I used to think that genealogy was finding out the names of your parents, their parents, and their parents, as far back as possible and learning about their lives – mainly where and how they lived, and what was important to them, in an effort to identify where pieces of their values were passed down to become incorporated into your own values. I suppose that I still think that, however my idea of how this is accomplished has changed drastically in the past year. I thought that the process consisted of digging up and compiling family gossip about relatives, followed by research to discover more juicy tidbits about ancestors beyond those known by living relatives. My foray into genealogy was driven by a question from an adult grandson asking about his family members. I had always envied people who could trace their heritage back many generations, but believed that it was not possible for me to ever know anything about more than my parents, both grandmothers, and 1 great-grandmother.
I found WikiTree through a CNN article about AJ and his planned Global Family Reunion and, despite my total ignorance of genealogy principles, research methods, and documentation standards, I found a community here that actually welcomed me, even with all my absurd questions and total bumbling. There are probably more than one hundred individual members to whom I owe gratitude for the incredible education they have so generously provided me and there are at least another hundred who have offered encouragement and incentive by sharing the divergent areas in which they have accomplished an immense body of work.
As the calendar cycled through the months and days, so has my maturation process. The passion for finding obscure tidbits of incontrovertible fact about someone who lived way before my time and isn’t even part of my family (yet, that is) no longer seems strange now that I have experienced it personally. I now share the addiction to participating in the WikiTree community that is deeply embedded in so many others here. I have carved my own niche area where I have sufficient expertise to be able to pay forward a small modicum of my indebtedness for all the knowledge that others have so generously provided to me (as a retired technical professional, I can answer questions related to code, as well as computers, software, and the workings of the internet). I may even be worthy of the title “genealogist” now, although still a long way from being a good one.
I progressed from a state of absolute awe to becoming a part of the system. I was invited to join a project when I was clueless about what a project is, then became a coordinator of a brand new project, when I still wasn’t too sure what a project is, and became a ranger when the group was opened to non-leaders. During this metamorphosis, I accumulated an obscene number of G2G points which has made many people think I know stuff, when all it really means is that I have a lot of questions and am not shy about asking them.
Now, at the close of the calendar cycle, I have become truly mature, with the recognition that WikiTree, like everything else, is not perfect. I was recently told that my attitude is negative, which is an absolutely incorrect perception on the part of the person who said it. After reflection, however, I recognize that it was a self-fulfilling prophecy because, that comment burst the bubble of my euphoria regarding everything about WikiTree and I now feel that WikiTree is only about 98% perfect. My attitude is no longer that of a giddy adolescent and, although saddened by my loss of innocence, as a full-fledged adult I can accept that close to perfect ain’t too shabby. What I now see as a flaw that will impact the extent of my participation will not expand to impact the nature or quality of my work on profiles or interactions with other members.
I treasure you all and thank you so much for this great trip!
