19 January 2012 by Libbi.

I recently had a wonderful opportunity: Chris Whitten, the Creator of WikiTree.com (his page is http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Whitten-1) agreed to let me interview him about his genealogy web site.

WikiTree is a genealogy site where you can upload your genealogy data and compare it to data others may have on the same people. If you have a match you can merge the two entries on the same person and that way establish some connections.

I recently had a wonderful experience with this site in this way. A third cousin, the granddaguther of one of my granmother’s cousins, found me on WikiTree and we have exchanged pictures and data.

So here is my quick interview with Chris:

Q; What is a good one-sentence description of WikiTree?

Our mission statement: To grow a single, worldwide family tree that will make genealogy free and easy for everyone.

Q:  What was the reason you decided to create WikiTree? Why did we need > another genealogy interaction site?

A: I originally started the site for my own family. I couldn’t find another tool that had the balance of privacy and collaboration that I wanted (and still don’t know of another one). At that point (circa 2004) I was still working on another site (WikiAnswers) and didn’t envision this as a worldwide family tree. It was just something for organizing my own family history, privately sharing it with family, and enabling them to add information on the fly. As time went by the idea developed. In 2008 I left WikiAnswers and devoted myself to WikiTree.

Q:  What makes WikiTree different?

I still think of the “privacy-collaboration balance” as what makes it special. The idea is a little abstract, but here’s what I mean. We developed this unique system of privacy settings and “Trusted Lists” that operate on each individual person profile. This enables you to share a profile with the people you want to share with. For modern people it’s just close family members. But as you go back through the generations, you have more and more distant cousins collaborating on the same ancestors. Because the privacy controls operate on the individual profile level we can all work on the same family tree without compromising privacy.

Q: Is WikiTree good for beginning genealogists? In what way?

Yes, I think it does work for beginners. Since I first started this when I was still a very amateur family historian (OK, I still am) I set things up in the way that made sense to me. I’ve learned a lot since then and as WikiTree has grown I’ve tried to work with advanced genealogists to figure out what tools and features they need, and how they expect things to work. But it still works for the beginning genealogist too. It’s generally considered very user-friendly.

Q:  What is the best thing about the site? What is the “worst” thing (the thing you most want to improve)

A: The best thing? Maybe that it’s all free. Every bit of it. There are no premium memberships or anything like that.

The worst thing? Probably the amount of genealogical garbage that careless users have left behind for more serious users to clean up. Some people don’t respect what they get for free. As a result, we’ve had people start using WikiTree without taking the time to understand that what they do here affects others, because we’re all working on the same tree. We’ve taken a lot of significant steps to minimize this problem for the future, but good WikiTreers are still cleaning up the

Q: Can you give some pointers on the most efficient way to use  WikiTree?

Updating profiles, in whatever way you can, is a great way to get them noticed. Any edit will bring a person’s profile to the top of the surname index. That means it’s more likely to get noticed by browsers and search engines (and, hence, by your cousins).

Using FindMatches is important, if you haven’t done much of that yet. http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Special:FindMatches
We don’t run it automatically yet, so it depends on users doing a search once in a while to see if their tree overlaps with others on WikiTree. This is especially important for those who got started on WikiTree with GEDCOMs. When you add a profile manually, a background search is done to see if the person might already exist. But if a GEDCOM is creating 100 or 1,000 people at once, the background searches aren’t done at all. You have to do it with FindMatches.

Thank you Chris, for a great site and for your time!

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12 January 2012 by Libbi.

Of course, things like this happened back in my mother’s day, when you did your genealogy queries and research by sending letters and reading magazines, but still:

Looking for my grandmother’s genealogy, I came across Looking4Roots.com, which had Flora Beeman Powell’s family. I emailed the owner, who is my third cousin. Her name is Carol Ann. She answered, but that was right around the holidays and we both lost track….

So this week, Carol Ann  found ME again, this time on WikiTree. (I hope to blog about this site next week). AND she found me on Ancestry as well!

Carol Ann wrote:

I bought Family Tree Maker 2012 so I could supposedly merge the tree on my computer with the one on Ancestry.com. It turned into a huge mess making kids married to their parents, duplicating entries, etc. Thank goodness I did back up what was on my computer. I started over on the Ancestry.com tree and have a lot of living people from the one on my computer so I made it private. I don’t exactly how the program determines who to make “Living” when you put living people in your tree.

 I’m still not sure how much data is being synchronized because I get error messages every time I do it. I don’t have nearly as many photos on Ancestry as I did. I don’t believe I have any photos of your John Wesley Beeman but I do have other Beeman photos if you are interested in seeing them. And I’d love to see any you might have of the Beemans.

 A small part of the Beemans left the South and came to Texas. I never knew I had Beeman relatives in Texas other than my grandmother and her sisters Carrie & Sudie. When I got old enough to care about the family history, every time I would ask my Daddy to tell me about the family he would just say he didn’t know anyone or anything. I have no idea what the story was there but I know good and well he knew more about the family than he wanted to fool with telling me. I only have the one cousin who found the photos on the Downs/Beeman side of the family and she never had an interest in genealogy until I shared what I had with her a couple of years ago, so she’s not helpful either.

So I am sorting through what I have, and hoping to send Carol Ann some pictures of my grandmother and her sisters.

Isn’t online genealogy cool?

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6 January 2012 by Libbi.

Using genealogy, history and online resources, Elizabeth Crowe will paint a lively picture of Colonel Guy Wyman, the founder of Navarre, at 5:30 p.m. January 31, 2012, at the library. It’s a story of murder, mayhem, madness and many wives. There’s never a dull moment in the story of Wyman and his family.

