Getting the most out of your GEDCOM Uploads

Question

This isn't an official statement but I hope it will be useful to anyone that is considering uploading their GEDCOM. 

1.  I strongly recommend that you spend a few weeks to a month in WikiTree figuring out how to add, edit, and merge.  Get to know what Cateogories do and also how or when you might want to use a Free Space page.  Manually add profiles for your first ancestors with data you are sure about.  Use references and sources.  Upload a picture.
2. Next, look outside your tree maybe lurk around some of the special project groups.  Check out the US Presidents or the Mayflower families. 
3. When you are ready to upload your GEDCOM limit it to the number of people you can double check within a week or so. Use a GEDCOM that is a result of your own work and is part of your tree.   Life has a way of getting away from us and if it will take more than a week to check your profiles split it up into smaller groups.  In fact I'd recommend a very small initial upload just to see what comes through. 

The most exciting aspect of WikiTree for me is suddenly connecting with another person's tree. 

One of the most frustating aspects is to find that someone has uploaded a duplicate without checking. 

WikiTree allows for a lot of creativity in your profiles.  Create a few you are proud of then share them with your family or on facebook.  If you take your time and organically grow your tree you will have a very enjoyable experience.  Once you've earned a few badges and really gotten to know how all this works you'll get a lot more benefit from uploading a GEDCOM

I hope this helps

Comments

Good advice.  Before I uploaded my GEDCOM to WikiTree I tailored it using Family Tree Maker by limiting it to 13 generations so as to include all immigrants and went over it to make sure it was as clean as possible,  Since I have a lot of Great Migration Puritans in my tree I was very disappointed that so much of my work was wiped out by lopping off all born before 1600 which removed many immigrants and left their children on unconnected tree fragments.  It seems like more work trying to reconnect all these orphans than it would have been to find and merge their parents with existing profiles.  That said, I am really enjoying the collababrative nature of WikiTree and have been able to clean up the tree segments of some orphaned profiles of families that I'm only allied with through marriage.  Most of the profile managers are responsive though a few have been totally unreponsive and are slowing things down,  I'm working through my list of Puritans, cleaning up their allied families and merging as I can .  I've found a few profiles which are so confused I don't know where to start cleaning them up but don't think I should merge into them, possibly making it worse.