Sunday Snippets is intended to be a look back at the previous week in the genealogy/family history side of my life.
WikiTree
Finally this week, I decided it was time to jump into WikiTree. I have wanted to get started for years, but due to working long hours, it never came to the top of my ‘to do’ list. Now that I am retired and busier than ever, I decided to set aside a whole day and just get it done. My plan was to spend a chunk of time learning how to get around the site, and then start loading family into my tree.
Well that was the intention but I was soon feeling frustrated, as I very quickly came to a full stop. Firstly, my grandmother’s profile belongs to another researcher, and I haven’t been able to contact him to add me as a ‘Trusted Person’. From what I can see, I can’t move any further without getting that access. I have a feeling he may no longer be active on WikiTree, so I’m not sure what to do about that.
I then decided that while I waited for access to be given, I would move to my mother’s line. More frustration! As my mother is still living, I sent a request through WikiTree for her permission to be added. That was four days ago, and she still hasn’t received the email. Once again, I was stopped in my tracks.
I feel very disappointed, and a bit stupid that I’m stuck, and can’t go any further, without these two permissions. If you have any tips for me to resolve this please let me know in the comments. I’m feeling a bit desperate, as I was looking forward to putting my information into WikiTree to ensure that it stays live, long after I am gone. Unfortunately, there is nobody in my family who is showing an interest in inheriting my research.
Blogging
At the moment, I’m working on writing posts and scheduling them from now until the end of the year. I’ve never been that organised except for when participating in the April Blogging AtoZ Challenge but I feel that now is the time to do something about it. I always seem to be running up to and beyond a deadline. With four blogs, I really do need to get myself organised, to do them all justice.
Links to my other three blogs:
The Retirement Phase
Best Bookish Blog
Haverfordwest History
As I’ve been drafting posts, I’ve been updating missing sources in my family history program. This is something that I’ve been promising myself to do for a long while, so I’m happy it’s being done, and tying it in with writing blog posts is making it a streamlined process.
Billion Graves
A few years ago, I regularly uploaded photos of graves to Billion Graves when we lived in a tiny rural area. A few years and two moves later, there is now a cemetery at the end of our street. Last week I decided it was time to start photographing and uploading graves again. Each day when I take my dog for a walk, we walk through the cemetery and take a few photos, so it’s not at all time consuming.
With that in mind, during the week I came across a post from Billion Graves titled “10 Unusual Cemeteries from Around the World”. I’m sharing it here as it made me smile. As most family history researchers and genealogists do love a cemetery, I’m sure these cemeteries will make you smile too: 10 Unusual Cemeteries from Around The World
The cemetery at the end of our street is the White Hills Cemetery, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia, which also includes the historic Chinese Cemetery
While you wait for WikiTree permissions perhaps you could start with earlier generations and add further details to their records, tidy up the formatting on their entries etc.
I would like to also offer my help. I initially had a similar situation with my 2nd Great Grandmother. What is the privacy level of the profiles you are trying to access? Sometimes a person "owns" the profile, but it is completely open, meaning you can edit it any way you need to. That is the case with most profiles on WikiTree.
As for your mother, living people don't show to anyone else except their profile owner and their trusted list. Personally, I have stopped adding living people because it is unlikely that those profiles will ever be seen. If they are interested in genealogy and will come and participate - great - adding them helps the collaboration, but otherwise their profiles really don't help.
The procedure for the unresponsive manager worked for me, as I was given the profile eventually - it is a process, and everyone is a volunteer so patience is important. For now, while you wait, like also suggested go further into the past and start to develop the rest of your tree.
Please reach out directly if I can help in any way.