Why do relatively few people from India use WikiTree?

Question

India has over 340 million Internet users

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_Internet_users

which is more users than the U.S. has.  About 2 percent of India's population can read and write English at an "acceptable" level

https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-people-in-India-speak-English

2% of India's population is about 25 million.  

There is also a wealth of genealogical information kept by Brahmin Pandists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_genealogy_registers_at_Haridwar

WikiTree also accepts Indian languages such as Gujarati https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Gandhi-5 and Hindi https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Chamedia-1

There are 21 members of the India project https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:Badges&b=india but most of them have British ancestors who lived in India.

I wonder how we can promote WikiTree to more genealogists with ancestry from India?

Comments

I've posted a message on everyone's profile who has the India tag or is a project member, drawing attention to this discussion and inviting contributions.

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It is my understanding that because I used the India tag then everyone with the India tag was already automatically notified.  Let me know if that is not the case.  Thanks and sincerely, Peter

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Not all Project members have the tag unfortunately nor do they access WikiTree on a regular basis.   This way will send a personal invite by e-mail.

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Thanks.  It is my understanding you sent it to each person who has an India badge.

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Maria Maxwell. I find this discussion very interesting

I am a bilingual Chinese / English documentary research producer. ( yes they pay me to travel to exotic places in the world. Tough life) In India English is sort of a Lingua franca. ,  like mandarin is in China , 中文. Under those labels generic labels  there is a linguistic diversity , and cultural very broad umbrellas . In India  there are 10 languages that I know of . So while there is some use in those countries, it is limited by language barriers lower down they system. Other problems arise.

There are Five  main issues with use in Asia/ pacific 

1. Languages .  China has languages 54. India more  When you get to cultures like Tamil that crosses international border other  issues arise. These countries are very complex. So the number of language fonts would be useful. It is good that i can use a few. But it would need to be broadened

2. Wiki tree formats often don't work well . Naming conventions do not work well outside the anglo - USA sphere.  For instance in most Asian cultures china Vietnam etc. , like Aboriginal ( Australia ) and Polynesian  women never changed there family names . However data doctors regularly go through Wikitree ascribing family names to  people that they have no right to use or would find it inappropriate. I have yet work out how you would put a matrilinial family up or a Polyandry?? (Hadza in Pakinstan. Naxi in China. )

4. Birth records and family records. would be a nightmare as birth dates were ascribed in some cultures to the lunar new year day ( china, vietnam, etc.  rather than the day they were born. Dating systems would need to be rethought. Often family records going back centuries would be difficult to transcribe.  In Arabic world ( Pakistan  to Morocco )  they have used historically another calendar all together. Not widely used today. but 80 years ago...

5. Language overlay so the whole  of the site appears in other languages to the 80% of the world that don't use English as their first language . Working on a bilingual web sites on a regular basis having a language  overlay with at least the top 20 languages would help. Namely Mandarin , Hindi , Arabic ,etc.. would be a huge help to non-english language users use this site.

Great discussion..

Answer 1

Until recently, genealogy was seen, in Britain and Europe, as the domain of the upper classes. It was only when databases such as the IGI appeared that the average person became interested. I think this is very similar in other countries. In Indonesia, the upper classes have studiously recorded their ancestry for centuries but the average person has little interest in their ancestry apart from knowing what clan they belong to for religious purposes. I suspect that this would be the case in India.. Those descended from royals would have easy access to their family trees, as would the upper classes/castes. These castes would need them in order to maintain pure family lines and to settle land claims. For someone who owns no land, and is low caste, what is the gain in knowing ones ancestry? However, as the new wealthy and middle class (who may come from lower castes (develop) more may develop an interest in their ancestry, even if they want to falsify it to 'prove' descent from someone loftier. (LET'S DISCOURAGE THAT! LOL)

My advice is that

1) you have to give the average Indian (as with the average Indonesian) a reason to want to trace their ancestry.

2)you need to make the means to trace more accessible. Someone needs to be doing a mass digitalisation of records and then transcribing the information.

3) Wikitree has to be ready to run with portals in major Indian languages (Hindi, Tamil, Marathi etc)

4) Wikitree needs to advertise itself on Indian genealogical sites as having these portals.

Comments

When the India Project was set up  I naively used the geographical format I'd used for other projects.   I now appreciate the family gotra (the traditional way of segregating bloodlines) needs more prominence.   Perhaps the project should evolve into a series of Gotra Studies.    As one project member put it to me today -  family title is really not a surname, but a term used to describe a goup of Brahmin from South India who migrated north.  

What do others think ?  I agree we badly need WikiTreers with lndian language skills to co-ordinate the development of the project and portals.   Let me know if you are willing to help in any way.

 

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Sure sounds great to me Susan :)

Answer 2

Hi Peter,   Your post is music to my ears !!  All ideas for developing the India Project are most, most welcome.

Comments

The Times of India has the world's largest circulation of any English language paper. It has the 4th largest circulation in India 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times_of_India

If only someone could get a story about WikiTree printed in that paper ;-)

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I think Jack would be very interested as well in the India Project, he already started a free space Indonesia project last year, so I was wondering if perhaps this could or should be a Sub Project of the India Project ? 

