Idea for Direct Descendents

Question

I have an idea. I know WikiTree is one tree for all, but obviously some of us are direct descendents of others. People do sneak things in that are personal - like a 3g ater a name or a note. So why not create the opportunity to be upfront about wanting your direct ancestors known.  What about a section called "Direct Descendents,"  You just put your profile ID in. That way it also facilitates people who want to connect to relatives on Wikitree. I've been contacted a few times because people found me as a PM but I have no way to find them.

Comments

I think this is an interesting idea Susan - I would definitely use something like this!

Answer 1

I put this on my great granddad's brother's profile (is that great uncle? or 2nd great uncle?) https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Raper-282

If you scroll to the bottom (the profile is a work in progress) there is contributors, and I put our relationship to George

That's only because he's a fairly close relation, and when that profile was started we were trying to figure out how we were related.

Comments

That looks great. I'll adopt that. Thanks.

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 - Like the thought ,A. C. Raper  , - I did this with mine - - cheers ja.

My direct Patriarch: beginning: Philip is the ninth great grandfather of John. ^[1]
My direct beginning: Lawrence is the 11th great grandfather of John. ^[2]

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I've also put the last time I updated the profile on some of them, like this profile https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Becket-64 , they could easily be combined.

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Wouldn't it be neat to have a template for showing the relationship between two persons with wiki-tree IDs?

The Relationship finder is available in the dropdown menu for every profile, labelled Relationship to me - which is also what it gives as default. I might want to use the URL as a link in the bio of Jacobsdotter-225 with the lead text "Elisabeth is the eighth great grandmother of Eva", to indicate the relationship without me-language (similarly as you guys have done, but I haven't yet with my example ID).

A template where you just enter the two IDs as parameters would be neater than copy-pasting the URL. It would also allow you to indicate any type of blood relationship that might be worth enhancing.

You can already use the relationship finder to explore blood relations between two persons that aren't yourself, but in the Finder it involves changing the ID in one of the boxes or both - and when you do that, the IDs in the URL don't change, so if you want to link the Finder result in a profile, you have to make sure that the two IDs you want ate copy-pasted into the right places in the URL.

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- Yes to the fun - - I was more interested in the "direct" link - put it at the top of my Profile, for the curious lookers with  the <ref> in the footer - -

Have a look at profile for the coding - - - cheers - john.a

Answer 2

Don't we already have such a tool?  You can go to any profile and click on the Family Tree & Tools tab, and under that you can make your way to a Descendants List.  Is that a different thing from what you have in mind?

Comments

Well I just checked that out, and I was wrong. (Or maybe) I checked checked my great great grandmother and ,all living relatives were listed. But that might be because I am pretty sure I am the PM for all of them.  I would have thought that was against WikiTree rules. But it does entail an extra step. And it gives you no idea who might have joined wikitree recently or relatives who are not direct.

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I would think it doesn't matter who the profile manager is, but the descendant would have to have a profile in WikiTree that is connected to ggGrandmother.  You couldn't expect to find relatives who aren't in the data base.

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I love the Descendant list, but it gives only five generations at a time. If you want to delve down from some a wayback ancestor with well explored descendants it can be hard to find your way.

Answer 3

Am I wrong ,  but isn't our tree our direct ancestors.  Or do you want others to know your relationships to those profiles you manage.  I sometimes have an interest in the relationship of managers to profiles because it  seems if someone is related directly they maintain the profile with more dedication.

Comments

No, I'm thinking of a scenario like this... my 1st cousin Karan who I know by name only joins WikiTree.  She starts to put her info in and discovers I have already put in her parents, her grand parents,her great grandparents. She and I share grandparents and grandparents, but she has no clue who I am. In this case I am the PM and we share the same last name (her maiden, my only) so it's relatively easy to figure it out, but what if instead I was Mary Smith? She ould have no clue that as a PL I was also related and we might have sources to share.  If there was a section at the bottomwhere I identified myself as a direct descendent, she would at lest have a clue that we are in fact related.  I often wonder how many avid genealogist I am related to on WikiTree, but have no idea they exist.

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There is no tool that identifies all living related direct descendants.  In other words, there is no tool that identifies all of our WikiTree cousins on one page.  

Dennis gives the tool (the relationship finder) to find the common ancestor of a given pair of descendants.  So you can use the relationship finder on anyone to see if a relationship exists, subject to completion of the shared part of the tree.  

Many of us put our WikiTree cousin relationships on our profile.

Here is my relationships to many other WikiTreer's whose relationships I have documented.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Michael%27s_Wikitree_Cousins

Try suggesting this as an improvement to WikiTree.  You may be surprised to learn you are related to everyone here, however, because the one world tree has not yet been completed, you are only finding those cousins who have completed their shared part of the tree.

You and I for example are 10th cousins, once removed as direct descendants of Samuel Smith.  And we share direct descendancy with 261 common ancestors.

https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:Relationship&action=calculate&person1_name=Fitzmaurice-131&person2_name=Stills-18

If WikiTree created a tool to find all our cousins currently using WikiTree, I suspect it would be huge.  But it could be fun!

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A tool as you describe would be huge. And it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. So I just became the PM of about a dozen or more profiles, because I was making improvements on them - they were basically gedcom imports. Among them are my 8th and 7th great grandparents. The PM of them is unrelated, so she asked me if I wanted them - I said sure. What I propose would be a section below that says ===Direct Descendent===  People could get in touch with me if they were also a direct descendent or in this case really wanted to unload some profiles. It doesn't actually need any coding changes. Just a style change which people could choose to be a part of or not.

Answer 4

Is the intent here to have fellow researchers find each other? Maybe the actual linkage to particular ancestors is not as important as having a way to form cousin groups of genealogists. There are the surname tags that people list, but that is not useful when you have a common name. Tags in general gets people together with common interests, but that isn't the same as a cousin group that would be working on a particular tree. I know there is or was someone there when I run across parts of the tree that are already there, but I don't know if it was loaded by someone actually related or active. It would be interesting to have something like a tag, but more specific to a tree.

Comments

- Well there is the "changes" button, in the header - which is the "audit" trail for the profile, and the person who is 'active ' - - so right click on them to reveal their profile  - - cheers

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Yes, that is a good idea. I am about to remove my tag for Green because I get a huge feed each week and I never find a useful clue, but I'd love to find someo. one who shares an interest in my Green branch. Too many Greens to be useful.