Did you see your new Featured Connections?

Question

Hi WikiTreers,

Some of you saw my post a few weeks ago inviting you to test our new "My Connections" feature.

The real power of this app, what makes it awesome, is that you can use it in any category and it will do up to 200 simultaneous Relationship Finder and Connection Finder searches, all with just one click. It can literally check tens of millions of relationships to find your closest relatives in any given group of people. (The complexity and efficiency of Ales's code, that makes this possible, truly amazes me.)

You can check our rotating group of ~200 recently-featured profiles at any time with the new "Featured Connections" link on your My WikiTree pull-down menu.

Project Leaders are putting together other fun categories to explore. Simply click the "My Connections" button at the top of any of these category pages to see how you're related to everyone in the category:

• Actors
• Great African-Americans
• Magna Carta Surety Barons
• Mayflower Passengers
• Olympic Gold Medalists
• Royal Mistresses
• Royalty
• Scottish Royalty
• US Presidents
• WikiTree Challenge Guest Stars

Have some fun with it, and post here if you have questions or comments. Please post as an answer. Comments at the top will be hidden after they are read once.

Onward and upward,

Chris

Answer 1

Inspiring, innovative and amazing .... c'est bon magnifique ! 

Answer 2

That is pretty cool. I had been doing this very manually but this makes it very easy to see who your famous relatives are.  great job!

Answer 3

This is brilliant! Would it be possible to create a list of the closest Wikitree members to any profile?

Comments

Oh yeah!  Who are my closest relatives doing WikiTree?!!  I like it!

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I love that idea. :-)

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Agreed!

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Brilliant idea!

Answer 4

Hi Chris, great but when I go to the two finders all I get is a blank page with a small vertical rectangle box in the top left corner.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,

James

Comments

that's weird. I just clicked them and the pages I was expecting to see opened.

what happens if you copy/paste the URL into your browser?

• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Special:Relationship
• https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Special:Connection

You can also click the "Connections" link in the dropdown menu below your WikiTree ID in the mini-menu at upper right on your profile page (which gives really cool results BTW). The page that opens has tabs across the top that include the Relationship Finder and the Connection Finder.

edit - I had included "My" in the name of the link in the dropdown menu... it's just "Connections".

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Thank you Liz, I think part of the problem could be that party lines are my idea of high tech, so your info will go a long way to getting me connected, thank you again.

James

Answer 5

lol, looked at the Guest Stars one for fun, have 13 of them among the cousins list, and 7 in the connections list.  Among the great African-Americans, I have 4 with very distant cousinship and 28 with some connection.  These last are rather surprising to me.  

Answer 6

Hi Cousin Chris, I couldn't pass up seeing if I am related to Royal Mistresses! Um.... yup! Several! I've already posted the MCBs on my home page. I'll start on US Presidents next. I think I'm related to some 34 or so of the 46.

BTW...I know this would be a major challenge and pain, but how about a PGM category? I've listed a number of the PGM ancestors on my home page, but having this as a category would be a real boon!

Thank you so much! Hugs!

Answer 7

OMAgoodness this is so much fun! Thankyouthankyouthankyou.

Mags

Comments

Definitely make you think about DNA categories right?

Answer 8

Checked out US Presidents. My closest was JFK and most remote Donald Trump. Perfect.

Answer 9

It can be an eyeopener to see who your past cousins-of-cousins-of-cousins's in-laws are!

Pass the plates of dinner meats and potatos around the table!

Mark

Answer 10

Chris, I tried the link from the email which was sent to me earlier today in the Wikitree Family Newsletter, but it wasn't working for me.  My Gateway Ancestor is Dannett Abney, and I have many Magna Carta connections and Royal connections, but it couldn't find any of them.  Do you what the problem could be?

Thank you,

Davine at DavineR@aol.com

Comments

I just checked the "Relationship to Me" link on your profile page (in the dropdown menu under your WikiTree ID) - we're 7th cousins once removed... Hi Cuz!