Libbi Crowe, a Navarre resident, is the author of Genealogy Online, now in its 9th printing. Crowe’s father really was a rocket scientist and she has been involved with computers since the early days. Her family got involved in genealogy after discovering an old Bible with family records going back to 1812.

The program is part of the free Lore, Legends and Learning series at the Library sponsored by the Friends of the Navarre Library. The program is held on the last Tuesday of each month, presenting a variety of topics to the public. Reservations are not required..

Visit our website:  http://www.friendsofnavarrelibrary.org/ for the most current information.

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3 January 2012 by Libbi.

Played this list while at a friend’s house, and she really liked the mix:

 In a way it is a soundtrack of my life from grade school to now….so if anyone writes a novel about me and wants to listen to the music of my life, this is a good start. 

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19 December 2011 by Libbi.

Crowe Family Christmas Card

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! I have decided to do only email newsletters/holiday cards this year. Less waste of gasoline and paper!

2011 brought some pretty wonderful things. Marianne and Ryan were married in Key West in February, my brother Bill and his wife Kathie (and Springer Ria!) came to see us in June and Matthew passed his prelims for his Ph. D. in September. We went boating a lot and camped out on the lovely coastline where we live. From Destin to Pirate’s Cove in Baldwin County, we had a blast on Crowe’s Nest this year.

We hope all of you are well and happy, and will come to see us in the new year!

Below: Matthew, Libbi, Mark, Marianne in Key West!

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6 December 2011 by Libbi.

The West Florida Genealogical Society was kind enough to ask me to speak last Saturday at their regular December meeting. I had a blast!My topic was What’s New in Online Genealogy.  I talked about blogs, and Twitter and social networks like Google+ and more!
For example, I pointed out that   Twitter is where you will find people discussing news and techniques about genealogy. Several sites such as Ancestry.com have regular Twitter sessions where you can pepper professional genealogists with questions using the @ and handle, and receive directed replies.

Another topic was social networking.  Google+ has less traffic and less garbage about Fill-In-The-Blank Awareness and Appreciate Your Dog Week than Facebook. Although Google+ works much like Facebook, the way you sort the postings is called “circles” and works much better at filtering the stream of the social network. So I advised one questioner to try that, as he had found Facebook left him cold.

Another questioner asked me about finding African American genealogy in one little town in Louisiana. I showed her quickly how to search Google in my iPhone and there it was, a site about the history of the place where her grandparents had lived!
I also found some folks that had Kentucky genealogy, and had a good time swapping facts with them.

During my talk, promised the group that I would get back to blogging myself. 2011 has been such a busy year, that I have not posted much. My new year’s resolution is to fix that. So this is an early attempt to keep that promise!

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17 September 2011 by Libbi.

I’ve been invited to speak on genealogy by the Friends of the Navarre Library on the 21st. My friends on the friends’ board suggested some local genealogy and history as the topic. So  I chose the “founder” of Navarre, Guy H. Wyman. It’s been a fascinating two weeks of research!

I’ve found locally written and published books, talked to people who have lived here ‘forever’ and searched everything from the BLM GLO to FamilySearch and NPL’s online genealogy resources.

Just a few interesting tidbits:

• Wyman married first a woman from France, and second a woman from Pensacola, whose family originated in Italy.
• His father bought land from Robert Oglesby, who got the original land patent.
• His parents were murdered while Col. Wyman was serving in the Phillippines.

It’s going to be a fun talk!

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16 September 2011 by Libbi.

Thomas H. Shawker, MD, is a frequent lecturer on the subjects of DNA and family health history. He is the author of the NGS publication, Unlocking Your Genetic History: A Step-by-Step Guide to Discovering Your Family’s Medical and Genetic Heritage.

This brief conversation provides an introduction to how DNA analysis can support genealogical research as well as some basic guidelines for studying your family health history.

Log in at http://www.ngsgenealogy.org, click on the Members Only tab, and then click on NGS Videos in the sidebar menu.

Film by Kate Geis and Allen Moore.

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5 August 2011 by Libbi.

Got this note:

“Hi, Libbi. I was reading your blog over at Crowe’s Nest and wanted to see if I could help you find Reason in the census prior to 1950. In looking for clues, I discovered that 1) This property is in Cahaba, Dallas Co., Alabama (not Cahaba Co.; no such animal) and 2) This purchase took place on 21 Oct 1834. The 1820 reference is to the act of Congress authorizing the sale.”

And of course he is correct. Also, I found that someone named Gib(p)son bought land nearby. Now by 21 Oct 1834, Reason was married to Anna Gibson, so this is another clue.

Here is the  Land patent image.

I have sent a lookup request to someone with some South Carolina circa 1800 information, and I am hoping for the best!

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22 July 2011 by Libbi.

Just in time to help, I received a review copy of Quicksheet: Genealogical Problem Analysis- A Strategic Plan- Evidence! Style by Elizabeth Shown Mills.

So I am going to start pursuing Reason Powell using her 10-step solution to genealogical problems. The QuickSheet is the outgrowth of a lifetime of professional experience, the 10 steps provide a systematic basis for problem solving unique to genealogy.  In addition to the 10 steps, this  QuickSheet contains a “Life Stages Worksheet”–a form to be filled in covering most life events from birth to death through six specific stages of life. This single-page form allows for a systematic listing of records  to review at a glance. You can copy this form and write on that copy, or use grease pencil and write on the laminated sheet itself, rubbing it clean as you find better data. The problem analysis QuickSheet is a laminated two-sided sheet designed, like its companions, for heavy use, in libraries, at your desk, and so on.

Here’s hoping!

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