We were planning (as soon as I would have some time, so unfortunately for now I just could lend my leadership) to set it up as a more official project, perhaps if one of you is interested you can help with setting up and assist leading the Indonesia project as well ? 

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Thanks for the lead on the Times of India, Peter. I found an Archives page, but it only goes back to 2001. I'd really like to find TOI articles (or one specific article, anyway) from 1884.

Answer 3

Hi, Peter.  I have a little interest in India since I went to school there.  Unfortunately, I don't speak or write Hindi.  As Bea has mentioned, I also have an interest in Indonesia.  In the Colonial eras the people who went to one often went on to the other, so there's some connection.

I think the big issue that WikiTree would want to resolve before promoting to India genealogists in a big way is the issue of language and script.  I can help out with people entering profiles in Indonesian because the script is the same and it's easy to learn a few words. But if something is written in Hindi or Urdu script, it's lost to me.  

We have experimented in the nascent Indonesia project with having the biographies in both language (or sometimes three, Indonesian, English and Dutch).  We use place names in the data field as they would be to an Indonesian (i.e. Hindia Belanda rather than Dutch East Indies).  But if the names and place names are entered in the data field in Hindi or Urdu script -- as we also have, elsewhere, some in Arabic or Chinese or Japanese script -- then only those who know the script can decipher what's happening with them.  

People freshly joining WikiTree often need some guidance around the site and introduction to how things are done here.  That becomes a special challenge to someone who only works in not only an alternate language but also an alternate script.

I pose these not to be discouraging -- i consider myself a globalist and would love to see more involvement from India -- but think it's a matter of prudence to think things through some more first before putting out the welcome mat more than it is now.

Comments

Well I'm all about Global ;)  and we are working very hard on making sure Wikitree, or at least the most important subjects, is/are explained and available in different languages, google translate can be used, but it just not the same as being able to read things explained in your own language and a way that's easy to understand for everyone (KISS) .

We have a Dutch Portal and we also are working on (preparing for) a Suid Africa Portal now. 

For many members it's a relief to have a place where they can find everything explained in their own language, and more people will join WT if we have more of these Portals, sometimes people because of the language barrier just don't dare to try or join WT. Perhaps it would help and encourage people, if members who can write in Indonesian could work on translating things a bit in Indonesian ? 

And... our Greeters and Messengers (also new) have been working  very hard as well and now are working with their new Introduction program for all new WikItree members,where people step by step can learn how Wikitree works.So we all are trying to improve things for all members in our own way ;) (we almost have the Introduction program available in Dutch as well ) 

So I really think if people can learn and read things in their own language is going to make a big difference in the amount of members from other Countries who will join WT 

Answer 4

For some rather random reasons, I created -- and connected --  a few profiles for some mostly-notable Indian people, including Hari Dasgupta, Birsa Dasgupta, Sonali Senroy, and Bidipta Chakraborty. I'd love to see someone from India build their genealogy and connect them to other family members. I'd be happy to give access to those profiles that are private because they represent living people.

Answer 5

Yes, in the Connectors Project, we've identified a number of unconnected branches from India, but as far as I know, nobody's working on them.

Answer 6

India has more people than North America and Europe combined. The number of Indian expats in North America and Europe is increasing, including those with mixed families. Because of this, even without Indian genealogists the future will generate more and more interest for genealogy in India, and for that matter, in China. Unfortunately, WikiTree is not really very welcoming to this, both with respect to language support and with its Anglo-American set-up of name and location fields. Before we spread out the welcoming mat let's get serious with figuring out what would really be needed to accommodate all the different cultures and traditions we are inviting in and to what degree this would be feasible.

Answer 7

This is quite a delicate question to answer honestly, a politically correct minefield, and I don't know enough about Indians and their approach to this subject, but here goes! To anyone not from the US, WikiTree seems coverwhelmingly American, off-putting for people from very different cultures. Most interest in the India Project is, as has been pointed out, from mainly British people with British Army/East India roots, again probably off-putting for Indian nationals. It doesn't help when the project managers are non-Indian either.

I would say that Indian nationals need to be recruited as project managers if any headway is to be made into meaningfully growing the project. I suspect that most Indian genealogists who could first be attracted to the project would be multi-lingual (including English), so probably not a problem there. The most likely route to recruiting people with Indian roots would be, initially, through British Indians; hopefully this would then spread into the Indian continent, as connections are made. Quite how this can be achieved is open to debate.

Hopefully this is seen as a constructive opinion, and is of some use.

Answer 8

Following on from Susan's suggestions I found an interesting piece of information on Wikipedia.   It seems Family Search has microfilmed a lot of Hindu genealogy records but "The Genealogical Society of Utah currently restricts online access to the Hindu genealogy records to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church)"  See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_genealogy_registers_at_Haridwar

With our tracing relationship with Family Search would it be possible to gain access to these records for WikiTree ?