Anyway, then I replaced my ID with one of the surety barons' and it says you're 22nd great-grand, through Abney. So not sure why it's not working for you.

I just checked it for me & it worked ok. See what it shows you for me (the "checked it for me" clickable link) & then click the Magna Carta Surety Barons clickable text on that page... it should give you your results.

Answer 11

Marvelous, darling! Simply marvelous!! Well, maybe not so simply. ;-)

Answer 12

WikiTree Leaders

I've had fun with this category too. :) Two of the leaders are my 6th cousins. I knew about one, but the other was new to me!

Answer 13

The sad thing is that these connections are often incorrect. I looked at a couple of mine and spotted supposed ancestors who others have attached to my family that cannot possibly be correct. There should be a mechanism to allow us to point out these errors for the benefit of those who like to copy family trees as their source of documentation.

Answer 14

The "My Connections" button at the top of each category is absolutely wonderful! I've longed for something like this for ages.

I wonder, though, at the terminology "generations" in the Ancestors and Cousins section - to me, a generation is a step up or down on a direct line (my parents are one generation from me; my grandparents are two generations, etc) OR relatives the same number of steps down from a common ancestor (my 2nd cousins, 3rd cousins etc are all the same generation as me; my aunts, uncles and cousins-once-removed are one generation, being the same generation as my parents.)

The Connection Finder uses the terminology "degrees" - why wouldn't the "My Connections" use the same term? Keeping terminology the same across Wikitree would make it less confusing.

Having said that, I'm not sure what "My Connection" is actually counting. It's showing direct ancestors correctly (in my opinion - my father is 1 generation, my 2nd-great-grandmother is 4 generations), but my grand-uncle, who is 3 degrees on the Connection Finder, is showing as 4 generations on "My Connection"; and my 3rd-cousin-twice-removed is 9 degrees on the Connection Finder, and 10 generations on "My Connection". Can someone please explain to me what is actually being counted?

Comments

It counts the generations from you to the common ancestor and then adds the generations from the common ancestor down to your relative.

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So it counts the common ancestor twice?

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The connection finder is one less because it moves straight from one sibling to another and doesn't include the common ancestor.

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Ah yes, of course. Thank you Samantha.

Answer 15

Really fun!

But here is something that I think didn't work. I went to Alfred Nobel-74. With "Connection to Me" I can see he is 17 degrees from me (I'm Starbäck-1). Alfred has the category "Inventors". I press that and then "My Connections" from there. Here Nobel doesn't appear, and everyone listed is less close.

Comments

True for me as well. I'm 22 degrees from Alfred Nobel, but he doesnt turn up among my connections in the Inventor category. And he's been in that category for a long time, as far as I can see.

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It checks one page at a time and each page has a maximum of 200 profiles. There are 348 profiles in the inventors category so you need to click on "Next" to see the second page. Alfred Nobel is at the top of the second page for you - https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:MyConnections&u=10542400&c=Inventors&from=IWERKS|Ubbe

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Thank you, Samantha! I appreciate your help with these explanations.

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Thanks for the explanation! I'll be stating the obvious: This is not intuitive since when you follow that link it is because you are interested in all the inventors. No one ever has a special interest in "inventors #1–200" or "inventors #201–".

(BTW: Alfred has since lost this category, so the example I gave doesn't work for viewing this problem anymore.)

Answer 16

Yes, and I love it. Genius idea. Thank you!

Answer 17

Chris Whitten, Thank you for your app and all your hours of work.  John T

Answer 18

Can we have an option in the settings where we can default the "Connections"-tab individually to what we mainly want to check? Some focus on Relationship-finder, others may focus on "My Connections", I would focus on the Connection Finder. That would be nice.

Answer 19

I have only been on Wiki Tree about a month, but I really appreciate the Connections finder! Thanks for all the hard work to everyone involved!

Answer 20

yep.

Humphrey Bogart is my 9th cousin  2x removed.