I'm Not Very Good At This

 Well it's been another long stretch of not blogging.  I'm not very good at this am I?

I took another break from genealogy when I had a 2nd foot surgery right before Labor Day 2024.  I started dabbling again in December 2024 and as the new year rolled around (as is often the case) I had a flurry of genealogy research and activity.

I spent a lot of time on the WikiTree Cemeteris Project working on my adopted cemetery, Gardner Cemetery in Gardner, Kansas (I created this project page). 

I picked this cemetery for one reason only.  I now live in Gardner and it's quite conveniently located to me.  I drove through this cemetery many, many times over the last few years since I moved here while I was playing Pokemon Go (that's a whole other off again, on again hobby of mine!).  As a result of being there I often stopped and got out and roamed among the graveyard reading gravestones and markers.  Frequently, my youngest daughter, Dakota, would join me.  We kind of share an interest in walking cemeteries.  So, being quite familiar, easily accessible, and emotionally detached from this cemetery I chose it.

When I started the project there were around 100 profiles connected to the Gardner Cemetery category on WikiTree. I floundered with the project at first not sure quite where or how to start.  I dug in and did some research and discovered a fantastic webpage on the cemetery association's website listing transcribed burial records from their own records.

My research also led me to the FindAGrave cemetery page for Gardner Cemetery.  Probably the most complete and recent data on the cemetery on the internet at the time.  This site revealed just over 3300 burials listed in the cemetery!  "No way!" I said to myself as my eyes widened.  I didn't think I had bitten off this big of a project.  So it was clear, I was starting with roughly 100 graves on WikiTree and needed to add 3200.  This could very well end up being a lifelong project.  

Well my steps were clear:

1. Find any existing WikiTree profiles that exist and put them in the Gardner Cemetery category.
2. Add any burials from the cemetery burial search tool as new person profiles on WikiTree.
3. Double check for any listed on FindAGrave that are NOT in the Burial Search records and verify by locating actual gravesite and create new person profiles on WikiTree as appropriate.
   
4. Begin walking and taking photographs of gravestones and cemetery photos for upload to profiles and to Cemetery space page.
5. Maintain profiles and research biographies to fill in any missing information not located upon initial profile creation.

So this is the project.  And I have begun.

As of today there are now 241 profiles in Gardner Cemetery on WikiTree. I have added all of the existing profiles I could find on WikiTree.  Step 1 complete.  

On to Step 2.  I am in the beginning stage of getting a process and system down to add the profiles from the burial records search tool.  I found I can simply type the letter "A" into the Surname field and I get all the A surnames.  In 14 days time I have added only 6 new profiles that are relatively well-sourced to the cemetery category.  A bit of simple math reveals at this rate it will take me 20+ YEARS to finish this cemetery.  I ain't got that long.  

So now I am contemplating a better process or at least a more aggressive approach to entering profiles.

Genealogical Labors of Love

 Over the past few years I have become increasingly involved with a genealogy site called WikiTree.  It uses the same principles as Wikipedia and shares backbones with it as it is a Wiki.  And, like Wikipedia, it's FREE to the world!   I've spent a lot of money over the years supporting Ancestry.com with my subscriptions since 2012.  It really irked me that all my hours of labor developing my family history tree are then used to entice others to to their website which requires increasingly high fees to give others access to data I spent time linking.  It's very frustrating to me.  Genealogists are "sharers".  We research, document, unearth facts, and want to cry from the rooftops all the data we collect.  Ancestry wants that free effort to make money.  Bleh.

Over the course of the past decade I began using FamilySearch.org more and more as it was free to everyone.  But, I've come to find that inaccurate information (also prevalent on Ancestry.com) pervades the platform.  Where could I put my lifetime's work on my family history for future and/or distant relatives to find one day in their own search for their roots?

I found WikiTree during the COVID-19 Panademic in late 2020 and finally joined in 2021.  The rest is history.

WikiTree is full of ardent seekers of truth and documented proof.  The collaboration is amazing.  And it's free for everyone, forever.  After working in my spare time for a few years off and on, I decided this is where I should put my treasure trove of knowledge of my ancestors and extended family.  This past year I have been very focused on my work on WikiTree.  My goal was to ensure all of my direct ancestors going back four generations was uploaded with the very best personal biographies I could write.  On April 14, 2024 I uploaded the last of those four generations.  I have some tweaks that I need to make to some of the most recently completed uploads, but they are all there.

My final push of the last 6 ancestors was spurred by a competition that WikiTree was holding: the April 2024 Connect-a-thon.  I'd had tried to some Saturday Sourcing Sprints, some Bio-Builder work on US Governors, and thought I'd finally give "thon" a try.   What a thrill it was.  The goal is to add new person profiles that are connected to an existing person profile on the site.  That was my goal after all, right?  To add my missing 6 ancestors and connect them to me?  In the interest of making the Thons more exciting and fun there are scores kept for number of profiles created.  I came in 336th out of 663 participants.  I ended up adding 56 new ancestors to WikiTree in 3 days time.  Not bad for a novice competitor.  

The end result:

I learned a lot of tricks and tips on how to be an efficient and effective WikiTree'er.  I have learned about some new tools available and started using some Personal Category tags on the profiles I created to remind me to go back and add additional family members (spouses, children, parents).  This week I've begun using my tags to create additional ancestors, so my branch of the great world tree at WikiTree is growing.  At WikiTree we measure the number of "Connections" within 7 degrees that we each have.  This is called our CC-7 number.  It's really just an arbitrary number to help us gauge our progress and our connection to humankind throughout time.  When I started diving deep into my involvement on WikiTree in early 2024,  I was at a CC-7 of 425.  Today I am at 629!!  My goal is 1000 for the near-term.

Meanwhile, I have joined a new WikiTree Project Team:  The Cemeterist project.  In this project we photograph gravestones, transcribe the data, and create new WikiTree person profiles while trying to research as much as possible to create as "complete" a Bio as we can for that person.  Spring is here and I thought it would be a great way to get some exercise and combine it with my hobby.