be confused with Discord!)

• Stammtisch offers regular Zoom meetings to talk about WikiTree and genealogy in German