Happy New Year, WikiTreers!
This year is special for us. This year we turn 10. (Don't ask me for an exact birthday. It's complicated.)
If you're reading this, you are probably part of our community and have contributed to WikiTree. Some of you have put as much time, energy, and love into this project as I have.
I hope that you are proud of what we have done together. I am. I believe that we are growing something of real value here.
There are objective measures of our success. The size of our tree. The number of members. Traffic to our pages. By all these measures, WikiTree is doing well. 2017 was an especially good year for us. The number of people who view our ancestor profiles is up 50% from a year ago. It's over a million people a month.
But the true value of our tree can't be easily measured.
Our true value is in the stories of our ancestors that we record and preserve. It's in the branches of our shared tree that grow stronger and more accurate every year. It's in the families we connect.
WikiTree is unique. Although there are a couple other good, single family trees, they don't have communities like ours. How we work together is special. Our tree doesn't just get bigger every year. It gets better every year.
If that's too abstract, think about some of the profiles you have contributed to. Have you helped to preserve family history that might otherwise have been lost? Have you shared it with family members who might otherwise have not seen it? Most of you have. Many have even met relatives you might otherwise have not met.
We are writing pages in the great book of world history that wouldn't have been written without us.
And these are not just virtual pages that will disappear when our website is gone. Well, I mean, yes, they are :-) ... but the content won't disappear. I believe that the shared and open information we are growing here will be around as long as there are people who care about where they come from. In 2017 we took some extra steps to make sure of it.
So, here's to us. Here's to WikiTree and here's to you. Thank you for working with me these past 10 years.
Onward and upward into our second decade,
Chris
